He Who Hesitates Is Lost And Russia Hesitated
by Paul Craig Roberts
The Russian government deceived itself with its fantasy belief that Russia and Washington had a common cause in fighting ISIS. The Russian government even went along with the pretense that the various ISIS groups operating under various pen names were “moderate rebels” who could be separated from the extremists, all the while agreeing to cease fighting on successive verges of victory so that Washington could resupply ISIS and prepare to introduce US and NATO forces into the conflict. The Russian government apparently also thought that as a result of the coup against Erdogan, which was said to implicate Washington, Turkey was going to cease supporting ISIS and cooperate with Russia.
Alas, the Russians so fervently, or perhaps I should say feverishly, desired an agreement with Washington that they deceived themselves. If Finian Cunningham’s report is correct, Washington has taken advantage of Russia’s urging that Washington and Turkey join in the attack on ISIS by invading northern Syria under the guise of “fighting ISIS.”
Syria has now been partitioned, and the pretend or fake “moderate rebels” can be built up inside the US/Turkish occupied areas of Syria and the war against Syria kept going for as long as Washington wants. The western presstitutes will report that the Turkish/American forces occupying areas of Syria are not invaders but are attacking ISIS.
With US, Turkish, and, little doubt, soon other NATO troops operating inside Syria, the neoconservatives will have many opportunities to provoke a conflict with Russia from which Russia will have to stand down or reply with force. In the event of a Trump presidential victory, the neocons want to make certain Trump is embroiled in a war that will prevent an accommodation with Russia.
It is unclear whether US Secretary of State Kerry’s effort to arrange a Syrian ceasefire was sincere and he was sandbagged by the Pentagon and CIA. Regardless, if Kerry was sincere, he is obviously unable to stand up to the neocons, blessed as the State Department is with Victoria Nuland and a number of other warmongers.
Obama is equally weak, which is why he was chosen by the oligarchy as president. A person without experience and knowledge is an excellent tool for the oligarchy. American blacks and white liberals actually believed that an inexperienced candidate from nowhere without an organization of his own could make a difference. Apparently, the gullibility of a majority of Americans is endless. This American hallmark of gullibility is why a handful of neoconservatives can so easily lead the sheeple into endless wars.
The idiot Americans have been at war for 15 years and the morons have no idea what has been achieved. The fools are unaware that the US in its decades long accumulation of weakness now confronts two major nuclear powers: Russia and China.
Americans have been taught by the presstitutes serving the military/security complex that nuclear war is not all that different from ordinary war. Look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two targets of American atomic bombs. Today, seven decades later, the cities are flourishing, so what’s the problem with nuclear weapons?
The atomic bombs that Washington dropped on these helpless civilian centers while the Japanese government was trying to surrender, were mere popguns compared to today’s thermo-nuclear weapons. One Russian SS-18 wipes out three-fourths of New York state for thousands of years. Five or six of these “Satans” as they are known by the US military, and the East Coast of the United States disappears.
Russia had a victory for Syria and democracy in its hands, but Putin lacked the decisiveness of a Napoleon or a Stalin and let his victory slip away as a result of false hopes that Washington could be trusted. Now a Russian/Syrian victory would require driving the Turks and Americans out of Syria.
If Russia struck hard and fast, Russia could succeed by using Washington’s lie and claiming that Russia thought the US and Turkish forces were ISIS, just as Washington claimed when Washington intentionally struck a known Syrian Army position.
If Russia actually annihilated the Turkish and US force, which Russia could easily do, NATO would collapse, because no European country wants to be destroyed in World War 3. But Russia won’t collapse NATO by decisive action. The Russians won’t fight until war is absolutely and totally forced upon them. Then they will pay a huge price for their indecisiveness rooted in their foolish belief that Russia has common grounds with Washington. The only common grounds Russia has with Washington requires Russia’s surrender. If Russia will surrender, Russia can achieve Western acceptance, and Washington’s agents, the Russian Atlanticist Integrationists, can rule Russia for Washington.
