Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
Turkey’s decision to shoot down a Russian warplane was a provocative and portentous act.
That Sukhoi Su-24, which the Turks say intruded into their air space, crashed and burned — in Syria. One of the Russian pilots was executed while parachuting to safety. A Russian rescue helicopter was destroyed by rebels using a U.S. TOW missile. A Russian marine was killed.
“A stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists,” said Vladimir Putin of the first downing of a Russian warplane by a NATO nation in half a century. Putin has a point, as the Russians are bombing rebels in northwest Syria, some of which are linked to al-Qaida.
As it is impossible to believe Turkish F-16 pilots would fire missiles at a Russian plane without authorization from President Tayyip Recep Erdogan, we must ask: Why did the Turkish autocrat do it?
Why is he risking a clash with Russia?
Answer: Erdogan is probably less outraged by intrusions into his air space than by Putin’s success in securing the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, whom Erdogan detests, and by relentless Russian air strikes on Turkmen rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.
Imperiled strategic goals and ethnicity may explain Erdogan. But what does the Turkish president see down at the end of this road?
And what about us? Was the U.S. government aware Turkey might attack Russian planes? Did we give Erdogan a green light to shoot them down?
These are not insignificant questions.
For Turkey is a NATO ally. And if Russia strikes back, there is a possibility Ankara will invoke Article V of NATO and demand that we come in on their side in any fight with Russia.
And Putin was not at all cowed. Twenty-four hours after that plane went down, his planes, ships and artillery were firing on those same Turkmen rebels and their jihadist allies.
Politically, the Turkish attack on the Sukhoi Su-24 has probably aborted plans to have Russia join France and the U.S. in targeting ISIS, a diplomatic reversal of the first order.
Indeed, it now seems clear that in Syria’s civil war, Turkey is on the rebel-jihadist side, with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah on the side of the Syrian regime.
But whose side are we on?
As for what strategy and solution President Obama offers, and how exactly he plans to achieve it, it remains an enigma.
Nor is this the end of the alarming news.
According to The Times of Israel, Damascus reports that, on Monday, Israel launched four strikes, killing five Syrian soldiers and eight Hezbollah fighters, and wounding others.
Should Assad or Hezbollah retaliate, this could bring Israel more openly into the Syrian civil war.
And if Israel is attacked, the pressure on Washington to join her in attacking the Syrian regime and Hezbollah would become intense.
Yet, should we accede to that pressure, it could bring us into direct conflict with Russia, which is now the fighting ally of the Assad regime.
Something U.S. presidents conscientiously avoided through 45 years of Cold War — a military clash with Moscow — could become a real possibility. Does the White House see what is unfolding here?
Elsewhere, yet another Russia-NATO clash may be brewing.
In southern Ukraine, pylons supporting the power lines that deliver electricity to Crimea have been sabotaged, blown up, reportedly by nationalists, shutting off much of the electric power to the peninsula.
Repair crews have been prevented from fixing the pylons by Crimean Tatars, angry at the treatment of their kinfolk in Crimea.
In solidarity with the Tatars, Kiev has declared that trucks carrying goods to Crimea will not be allowed to cross the border.
A state of emergency has been declared in Crimea.
Russia is retaliating, saying it will not buy produce from Ukraine, and may start cutting off gas and coal as winter begins to set in.
Ukraine is as dependent upon Russia for fossil fuels as Crimea is upon Ukraine for electricity. Crimea receives 85 percent of its water and 80 percent of its electricity from Ukraine.
Moreover, Moscow’s hopes for a lifting of U.S. and EU sanctions, imposed after the annexation of Crimea, appear to be fading.
Are these events coordinated? Has the U.S. government given a go-ahead to Erdogan to shoot down Russian planes? Has Obama authorized a Ukrainian economic quarantine of Crimea?
For Vladimir Putin is not without options. The Russian Army and pro-Russian rebels in southeast Ukraine could occupy Mariupol on the Black Sea and establish a land bridge to Crimea in two weeks.
In Syria, the Russians, with 4,000 troops, could escalate far more rapidly than either us or our French allies.
