Do you think they'd be more likely to use them against the US or radical Islam? Would it really be so bad to have radical Islam all upset with Russia again?
MED-VE-DEV, that’s the guy that Hillary and Obama couldn’t identify in the debate. My next column is about this. Remember when Andy Hiller dropped a Pop Quiz on George Bush in 1999? All the headlines the next day were about how stupid he was.
‘Radical Islam’ is not a unitary phenomenon. Unlike the US, which has both Sunni and Shi’ite enemies (and Sunni and Shi’ite allies—and I’m not talking about the untrustworthy Saudis, I’m talking about people actually risking their lives fighting on our side in Iraq and Afghanistan) Russia happens to have no Shi’ite enemies, and thus thinks it can use Iran as a pawn in a game of balance-of-power politics vis-a-vis the US.
In the Balkans, as in Chechenya, (and as in the days of the Ottomans in that whole region) Sunni Islam is at war with Orthodox Christians (dhimmitude was a perpetual state of low-grade war on the subject peoples, and Imperial Russia often used its armed might to pressure the Sultan to treat his Christian subject better).
Idiotically, given that Al Qaeda, a Sunni organization that would as gladly murder Shi’ites as Americans, has ties to the KLA, in the Balkans, the US has decided to side with the Sunnis.
We and our NATO allies have bombed and occupied Orthodox Christian land to steal it and give it to Sunni Muslims with ties to Al Qaeda.
When Russia bombs and occupies land to steal it from Western Christians, Jews or secularists to give it to their Shi’ite clients, then, maybe, American will have a right to be upset with Russia’s dealings with Islam. Until then, or until the US reverses course in the Balkans, we have no right to complain about Russian behavior in that regard.