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All valid points. I myself have always admired and still to this day admire and respect PCR. Has always been a strong critic of Us and western establishment. His arguments are sound and also valid. he argues like most anglo-western persons. Reactive and quick just like instant coffee . Orientalist do not fight like the west. History proves this. IE: Stalin would use diplomacy rite to the last moment. Stalin at the League of nations rite to its dying days was warning and arguing about the dangers of fascism/nazism . Further more he would sign the famous Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact that so many ant-soviet and anti russian histoRians like to use against the Russians. Diplomacy and keeping the lines of communications open is what it is all about. FURTHER MORE TRYING TO GET A POLITICAL/SOCIAL solution is far better than total NATO/US/ISRAEL style aggression to get to the end game. The… Read more »
Roberts, and the commenters here, represent the infinitesimal percentage of humans who understand that we are on the verge of a nuclear war. It’s long past time for reading of tea leaves and amateur psychologizing–those of us with awareness, and enough imagination to conceive of the attending and unfolding horror, must find effective courses of action to stop this. I don’t know how. But my best guess is that less than 100 people on the planet want nuclear war. Their money, power and privilege isolate them from the seven billion of us who want to live, but they are not invulnerable. The systems they have in place to protect them from the will of the people–media, law, government–all rest on fragile pivots. The people, given more accurate information, would move toward sanity, as demonstrated by the response to Sanders’ candidacy. That the powers that be were able to quash that… Read more »
“If Russia struck hard and fast, Russia could succeed by using Washington’s lie and claiming that Russia thought the US and Turkish forces were ISIS, just as Washington claimed when Washington intentionally struck a known Syrian Army position.” This is an interesting comment. Let’s analyze it. Is Mr Roberts saying that Putin is perfectly capable of deception but has been unwilling to employ it in the service of containing an expansionist, brutal American empire? I personally don’t believe that Putin is righteous. I only know that in relation to certain things – US-inspired color revolutions on Russia’s borders for example – Putin has been the victim, not the victimizer. So, Is Putin, or a group of Russian leaders who Putin belongs to, truly opposed to the eventual disintegration of Russia and it’s absorption into a US-dominated global economic system? It could just be, I think, that the brazenness of lawless,… Read more »
Mr Roberts is just wrong here. Russia did everything by the book and it will live on as fact for much much longer than the automated propaganda by the Pork Pie News Networks. Everything has been a step by step process of advancing a little, holding, advancing and taking advantage where possible without loosing everything gained. It’s the long game vs. the short game. The US will at some point get bored and walk away, once it realizes that a) it is not going to get its way; b) it is not going to bleed Russia dry by its strategy of StB (Shitting the Bed) – leaving devastation when it doesn’t get its own way; c) it starts to seriously cost the USA by diverting resources from more important issues. So, where is the ‘quagmire’ that the US and all those very clever pundits promised Russia? Oh, I blinked and… Read more »
This article is very US-centric. Let’s try thinking about the situation from a Russian perspective.
All the Islamist terrorists being killed in Syria are not in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or the Russian Federation.
From the Russian perspective, is that not a better outcome?
Also, involvement in Syria puts them on better terms with Syria, Iran and Southern Lebanon.
Indeed, do not many in the Arab-speaking world see them as a friend or ally and the US as THE enemy?
What’s not to like about this situation from the perspective of the Russians?
It also provides a very useful training and testing ground for their military and their weapons systems too.
I agree the US elite are fools so why waste time thinking about things from their perspective?
They really are of little or no account.
What I thought an excellent article on the issue:
“Putin Ups the Ante: Ceasefire Sabotage Triggers Major Offensive in Aleppo”
By Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45576.htm
Also an article by Jack Smith today, which is quite long but goes into some depth on the general issues between the US and Russia. Putin addressed the matter of engaging in a European war during a Sept. 1 interview conducted by Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, who asked if Russia intended to use force elsewhere in the region. The interview was conducted at the Far East Economic Forum held in Vladivostok. Here is Putin’s response: “I think all sober-minded people who really are involved in politics understand that the idea of a Russian threat to, for example, the Baltics is complete madness. Are we really about to fight NATO? How many people live in NATO? About 600 million, correct? There are 146 million in Russia. Yes, we’re the biggest nuclear power. But do you really think that we’re about to conquer the Baltics using nuclear weapons? What is this… Read more »
Putin usually makes a lot of sense when he speaks, unlike the duplicitous bastards who have Presided over the USA in recent decades, with their propaganda machine(the MSM) never holding them to account.
