#77. You raise some good points about what Netanyahu is thinking in going to see Putin and vice versa.
Could be the old “Keep your friends close, but your enemies (or potential enemies, or those who arm your enemies), closer.
I don’t know but I do know that Bibi will do whatever is possible (with a few restraints imposed by Obama) to preserve the very existence of Israel, and that might include a nuclear strike on Iran’s nuclear sites and weapons systems (ICBMs etc).
He might be letting Putin know that he is just the man who will do it. Putin is no fool. He has to way his desires to redominate a lot of Europe while keeping a friendly psychopathic regime with nuclear weapons (in existence or easily to assembly and use), or to risk losing all of the Middle East influence he has built up in the past 10 years (Syrian bases, Iran as a shield against Sunni/Wahabist terrorism, oil supplies, etc).
This is more than a “Game of Thrones”. It is a game of survival and dominance. Right now the US is losing in both arenas and it isn’t going to get any better.
The Russians launched more airstrikes in Syria against everyone in a month than we did in a year. That says it all.
Remember about 75% of our aircraft, for a long time, never dropped their ordnance on targets in Iraq (ISIS, esp. convoys), or in Syria (for fear of hitting civilians - ROE).
That is no way to win a war, and JCS (under Gen. Dempsey, a curse on his cowardice)folded before Obama like a cheap suit in the sun.
As a reporter I used to cover the Pentagon, SVN/Cambodia, etc. and got to meet a lot of real generals and admirals, as I have often mentioned at FR before. Just a brief recap (Adm. Arleigh Burke, Dan Galley, Middendorf, McCain (CINCOMPAC), Jerry Denton; Generals Lemniter, Taylor, Chappie James (USAF); Ed Lansdale’s top aide in SVN Gen. Bernie Yoh (SACO - Kuomintang; Gen. John Singlaub (WW2, VN-SOG, So. Korea -fought Carter on troop withdrawals; Gen. Daniel Graham, DIA, CIA, US Military Chief in VN, and post-war classmate of mine.
These were realistic fighters. They knew who the enemy was and that they had to be fought and defeated when allowed. They were not risk-taskers, but very smart men who had to make tremendous life and death decisions. Obviously they were right because we are still here and free (in VN they were betrayed at home by a weak president and a Democrat-red Congress). Otherwise we would have won the war much earlier than anyone could have thought. (I even got that from a No. Vietnamese Colonel and a possible General (my notes list him as a General) who defected. I interviewed in Saigon in 1970. They knew we could defeat them.
Long comment but I’ve been in the journalism/research/internal security fields since 1968 and have met our “best and bravest”. They always served/fought to win. Today, our gutless “leaders” only fight to keep their seats in Congress and political positions. Some are still trying to sell us out and it looks like they are winning.
Obama can proudly say about his efforts to “fundamentally transform America” and to “disarm it”, “YES I DID”. Clinton would only be the next batter in line to finish the game.
The more I see how war has been waged after 1945, the more I’m convinced that the communists’ goal of taking over both major US political parties (outlined in the twelfth chapter of “The Naked Communist”) had been achieved during the years beforehand. Especially with respect to the creation of the UN (as Alger Hiss had set it up, with the charter being a clone of the USSR’s constitution) and the sudden nuclear proliferation in the Second World.