As of today, Putin supports U.S.-French attacks on ISIS. But if we follow the Turks and begin aiding the rebels who are attacking the Syrian army, we could find ourselves eyeball to eyeball in a confrontation with Russia, where our NATO allies will be nowhere to be found.
Has anyone thought this through?
Has anyone thought this through?
Yes they have, but when you become enthralled with power and see how most all other countries bow down to your demands, our leaders push more heavily – they cannot accept geopolitical defeat or even recognize that they are the problem and wrong in their actions.
Putin Accuses Obama Of Leaking Flight Details To Turkey After Russia Releases Video Of S-400 SAM Deployment In Syria
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/26/2015 20:25 -0500
As reported two days ago, one of the first decisions a very angry Russia took in the aftermath of the shooting down of its Su-24 by a Turkish F-16 was to dispatch a Moskva guided-missile cruiser off the coast of Syria to provide air cover for its jets operating near Latakia, as well as send an unknown number of ultramodern S-400 (or SA-21 Growler in NATO designation) SAM batteries to Latakia to make sure that the tragic incident from Tuesday never repeats itself by sending Turkey a very clear message that the next time a Turkish warplane engages a Russian jet, Russia will immediate retaliate using ground forces.
Earlier today, Russia made a very explicit demonstration of the deployment of at least two S-400 batteries at Syria’s Khmeimim airbase, with the Russian Ministry of Defense promptly publicizing the arrival with the following clip.
With a range of 250 miles, the S-400 could easily strike Turkish targets, and as the map below shows, Russia could even take down targets over northern Israel. As cited by the Independent, Nick de Larrinaga, Europe editor of the defense magazine IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly, said it would be “a significant increase” in the reach of Russian air-defense capacities. “The message that the Russians are trying to send is that they’re capable of defending themselves in Syria, should the situation escalate.”
Needless to say, the US was not enthused and earlier today the US embassy in Moscow said that the “Russian deployment of the S-400 air-defense system to Syria won’t aid the fight against the Islamic State, with the US diplomat adding that the US is hopeful Russia won’t use the system to target planes flown by international coalition since Islamic State doesn’t have air force.” Clearly a warning to Putin not to dare use the rockets against Turkish (or other coalition) jets.
So what is Putin’s intention by escalating the military deployment of Russian weapons in Syria? Conveniently he explained his thinking just a few hours ago during his press conference with Francois Hollande. In answering a question by a reporter from French Le Monde, Putin said the following:
“The S-400 is an air defense system. The reason we didn’t have the system in Syria is because we thought our planes were flying at high enough altitudes where a terrorist could not reach them; they don’t have weapons capable of downing our planes at the altitude of over 3 or 4 thousand meters. And We could never think that we could be stabbed in the back by a country we regarded as our ally. Our planes operated at altitudes of 5-6,000 meters and were completely unprotected against potential attacks from fighter jets – we could never imagine that that could be possible otherwise we would deploy such systems in the area protecting our bombers against possible attacks.”
…
“We never did it because we regarded Turkey as our friend, we never expected an attack from that side. This is why we regard this attack as that of a traitor. But now we that this is possible, and we have to protect our planes. This is why we deployed a modern system, the S-400, it has a pretty long range and it’s one of the most effective systems of this kind in the world. We will not stop there: if we have to we will also deploy our fighter jets in the area.”
Bottom line: another direct engagement by a Turkish fighter will be its last, and in fact now that Russia is prepared we would not be at all surprised to see Russia cross into Turkish airspace on purpose just to provoke Erdogan to repeat the events from last week, only this time with the Russian ready and prepared to retaliate to any engagement. In fact, the odds of Russia doing just that in the next few days are especially high.
But while the reason behind the S-400 deployment was largely known to most, where Putin’s press conference took an unexpected detour was what he said just around 20:30 in, when in not so many words, Putin effectively accused the US of leaking the coordinates of the Russian plane to Turkey, which was merely a hitman acting with the blessing of the Pentagon.
This is what Putin said:
“We told our US partners in advance where, when at what altitudes our pilots were going to operate. The US-led coalition, which includes Turkey, was aware of the time and place where our planes would operate. And this is exactly where and when we were attacked. Why did we share this information with the Americans? Either they don’t control their allies, or they just pass this information left and right without realizing what the consequences of such actions might be. We will have to have a serious talk with our US partners.