It is obvious that the whole balkanization project is a rolling-out of the Yinon Plan, designed to create the Eretz (Greater) Yisrael territory demanded by zionists at the 1919 Versailles Peace Talks, so the zionists could have a state not just from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan but also from the River Nile to the River Euphrates.
People like Bolton are mere zionist stooges or lackeys, whose real loyalty is not to the US but to Israel.
That is why I describe them as neo-traitors, not neo-conservatives.
“Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” Karl Marx, “Manifesto of the Communist Party The state of Israel is but the local subsidiary the… Read more »
Theoretically, what you say is right but practically speaking it is not. It was widely believed at the times of the First and Second World Wars that nationalism was dead. The ensuing carnage that resulted revealed that concept was outdated if it was ever right in the first place. What we are seeing today in Israel is a new form of pseudo-ethnic religiosity, based around exceptionalism, racism, fascist belief in blood, soil and living space as personified by the Yinon Plan and harsh internal laws. Stir in to that pot a form of exclusivist holocaust victimism and a belief in racial supremacism and you have all the ingredients needed for the vile kind of regime now found in Israel. Neo-traitors like Bolton, Kagan, Wolfowitz, et. al. all help to ensure the interests of the USA are subordinated to the interests of Israel. Netanyahu right now is having a good laugh… Read more »
I agree with everything you say except this: “What we are seeing today in Israel is a new form of pseudo-ethnic religiosity,” If Israel’s “religiosity” is pseudo-ethnic, then all forms of “religiosity,” i.e., group identities more broadly speaking, are in some sense “pseudo-” or “contrived” or “constructed.” They are cultural ‘inventions’ that create psychological affective bonds of reciprocity between large groups of individuals, creating illusions of identity, of exclusionary oneness, between disparate individuals. All group identities are inculcated and invented. There are no ‘authentic’ ethnic identities that you can counterpoise to ‘in-authentic’ ethnic identities. People learn to think in ‘ethnic’ terms, in ‘nationalist’ terms, in ‘supremacist’ terms, and so on. That’s what schools are for and that’s also what the purchased ideologues are for, to massage into the heads of people the proper outlook of the ethnicity or nationality that is ascribed to them by their betters and spiritual leaders.… Read more »
Whitney is one of my favorite writers. His analysis of the Syria conflict is far more penetrating than most. You can find all his articles on CounterPunch here-
http://www.counterpunch.org/author/mike-whitney/
Check out the article titled ‘Assad’s Death Warrant’. It really dissects the who, what, when, where and why of the Syrian conflict.
He is also one of my favorites. He’s very readable and has a gift for remaining focused on the essentials of unfolding, complicated events. Thank you for the link. I note that I have missed many of Whitney’s recent articles. Time to catch up . . .
Roberts, like most of the readers here, wants to see an end to American dominance. He is expressing more frustration than offering a detailed rational analysis. His appraisal is rational to the degree that he recognizes the intent objectively dominating the U.S. establishment, namely, to subjugate the entire planet by the only means possible, i.e., militarily. They won’t quit until they themselves are either subdued militarily or intimidated into an unconditional surrender. War is inevitable, in Robert’s opinion. Consequently, the longer Russia puts it off, the uglier things will be because the hegemon and its vassals race along with Russia and China in their preparations for war. But Robert fancies that if war is coming, the best way to try and minimize its consequences is to try now, while there appears to be a window of opportunity, given the objective potential for fracturing NATO and the European Union, to do… Read more »
‘The idiot Americans have been at war for 15 years and the morons have no idea what has been achieved.’
A lot of people have made a lot of money from the wars. It is a mistake to assume that there must be some master-plan. There are many people in the industrial-military-political complex who are quite content that year by year a large amount of money is extracted from US taxpayers and spent on arms principally but also on all the ancillary services required for military operations. It is not a coincidence that from 1995 until 2000 Cheney served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, a company which then won many government contracts deriving from the occupation of Iraq.
That’s a consideration that was missing from Roberts’s analysis, but which is important. But it isn’t the only factor at play. These are human beings (with human, biologically) brains. There’s ego, motivations, emotions and all that.
