Go ahead, make my…
Observing Diplomacy is hard. Trump orders a strike on a Syrian airfield and sends a carrier task force to the Korean Peninsula while hosting a summit with the Chi-Com president at Mar-a-Lago. The result? China refuses to accept 12 North Korean ships laden with coal and buys more coal from the United States.
We also find out that the Russians knew in advance that Assad was going to gas his own people, a public relations nightmare for the Ruskies. I’m no observing neocon, but I know what stops a bully in his tracks – a hard punch right in the nose. You don’t have to kill the bully to change his behavior. You just need to get his attention.
The observing Chi-Coms and the Russkies are all at attention now. It’s not that there’s a new sheriff in town. It’s that there’s FINALLY a sheriff in town.
It bears repeating by the way, that China, though in possession of nukes ever since their Commie Soviet buddies shared the technology with them in the 1960s, never gave North Korea any nuclear capabilities.
This observing observer declares that it is entirely because of BILL CLINTON that North Korea has a nuclear weapons program today. I swear, I sometimes feel like I’m pounding the drum slowly to let everyone know just how North Korea got their nukes. The media NEVER mentions the involvement of the Clintons. EVER. Even though the evidence is widely available. Just another chip off the old Clinton Corruption network.
J. Robert Smith from today’s American Thinker:
Last Friday, President Trump unleashed 59 Tomahawks on a Bashar al-Assad military air base. But has he unleashed the dogs of war, too?
The president justified the attack on Assad gassing innocents. Yet the president’s action served more than one purpose. It had strategic intent. It was a reassertion of America power after an eight-year drought under the feeble Barack Obama. U.S. missiles flying made impacts, of a sort, not just in Syria but across the globe. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and China’s Xi Jinping took notice. Jinping did so over crème brulee at Mar-a-Lago on Friday evening.
Putting America’s enemies — or potential enemies — on notice that U.S. military might can be exercised as required has advantages in statecraft. But the president’s course following the attack must be abundantly cautious and well planned.
Vladimir Putin took note. The attack angered him, Russia being heavily invested in the Assad regime. Iran’s mullahs — Putin’s allies — who have designs on the Middle East, noticed, too. Their stake in Syria is part of an ages-old sectarian dispute between Shi’is and Sunnis for dominance in Islam.
RIP Gentlemen … RIP.
Observing events from a distance, if memory serves me, it seems like I remember Libya having a strong man in control of that country. He was seen as brutish by some but Libya was largely peaceful and the majority of its people lived in peace. What? Oh yeah – The observing observer reminds that Obama didn’t like him. Thanks to Obama and Hillary helping get rid of the brutish dictator, we haven’t heard a peep from Libya since. Peace, love and free elections are the rule of the day in Libya – all hail the all wise Obama.[sarc]
If Trump really did decide to send missiles whizzing to Syria as a warning to the Chinese to take out their North Korean stooge (or we will), then we finally have someone in the White House who understands the world and who is no fool.
Trump is the first observable President since Ronald Reagan who makes the Chinese uneasy in regards to their puppeteering of North Korea. And when Reagan was President, the Norks didn’t have nukes because Bill Clinton had not yet given them the technology, which of course he did in the 1990s under the false pretense of “providing them with clear renewable energy for humanitarian purposes”. Yeah, right.
More from J. Robert Smith:
Remember, though, thanks to “regime change” policy, President Obama destabilized Syria and Libya. Obama unsuccessfully backed regime change in Egypt. The Middle East was upended in no small part through the misbegotten belief that overthrowing bad players, cozying up to fundamentalists, and democratization would be good for U.S. security. George W. Bush laid the groundwork for this policy with the Iraq War. However well intended, the results have been disastrous. The region has roiled. Vacuums have permitted the rise of ISIS.
Can the U.S. achieve its aims of defeating ISIS without direct confrontations with Russia in Syria? Can it succeed through cooperation with regional allies, that’s Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Israel? Can it do so by proxy, providing support to the Kurds and friendlies in Syria? Can the goal of defeating ISIS be achieved, in part, via covert and Special Forces operations? Do U.S. leaders have the discipline and patience to win indirectly and over a longer haul?
Assad is a bad hombre, no doubt. Moral revulsion and condemnation of this man is as it should be. But men like Assad have walked the planet since humans went upright. What threat does Assad pose to the U.S. or its vital interests? Is the U.S. ready to clash with Russia to remove him from power, as is now being weighed by the administration? Is moral outrage sufficient grounds for war?
We needn’t blame Trump for Obama’s failure as leader of the free world. Don’t forget, as I mentioned yesterday, that it was Obama who talked about red lines in Syria, and then did absolutely nothing about it, except lie again and avow that it was “ah, ah, ah, I didn’t draw the red line – the world did”. And the observable boy wonder-blunder did nothing.
Strategists more than I am are not so sure an Assad-less Syria is of major strategic interest to the U.S., but it is important that the Russians be checked in Syria. Our allies in the region need to know that the U.S. will not allow Russian hegemony in the Middle East.
Caliphate Emperor kow-tows to his leader…
Putin got as far as he did because Obama sat on his finely manicured hands and did nothing. Putin, like Assad, is a bully. But he’s very cold and calculating. Russia cannot win a war against the U.S. alone, much less against the U.S. and NATO. Putin knows this. Now he knows that he can no longer interfere in Middle Eastern affairs with impunity. Putin will blink and Russian influence in the Middle East will be much diminished as a result of Trump following through on Obama’s “red line” threat.
In summary, the firing of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield was nothing more than a shot across the bow, a warning to all America’s enemies that we can and will project military might anywhere in the world, within 48 hours.
As I mentioned in my opener, observable Diplomacy of this nature is risky business to be sure. Especially when dealing with insane Iranians and North Koreans. But Obama’s “smart diplomacy” wasn’t so smart either and resulted in a Middle East in absolute chaos.
Trump however, has put our enemies on notice. Are they really insane enough to retaliate? Time will tell. But if they do, they will be obliterated. The Chi-Coms and Putin won’t let it come to that. They’re the rational players in this global game of chicken, and they know their days of playing in America’s sand box are over.
The craziness will be reigned in and relations with Russia and China will be much more fruitful from this point on.
For full J. Robert Smith article, simply click on the Logo…
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