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Anyway, al-Arabiya is a Saudi run news channel so we must take this piece of news with a pinch of salt.
It seems to be encouraging Russian adventurism in the Greater Middle East, as if Russia is in a new Cold War competing with NATO and the USA.
Russia is merely defending what is hers, and not projecting new power far and beyond from her territory.
1. Syria has been Russia's ally since 1958, and Russia has strategic forward military bases there. Syria is not that far from Southern Russian territory. Its not that bad an idea from the Russian perspective to destroy ISIS in Syria before it reaches Russia.....where the country has experienced trouble in the 1990's until now with USA/NATO backed Islamist's from Chechnya and other parts. Russia has killed 30,000 ISIS fighters, but the job isn't finished...quite far from it.
Russia should finish the job quickly in Syria, whilst Obama is on the way out....and will be replaced by another from January 20th 2017.
2. Ukraine...is even closer to Russia, and in fact most of Ukraine's border (80%??)...or 2,300 km is with Russia. 50% of Ukrainians consider themselves as Russian, and racially 90% of the Ukrainians are Slavs who have never existed in their own state, but as borderland/buffer zone territory between the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Ottoman empire and the Polish state...and before that under Mongol occupation. It is the Jewish Bolsheviks who hated Russians with a vengeance (being the dominant ethnic group in Imperial Russia....like the Armenians in the Ottoman empire)...who ARTIFICIALLY CREATED the Ukraine as an entity, like Israel, and sliced off Russian speaking parts in the South to this new entity in 1921. It contains 46 million people, some of the most beautiful women in the world, lots of resources and skills.
The Ukraine thus requires special attention by the Kremlin, as the failed state eventually collapses......how Russia will manage this post catastrophe state..... militarily, economically, socially and psychologically....how it eventually integrates into Russia physically. Whilst avoiding a major confrontation with USA/NATO over it. This effort will require resources, and the bolstering of the Russian conventional military around it for several years...until it is eventually invaded, which is inevitable.
Just for the sake of the rescue of its beautiful women, it must be invaded eventually. I would even volunteer for such an army...with the auxiliary forces at the rear end of course. The Russian Foreign Legion... over weight 50 year olds accepted.....no questions asked about the past.
3. Afghanistan.....is a sensitive subject for Russians...OK. ..Ivan OK. But it does not mean you don't think about the country, and its strategic importance in the USA/NATO war on the rest of the world. (i) The Pentagon has airlifted several thousand ISIS fighters from Turkey into Afghanistan, possibly with Pakistani help. In the future they could project themselves into Central Asia and BEYOND. Russia must have a strategy to contain them. What will the strategy be? What resources will be thrown against it? (ii) Afghanistan grows Opium under the shadow of the USA/NATO which then goes into Central Asia....and then into Russia..30,000 Russians die a year from Afghan heroin? Or is it 100,000 a year? or is it 1,000,000 a year.....the Kremlin was/is bizarrely eerily silent about this huge national threat. Which members of the Russian government profit from Afghan heroin smuggling?
These 3 theaters are more important than Libya for Russia, and require greater attention than Libya.
Libya is a poor developing country with 6 million people. It has been raped and pillaged by the USA/NATO. It is now filled with ISIS and 'al-CIA-duh' fractions. Through failed state Libya millions of African refugees mass to reach Europe. The bastardized logic of the USA/NATO will mean that it will remain a failed state...........but its not Russia's job to try and rectify this terrible mess, or all the woes of the world.
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Having Saved Syria, Putin Now Looking to Do the Same to Libya
Somebody's gotta do it.
Originally appeared at Al Arabiya
.
After
imposing Moscow’s will on the situation in Syria, Putin is moving on to
Libya. And this new proxy conflict he is waging with the West has many
of the same hallmarks of the last one: the West backs a pitiful attempt
at a ‘democratic’
government with unfortunate Islamist leanings, Putin backs an
authoritarian, militaristic autocrat, and ISIS sits squarely in the
middle, a target of everyone’s rhetoric but too rarely of their weapons.
.
And once again, the West is being outmaneuvered. The Western-backed government of National Accord ruling from Tripoli is anything but democratic, and is barely held together with the ‘protection’ of Islamist ‘Libya Dawn’, a coalition which includes former Al-Qaeda jihadists, amongst other interesting characters. And the ‘protection’ also comes at the cost of Dawn steadily usurping the institutions of this government recognized by the West and the UN. A very thin veil of civility is masking a very chaotic and merciless struggle for power between groups that have very little in common and very little shared notion of what Libya should look like in the future.
Meanwhile, in the eastern city of Tobruk, the elected
parliament of Libya, the House of Representatives, increasingly
alienated from the government by the intrusion of Dawn into the
political process in Tripoli, is being attracted into the sphere of
influence of the rebel General Haftar who controls the East of the
country, most of the oil fields, and who is backed by Russia.
.
Now the Russians have just reportedly helped the East to print 4bn dinars, backed by that oil, and to consolidate a rival central bank to the one in Tripoli. In effect, Putin is helping Haftar build parallel state institutions to those in the West of the country. And, with their superior wealth and military power, the East can expect that in the medium-to-long term they will steadily usurp the legitimate institutions of the state, and eventually take over the whole of Libya.
.(Hafter was a CIA asset.......so how is this possible? On the other hand so were Nasser, Saddam and Qaddafi but they developed good relations with the Soviet Union)
.
And once again, the West is being outmaneuvered. The Western-backed government of National Accord ruling from Tripoli is anything but democratic, and is barely held together with the ‘protection’ of Islamist ‘Libya Dawn’, a coalition which includes former Al-Qaeda jihadists, amongst other interesting characters. And the ‘protection’ also comes at the cost of Dawn steadily usurping the institutions of this government recognized by the West and the UN. A very thin veil of civility is masking a very chaotic and merciless struggle for power between groups that have very little in common and very little shared notion of what Libya should look like in the future.
.
Now the Russians have just reportedly helped the East to print 4bn dinars, backed by that oil, and to consolidate a rival central bank to the one in Tripoli. In effect, Putin is helping Haftar build parallel state institutions to those in the West of the country. And, with their superior wealth and military power, the East can expect that in the medium-to-long term they will steadily usurp the legitimate institutions of the state, and eventually take over the whole of Libya.
.(Hafter was a CIA asset.......so how is this possible? On the other hand so were Nasser, Saddam and Qaddafi but they developed good relations with the Soviet Union)
