Actually, they’re already there:
Russia has sent some of its most modern battle tanks to a new air base in Syria in what American officials said Monday was part of an escalating buildup that could give Moscow its most significant military foothold in the Middle East in decades.
Pentagon officials said that the Russian weapons and equipment that had arrived suggested that the Kremlin’s plan is to turn the airfield south of Latakia in western Syria into a major hub that could be used to bring in military supplies for the government of President Bashar al-Assad. It might also serve as a staging area for airstrikes in support of Syrian government forces.
“We have seen movement of people and things that would suggest the air base south of Latakia could be used as a forward air operating base,” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.
After two terms of recklessly feckless foreign policy, it won’t be long before even we’re grateful that Vladimir Putin has the balls to take on ISIS.
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