Just a guess but I think Russia might also suffer in a nuclear confrontation with the US. Maybe that’s why Putin is keen to avoid one.
But unlike JFK, Putin isn’t actually doing things (like an assassination program targetting a NATO leader) that could cause one.
This commentary is based upon a typical ‘Langley think-piece’ showing their total disability to understand the current Russian administration, and perhaps fatally wrong for those professional schemers at ‘ Foggy Bottom ‘. Highly paid ‘ Bostonian Brainy Kids ‘ who obviously believe that one man like President Putin can rule Russia ( or like Napoleon ruled Europe ) no sir, The success or failure of Putan in all things is being able to divine how far and why he can propose, and what and which he can dispose of with the full cooperation of the people he represents and the Government bodies he can lead ? As for the invasion of Syria by a murderous combination of a tiny minority of Syrian Moslem brotherhood followers and a horde of islamic terrorists, mainly mercenaries from outside of the Levantine capital, and this is perhaps just act 3 for those who want… Read more »
Paul Craig Roberts has got it wrong as he assumes Russia & the rest of the World is stupid.
Putin is deconstructing a very dangerous monster piece by piece & humiliating the US can have catastrophic consequences Little by little Russia is lifting the veil & putting the giant into a corner & rest assured China is helping as is North Korea.
Backing the US monster into a corner = WW3
That being said I do think that at times & too often it does appear that Russia & Russians delude themselves into thinking that the US & the West in General has any regard for any humanity or has any fraternal instincts for the Slavic race.
If the US Power had a doomsday button that would ‘safely’ kill every living Russian & anyone else they didn’t like they would press it in a New York second!
“If the US Power had a doomsday button that would ‘safely’ kill every living Russian & anyone else they didn’t like they would press it in a New York second!”
I don’t even think it goes as deep as “anyone else they didn’t like,” but rather as depthless as ” it’s nothing personal, only bidness, eh.” And yes indeed, “in a New York second.”
I imagine that New York City(and Washington) would be one of the first targets for the Russians if a war broke out between them and the USA. The “War Hawkes” in the Pentagon(Psychopath Central) might like to consider that before they push Putin too far……..
You would think they would . . . But their over appreciative sense of their own cleverness blinds them just a tad to their real vulnerability. They may yet overplay their hand, however, and deep down, especially in moments of acute outrage, that is certainly one of my most fervent and pleading hopes. But then I think of the price that even more innocents will surely have to pay for that to happen, and that hope disgusts me. You could call that a morally toxic cocktail of deeply conflicted feelings. I really want the bastards to get what they deserve, but don’t want ordinary people to get hurt as a result. And yet just having these monsters about guarantees that ordinary people will continue to be slaughtered and oppressed. Yup, it’s fucked up. If the entire scene didn’t piss me off so much, I’d be depressed and suicidal. As it… Read more »
I’d like Americans to see what a nuke in America looks like. TArget inside the beltway with 100% attrition rate at. LAngley as well.
Americans are complete wussies, look what 3000 dead on 9/11 did to their psyche. Try 3 million dead, the CIA, Pentagon and all Central Government wiped out.
Unfortunately, the oligarchs who control America aren’t, they are cold, heartless, calculating psychopaths without allegiance to any nation, philosophy or culture. For them, money and power is everything and everything they could get their hands on can be stolen, murdered for and appropriated.
Has anyone wondered what living with such people is like?
“Has anyone wondered what living with such people is like?”
The victims of direct and indirect U.S. military intervention world wide for the last 200 years know it all too well.
No one should wish a nuclear strike on another,not even America for all the meglomania of it’s neocon elite,the 3oo million majority,regardless how bewildering we think their electoral choices are, don’t deserve to be incinerated nor does all the flora and fauna.
No one can win a nuclear war.I repeat only louder, “NOBODY WINS IN A NUCLEAR WAR”.
That is the messge that needs to be hammered home to all those who think themselves invulnerable even in their deep bunkers,that a limited battle ground nuclear exchange is feasable,that Trident in any way protects or deters.
The only objective these diabolicle weapons can achieve: to push the climate change timetable that threatens extinction all life forms,from decades to months.
The real arms race is between which form of human folly will successfully bring about our own extinction soonest.
Craig tries but loses more readers with sucky reporting
Depressing read.