Russia’s Policy of Peace Is Encouraging War
By Paul Craig Roberts
February 28, 2021 "Information Clearing House" - On February
25 the election thief ordered a US air attack on Syria that killed 17 Iranians.
US and Israeli attacks on Syria have been ongoing for years with no consequences
other than Syrian and Russian denunciations of the US and Israeli violations of
international law. Clearly, the US/lsraeli agenda takes priority
over international law. One would think that after all these years,
the Kremlin would have noticed that and cease sounding like an ineffective
broken record.
After years of hesitation, Russia finally permitted Syria to obtain S-300
missiles, which, if they are permitted to be used, are capable of preventing US
and Israeli attacks. As the missiles are never used, Washington
regards them as just another bluff by a cowardly Russian government that won’t
fight.
Andrew Korybko, an American Moscow-based political analyst, tries to find a
Russian policy in Russia’s protection of US and Israeli attacks on Syria. He
acknowledges that while Russia officially regards Israeli and US attacks on
Syrian territory as violations of international law, “it never does anything to
stop them.” He points to “the objectively existing and easily
verifiable fact that the S-300s have never even once been used to defend Syria
since they were dispatched there in late 2018 for that explicit purpose” as
evidence that Moscow is “passively facilitating those strikes.”
Korybko postulates that the Kremlin’s toleration of the strikes is part of
a Russian “grand strategic ‘balancing act’ of trying to promote a so-called
‘compromise political solution’ to the country’s conflict, one which envisions
the eventual withdrawal of Iranian forces and their allies such as Hezbollah in
possible exchange for Israel and the US stopping their conventional aggression
against the Arab Republic.”
In other words, he suggests Kremlin complicity with Israel in driving out
Syria’s Iranian ally: “the Kremlin continues to deny the SAA the right to use
the S-300s for the purpose of defending its allies from Israeli and American
attacks against them. This observation very strongly suggests that Russia is
pursuing a Machiavellian strategy whereby it unofficially hopes that Israeli
and American strikes will result in Iran and Hezbollah’s forced withdrawal from
Syria.
If Korybko is even partially correct, the Kremlin does not understand
American and Israeli aggression. The Kremlin’s failure to understand
the enemy is what will lead to war, not Syria’s use of the S-300s to defend its
terrority from attack.
If it is OK to attack Iranians and Hezbollah in Syria, Washington will
conclude that it is OK to attack Iranians in Iran, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This
will expand violence and instability, not reduce it. Hezbollah is all that
prevents another Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the partition of that country. The
Russian posture in the Middle East is so weak that it encourages more
US/Israeli attacks.
In other words, instead of defusing the situation the Kremlin’s policy
inflames it.
Moreover, what Russian interest is served by driving Syria’s Iranian and
Hezbollah allies out of Syria? Only Washington and Israel’s
interests are served. Russia’s policy, as postulated by Korybko, implies that
Russia agrees that Iran and Hezbollah need to be curbed. Therefore, Hezbollah
can be attacked in Lebanon as well as in Syria, and Iranians can be attacked in
Iran as well as in Syria. Russia’s policy as portrayed by Korybko
can only be a failure.
Washington and Israel will continue their attacks, because they know that
there will be no consequences but words.
The Kremlin needs to consider which policy is the least risky: continuing
to fire off ineffectual words or missiles that make attacks costly. The
easiest and surest way to establish peace in the Middle East is the
announcement of a Russian/Chinese/Iranian/Syrian mutual defense pact with
NATO’s banner that an attack on one is an attack on all.
The accusation that this would lead to war can be answered with a question:
why then hasn’t NATO led to war? If war is likely to be the result
of an attack, an aggressor thinks more than once about an attack. As
long as aggression is tolerated, it grows until it has to be resisted. This has
been the official narrative of World War II for three-quarters of a century.
The Kremlin could begin by comprehending that 90% of US Middle East policy
is determined by Israel and Israel’s US agents, the zionist neoconservatives. Biden’s
regime is stocked up with them. Israel wants Greater Israel, and the
neoconservatives want US hegemony in the Middle East in order to give Israel
what it wants. Israel has been slowly and patiently stealing
Palestine for decades and now wants to move faster. Washington’s
destruction of Iraq and Libya moved the plan forward. Syria’s
destruction was in the works until Russia intervened and prevented it. But
Syria is still partly a partitioned country, and Syria, Hezbollah in southern
Lebanon, and Iran are the remaining obstacles to US and Israeli hegemony in the
Middle East. If this hegemony is achieved, Russia can expect Washington’s
subversion of Muslims in the Federation and in the former Soviet Asian
republics.
As US General Tod D. Wolters again told the Russians three days ago,
apparently to no effect, the United States regards Russia as “an enduring
existential threat to the United States” ( https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/02/26/americas-absurd-foreign-policy/ ). The
inability of Russia to come to terms with this fact will result in war.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for
Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was
columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators
Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have
attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic
Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
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