It’s March 20, 2014. The US President has just announced the increased sanctions on the Russian politicians, oligarch, banks and other targets. He threatened furthering these sanctions if/when Putin decides on escalation of his aggression toward the Ukraine or any other now-sovereign, former republics.
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Russia has always had an excellent (although most often ‘satanic’) policies. They have proven over and over, that what they have ever done was very profoundly prepared, estimated, and executed. they always challenged the West by their moves, and most often got away with it.
Only sometimes their predictions of the Western reaction were missed, or - using our former President neologism - they ‘miss-underestimated’ our response.
I am not a conspiracy-theorist in general. When Russians are involved, though, I always try to find the ‘double deck’, hidden intensions, and, sometimes the elusive, located far in the future goals. Their politics, a bit like Chinese, may have goals 50, 100 years ahead. It’s only possible in the ideologically driven countries - even when they finally embrace the ‘(not so)-free market’ economy.
Russian leaders live in their own reality, the ‘close-circuit’ reality. Putin stated on numerous occasions, that the ‘glasnost’(*1) and ’perestroika’(*2), which led to the the end of the ‘cold war’, was the biggest Soviet mistake. When Russia started acting upon the principles brought by the glasnost and perestroika, it became increasingly difficult to lead the same political path as before. If/when the Russian Government opened itself to its nation scrutiny, nothing could be run as it was before. Unheard before the protests to the particular political decisions, voiced by the thousands, became the burden, the new government had to deal with. As we know it dealt wit it in a heavy handed, but covert way - loudest opponents were simply disappearing, to be found with the bullet in the head, or
unrecognizably mutilated.
At the same time, all movement of the country on the World platform were more visible, and needed explanation. To explain anything to the West…? It was taking the edge from the Russian politics.
the KGB ‘Apparatchik’ like Putin must have really suffered. Suddenly Russia entered the World Society, and had to behave like a member of it, answering questions and responding to accusations - when before… they could just ignore that.
Russia has always been isolated from the rest of the World. In their, and their satellites’ reality it was an absolute ruler, and to the rest of the World it was a ’Superpower’ to be reckoned with. It was also, so easy to explain to their own people, that all the failures are the result of the Western politics and aggression, and that all the successes are even more important and precious in the same context.
And suddenly, after the 1991, the successes and failures became just that: successes and failures of the government and its politics. Russia as a ’Superpower’ was gone, but it lived in the mind of nationalistic Russians, and their leader, like Putin.
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As I stated above, I am not a conspiracy-theorist in general. But when I recall the timeline of the Syrian conflict, I can’t help but wonder…
Syria has always been in the Russian orbit. It was a Russian ‘plug’ into the Middle East, as well the broker for the shady transactions (oil +) with the Iran, with whom the no-one could legally trade. Suria was that convenient proxy. Later in the Arab Spring even Syria caught on fire, and its President Assad (member of the small religious minority - Alawites (*3)) escalated the un-proportional response to the peaceful (at the beginning) protests, killing hundreds of the protesters daily. Always justifying it as a war with the terrorists, he lived to the self-fulfilling prophecy: ‘Al-Qaeda’ affiliate (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (*4)) became the major player in this conflict - making the Western help in arming the fighter almost impossible.
The west was watching, contemplating the intervention, trying to device the campaign which would produce somewhat stable results, not alike the post war Iraq or Afghanistan. I am sure that a small expeditionary force who would ‘take the Assad out’ was under consideration…
And then - Bashar al-Assad, following the footsteps of his father, started exterminating the rebel supporting cities. Not, just some active centers of the opposition, but the whole settlements. And he did it not only using a destructive force of the conventional weapons… He used the poisonous gas, on the whole population of the attacked locations. His stacks of the chemical weapons was huge (a Russian ‘gift’ from the sixties and seventies). it became immediately clear, that the chemical weapons are dangerous in his hands… but in the hands of the wrong factions, after he is gone, they may become the weapons against the West in general, and Israel in particular.
Situation grew to the level of complexity, one can only call: a GORDIAN KNOT. The impossible task of un-tying this knot suddenly became possible when Russians offered help in convincing the Syria’s President to give up his chemical weapons to the international community. Suddenly, from the villain, who was about to be attacked and exterminated - Bashar al-Assad rose to the level of a ‘good guy’, who wants to cooperate with the World Community and give up, illegal and condemned by the World chemical weapons. What a sinister twist. Now we need this villain to complete this task. He stalls, not complying with the schedule, intensifying the extermination of the opposition by the conventional weapons, and we stand by and ‘clap our hands’ in approval of his generousness…
What I am suggesting at this time, is, that it is Russia, who is standing behind all of it. Not from the moment of defusing the situation, when the West (and Israel) were about to attack Syria (opening another Pandora’s Box), but from the very beginning!!!
I am suspecting, that the Russians advised Assad to use his chemical weapons on the innocent population, so they would be able to do what they did and SAVE ‘HIS BEHIND’.
It is really a sinister scenario - and right on the level of Russian conniving policies. They never considered people above the political gains. Quite the contrary. Under their rules, the people have always fell the victims of the policies. The sacrifices for the greater ‘good’ (greater good - read - ‘particular interests’).
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With the thousands of soldiers and the heavy equipment on the Ukrainian border, the self proclaimed pro-Russian militia (supported by the Russian Special Forces) forced themselves into the Ukrainian Navy Headquarters and a few other military installations and ordered the Ukrainian soldiers and personal to ‘go home’ or to join the Russian Army. And all of it was done while the hundreds of women walked in front of the invading forces - a human shield. As fas as we all know, human shields were used by Nazi forces in many of the urban fights on the invaded territories. This practice has been condemned internationally, and yet the Russians have no problem violating any international laws.
I am afraid that the near future might create much longer list of these violations, committed by the Russians. Russians want the return of the ‘cold war’. And we all are on a final stretch…
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*1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost
*2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika
*3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawites
*4 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
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