A TEAParty Jab at Putin

I'm not really a Tea Party lover, but David Webb has put together a pretty good analysis of Putin's foreign policy and the way we have handled it so far.  http://thehill.com/opinion/david-webb/256830-the-us-is-playing-politics-while-putin-is-waging-war  His central theme is in the title, While the U.S. plays politics, Putin is waging war.  That theme could come from the right or left and still be agreeable to the majority of U.S. citizens.

In the Ukraine and Syria, Putin has managed to back his pro-Russia allies while thumbing his nose at Europe and the U.S.  Webb should have included Xi in the mix, but maybe his column is limited in size.  China and Russia were together on the Iran nuclear weapons agreement.  Both sides have pushed weapons into the Syrian ground battles, but the Russians are flying airplanes and rolling tanks, something the Syrians appreciate more than economic aid and small arms flowing into their country.  The Middle East will not appreciate what the Russians are doing, but they will see the Chinese as their friends.  Let's see how that works out for Russia.

Friends of ours, who lived in the Middle East for a long time, still remember the arms that flowed into Iraq to help them fight Iran, many of them coming from the U.S.   It was a bloody war, filled with chemical weapons, which the Syrians seem bent on using as well.  The indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations was terrible for the people who lived through it, and the Syrian people are getting a similar taste of it.  They are fleeing in great numbers, as both the Iraqis and Iranians did.   The people leaving will not forget.  The Russians will have generations of enemies.