In a game of Russian Roulette, Putin won, lost and broke even this year.
In the great strategic casino, no high-roller bet bigger this year than Russia’s poker-faced czar, Vladimir Putin. He won at Middle East poker and broke even at European roulette, but crapped out in the United States and Ukraine.
He goes big, though. And he cheats. Let’s count the chips.
The Middle East: Putin doubled down on military engagement in Syria, betting that no US president would call his bluff. And he was right. We handled ISIS for Putin, his Iranian partners and his Syrian client, Bashar al-Assad, while they slaughtered the anti-Assad resistance. Our naive efforts preserved a monstrous regime and betrayed our allies.
The only dependable regional allies we’ve had outside of Israel are the Kurds. But this month we failed to give even pro forma support to the freedom and independence they’ve earned with their blood. Forty-five million Kurds without a country, and we side with their oppressors by standing aside.
Instead of thinking outside of the box, we cower inside it, insisting we still can win Iraq back from Iran and that Turkey’s savage sultan, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, can be coaxed back into the fold as a solid ally — even as this NATO partner buys key weapons from Russia.
The result? Though Syria proved costlier than expected, Putin’s viewed as a dependable ally, while we’re drained of cash and mocked. And Putin’s wooing the Kurds we’ve disappointed.
Putin gains bases in Syria, a solid front of America-hating allies from Teheran to Beirut, a military toehold in Turkey and a role as the regional power broker. We won’t even get a going-away party.
DC “experts” insist the looming Russia-Iran-Turkey axis can’t last, that the parties are historical enemies with conflicting goals. But we live in a confounding age. Inward-looking for millennia, China has gone global. Comatose for centuries, Islam blazes with jihad. Lawless migration shatters sovereignty. And under both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump the United States has fled its leadership role.
Permanence isn’t the point: a Russia-Turkey-Iran alliance wouldn’t have to last forever to do great harm. Putin may well find the Middle East as thankless as we have. But, for now, he’s the sheik of Araby.
Europe: Putin spread his chips across the felt, betting on both right-wing nationalists and left-wing activists, funding upstart politicians and buying greedy former heads of state, from former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, now a Russian energy executive, to Bill Clinton, who leapt at extravagant Russian paychecks for showing up in Moscow.
Yet despite all the money, fake news and cyber-tricks, he has yet to turn around one major European country. Economic sanctions remain in place. All the big prizes — particularly France — eluded him. And the Europeans are newly on their guard, cracking down on fake news and eager again for NATO to check Russia.
You have to admire Putin’s chutzpah, though. He disrupted a continent for pocket change.
Ukraine: Putin got this one wrong. After his easy win in Crimea, he assumed he could get off as cheaply in eastern Ukraine. But the Ukrainians fought back. Russian troops (in thin disguises) had all of the advantages on paper — by far the best weapons — but the Ukrainians had a cause. They fought the Russian invaders to a standstill. And Putin lacks the wherewithal to up the ante to a plain war of conquest.
Now, as Putin’s chicanery continues to plague Ukraine, the population remembers centuries of Russian oppression — and Stalin’s atrocities. Putin so overplayed his hand that there’s no chance of a unification of Ukraine and Russia in his lifetime.
And the pro-Russian warlords in eastern Ukraine left their people in filth and ruins, an object lesson to anyone else Putin might offer to “liberate.”
The United States: Putin bet hugely. His intervention in our election was without precedent, involving massive cyber-operations, fake-news proliferation, campaign infiltration — he made war upon us without firing a shot.
But Moscow’s initial euphoria soon collapsed. Our system worked, if belatedly. Moscow’s schemes have been exposed; deep investigations are under way; and the Russians are in the doghouse everywhere in our country except in the White House — where our president remains deferential to Putin.
Government checks and balances, the rule of law and a free media make a powerful team.
But don’t be surprised if that Russian gambling addict shows up at our table again. Putin doesn’t do re-hab.
Ralph Peters is Fox News’ strategic analyst.
Image: © РИА Новости, Рамиль Ситдиков
Written by Ralph Peters