Perspective: Russia in the Middle East

The Middle East  is in a shambles which  can be traced to the actions of President Obama and his first Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton.  In 2011 these two were involved in the removal of heads of states of Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Then they pulled all our troops out of Iraq, adding that country to the list of unstable counties. This paved the way for ISIS, Radical Islamic Jihadists, to move into Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq and then to form a Caliphate from the land they captured. Now, like a metastasized cancer and from this Caliphate, radical Islamic terrorism is now expanding into the Western world and even Jakarta, Indonesia.

While the Administration has dallied about what our policy should be in the Middle East, Russia has moved into the vacuum. Fortunately, because of fracking we don’t need oil from the Middle East as we historically did. Therefore, one option would be to just walk away. And while we would like to do nothing, the aforementioned metastasized cancer in the Caliphate forces the US to do something. The question is what?

However, something we should not do is to try to kick Russia out of the Middle East. Russia and the United States  have a common enemy in Radical Islamic Terrorism, and we need to find a sensible way to eradiate it and its Caliphate. The sooner we get on with that objective the sooner the rest of the world will be safe from ISIS and other Radical Islamic Terrorists.

This all becomes rather academic because the sad thing is that no presidential candidate will be in office before January 20, 2017. That is over a year away, but that is a lifetime as far as the Middle East problem is concerned. So, it matters little what the candidates tell us today what they would do. The problem will be significantly worse because President Obama, as Commander in Chief, will do nothing of consequence to destroy ISIS or help our allies in the Middle East.

 

So, as Betty Davis said in the 1950 movie “All about Eve”, “ Fasten your seat belts, it going to be a bumpy ride!”