[Mariner]

"Our vital interest in Syria (and Iraq and elsewhere, for that matter) is to prevent its being used as a platform for the launching of attacks against the United States, our allies, and our interests."

Using that logic, it's in our "vital interests" to occupy every country in the world.

McCarthy usually gets it right, but in this case is far, far afield.

[ETL]

Russia moving in under the pretense of ridding the region of ISIS is like the Mafia moving to your neighborhood under the pretense of removing a violent street gang, then setting up a permanent base there to do Mob “business”.

Russia will grow wealthier, more powerful, more aggressive in their overall expansionist agenda (Eastern Europe, eventually elsewhere), and much more of a threat to the US and its allies throughout the region and the world.

Sure it’s great IF they actually do get rid of ISIS (we shall see). But having a country like Russia step in and gain such huge strategic advantage over the US and it's allies is nothing we should be cheering about.

If Obama was serious about wanting to take out ISIS, which I don’t believe he ever was—I think him and Putin are actually in cahoots on this whole thing despite his and Kerry’s moans and groans about it, it might not ever have come to this, although Russia would likely have come up with some other rationale or excuse for moving into Syria and taking control of it, and ultimately the entire Middle East. Makes me wonder if ISIS wasn’t a KGB-like invention of the Russians.

************************************************************

Looks like that may not be so far fetched.

Just came across this last night...

From Aug 23, 2015:

"a recent investigation conducted by Novaya Gazeta, one of the few independent newspapers left in Russia, complicates this cozy tale of counterterrorist cooperation. Based on extensive fieldwork in one village in the North Caucasus, reporter Elena Milashina has concluded that the “Russian special services have controlled” the flow of jihadists into Syria, where they have lately joined up not only with ISIS but other radical Islamist factions.

In other words, Russian officials are adding to the ranks of terrorists which the Russian government has deemed a collective threat to the security and longevity of its dictatorial ally on the Mediterranean, Bashar al-Assad."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/23/russia-s-playing-a-double-game-with-islamic-terror0.html

[ETL]

“For 16 years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991.

He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin’s administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging,[3] and was reelected in 2004.”

“On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

[ETL]

The Obama-Putin Iran deal significantly strengthened Russia's position in the region. Iran is a pawn in Russia's chess game to take control of the Middle East and then some. And both just got a LOT stronger. Thanks to the Obama-Putin deal, ("we will wipe Israel off the map") Iran now has $100 BILLION+ extra 'pocket change' to spread among their friends and allies (Russia, the ChiComs...), not to mention throw into their own military and nuke programs.
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From Real Clear Politics, Sept 10, 2015...

"In a 2014 New Yorker interview, Obama said his goal was to create a 'new equilibrium' in the Middle East.

In the short run, at least, his signature diplomatic undertaking can be counted on to bring more violence to this volatile region.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the [Obama-Putin Iran deal] agreement is formally known, provides the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism an infusion of somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion of unfrozen assets and a great deal more of continuing revenues as businesses and governments around the world rush to profit from oil-and-gas-rich Iran’s reintegration into the world economy.

The agreement relaxes the international isolation of the Islamic Republic and ratifies Tehran’s status as a nuclear threshold state. And it relieves restrictions on Iran’s acquisition of weapons, including ballistic missiles. ..."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/10/iran_deal_throws_sparks_on_mideast_tinderbox_128034.html
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Aug 2015...

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Trump: Iran Deal Requires U.S. Protecting Iran in Event of Israeli Strike

by Jacob Kornbluh
Sept 2, 2015

In a phone interview with CNN Tuesday evening, Trump claimed that there’s “something in the Iran deal” that “people don’t understand” saying if someone attacks Iran, “we have to come to their defense.”

“Does that include Israel?” Trump asked. “And most people say yes, they don’t have an exclusion for Israel. So if Israel attacks Iran, according to that deal, I believe, the way it reads, unless they have a codicil or they have something to it, that we have to fight with Iran against Israel.” ..."

Trump was most probably referring to language highlighted by the opponents of the deal. On page 142, the deal includes a clause that states, “Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.”

Washington-based Center for Security Policy asserted that Annex III appears “to commit the United States and other world powers to the defense of Iran’s nuclear program.”

http://jpupdates.com/2015/09/02/trump-iran-deal-requires-u-s-protecting-iran-in-event-of-israeli-strike/
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Russian build-up in Syria part of secret deal with Iran’s Quds Force leader

September 11, 2015
Jennifer Griffin, Lucas Tomlinson
FoxNews.com

As the Pentagon warily eyes a Russian military build-up in Syria, Western intelligence sources tell Fox News that the escalated Russian presence began just days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran’s Quds Force commander — their chief exporter of terror — and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. ...”

The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran’s proxies throughout the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ...”

Officials who have monitored the build-up say they’ve seen more than 1,000 Russian combatants — some of them from the same plainclothes Special Forces units who were sent to Crimea and Ukraine. Some of these Russian troops are logistical specialists and needed for security at the expanding Russian bases.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/11/russian-build-up-in-syria-part-secret-deal-with-irans-quds-force-leader/

[jjotto]

Wierd things at play here. Maybe some of this mania for US involvement in Syria is intended to *prevent* Israel from doing what it needs to do? It’s a chess game, and Obama is playing solitaire.

[Grampa Dave]

Excellent summary of a weird article. Has Trump scrambled the brains of the beltway pundits like this guy?

“”Our vital interest in Syria (and Iraq and elsewhere, for that matter) is to prevent its being used as a platform for the launching of attacks against the United States, our allies, and our interests.”
Using that logic, it’s in our “vital interests” to occupy every country in the world.

McCarthy usually gets it right, but in this case is far, far afield. “