We have a winner: now would be a good time to clean Assad’s clock and get the Russian fleet out of the Med also.
Oh, but I assumed someone in the insane clown posse running DC has a strategic thought in their heads.
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I’ll go you one further; have Turkey close the Bosphorous to Russian warships (but not commercial ships), then clean Assad’s clock, as you put it, thereby depriving Russia of that port in the Med, and then sic Israel on Iran’s nuclear installations.
BOOM. One, Two, Three. Putin’s allies rendered impotent, loss of the Russian Navy’s Med port, Iran’s nuclear ambitions hit hard and the Black Sea Fleet bottled up in, well, the Black Sea.
Granted, this would require some actual leadership in DC, but it’s nice to dream, isn’t it? And if you’re gonna dream, dream big. I dream of that pipeline running from the ME to Europe, supplying natural gas to the EU (along with shale gas extraction in Poland) and blowing a nice big hole in Russia’s economy.
Do you suppose the geniuses governing us might consider scaling back the plan to halve Army's size now?
In a way we're lucky Yanukovich's incompetence forced Putins hand now before Barack "the Marxist Muslim" Obama could destroy the military completely.
And if Russia sends it’s Black Sea Fleet in?
What will Turkey do? Follow the treaty (which requires it to allow passage) or close the straits, which can be a cause for war?