In other words, just like in the tragic bombing of the Kunduz hospital by US forces (which has now been attributed to human error), so this time the target was a Russian plane which the US knew about well in advance, was targeted however not by the US itself, but by a NATO and US-alliance member, Turkey.
And while the deployment of the Russian SAM missiles was already known, the real message from today’s presser, the one that will be the topic of a private and “serious talk with Russia’s US partners”, is that Putin indirectly blames Obama for what happened on Tuesday realizing that Erdogan was merely the “executor”, one who is simply motivated to protect his (and his son’s) Islamic State oil routes.
Is Turkey really on our side?
IMHO, Instead of bombing Yugoslavian Christians for 78 days, NATO should have directed those bombs at Islam infested Constantinople instead . Remember the Armenians! Fuck Turkey !
Islam is a cancer …
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Putin needs to do something seriously decisive, otherwise he won’t be taken seriously and the situation will continue to escalate on both sides till there is no choice other than war with a lot more firepower online than now.
At some point we are liable to see what would otherwise be a minor incident trigger a major military response that is way out of proportion to the incident itself (which otherwise could have been dealt with diplomatically).
Europe would be so much better off making peace with Russia as equal partners. There could be perceived risks with that tact, but being allied with neo-con controlled Washington carries very likely greater risks. If DC would back off from the quest to dominate the world, things would be different.
Remember what we’re dealing with here….neocons. They’re the same bunch that brought us 9/11 as a pretext to invade 7 ME countries, and they’re STILL in charge (Cheney+”Site R”). What we’re seeing today in Syria is chapter 15 of their grand plan.
How do you think it’s worked thus far?
The problem with all this is Paris. After the Paris attacks, the French were suddenly allied with the Russians, who had been bombing the shit out of ISIS for two months. And now, the French see just how good an ‘ally’ Turkey really is. There is only one country who has been buying ISIS oil, Turkey. Lebanon is too Shia and Christian. Saudi has it’s own oil. Iran is Shia. No, only Turkey has the long border to do this. So Turkey is not just in hot water with Russia, but with France as well.
Russia is now giving the finger to Turkey and is bombing the shit out of the Turkmen, right up to the border. Turkey has won that little battle, but has lost the war.
Rainman…….
I think the calculation the Neocons in the US made when they gave the go ahead to Turkey to shoot down the Russian Bomber was to throw Turkey under the bus. Their thinking is that Russia will arm the Kurds and that they will form their own break-way republic partially in Turkey, Iraq & maybe Iran, but the calculus is who will the Kurds side with. We know Turkey will not like it and spend all their energy fighting it. The Neocons still think that Assad can be dislodged, but i think that just went poof when the bomber went down and then the video surfacing of the rescue helicopter being hit by a US made TOW, they may have gotten some form of negotiated removal with Russia, but that is long gone now. These decisions are being made well above the head of the American Dupe Named Obutthead. With all of our screwing around, I wouldn’t be surprised if Turkey falls into civil war and we have another failed state right next to Syria!
The US of A should send two of its aircraft carrier groups, now doing nothing in Norfolk, VA, to the Mediterranean Sea. Once there America’s finest should establish a no-fly zone over Syria as Senator John McCain and others have urged. At the same time the US and NATO should support Turkish closure of the Dardanelles so the Russians can’t easily supply their Syrian contingent; we should massively supply ISIS and encourage Turkey to do the same (as we’ve been doing all along, only more so); and we should strongly encourage Israel and Saudi Arabia to pressure Syria militarily. Our goal and NATO’s should be to run the Russians out of Syria.
At the same time more military pressure should be applied in NovoRussia, the Crimea, and the Baltic states. Russia isn’t strong enough to defend all along her western border and carry on a war in Syria, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East as well.
Think about it: Russia won’t be able to stand up to the United States, the EU, Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia acting together. This is America’s chance to crush the Russian bear once and for all. We should make the most of it.
IraK, your plan seems well thought out, however, didn’t we already have Russia by the balls back in the 90’s? How did the lone Superpower fall off the pinnacle like King Kong?