Remember the last time we decided to let the Russians do a significant share of the fighting for us in a war? What resulted from that? Oh, right, 44 years behind the Iron Curtain for Eastern Europe. Because the Russians never do anything unless they've first calculated how they're going to advance their own geopolitical interests as a result.
So when someone need to bomb the bejeezus out of ISIS and Barack Obama wasn't interested, why sure, Vladimir Putin would be only too glad to help:
Meanwhile, the Associated Press breathlessly informs us no fewer than four times in this story that the fight against ISIS is being undertaken by a "U.S.-led coalition." How exactly we are the leaders when we refuse to fight and our own president denounces notions of American leadership is a mystery to me, but that's the AP's narrative and they're sticking to it.
Obama thinks that getting involved in military conflicts amounts to "doing stupid s***." What the Russians understand is that the winner gets the spoils, and if ISIS is eliminate on their terms then the peace will proceed on their terms as well. The price of America abdicating its leadership role on the world stage is not just that battles are left unfought. Someone's going to fight them, and that someone sets the agenda for the world's direction once the battle is won.
You'd think Obama would have learned this when he withdrew from Iraq in 2011. He forfeited the opportunity to influence what happened there, and ISIS took full advantage while Obama was smugly writing them off as the JV team. But Obama never learns anything. Everything in the world must always fit into Obama's ideological framework, which has been set in stone for a very long time and is never going to change. So he'll keep passing on opportunities for leadership and let rival nations take advantage of the opportunities he leaves.
You may be rooting for the Russians now because they're doing the work we should be doing. You won't like what happens when the Russians demand the price.
Remember the last time we decided to let the Russians do a significant share of the fighting for us in a war? What resulted from that? Oh, right, 44 years behind the Iron Curtain for Eastern Europe. Because the Russians never do anything unless they've first calculated how they're going to advance their own geopolitical interests as a result.
So when someone need to bomb the bejeezus out of ISIS and Barack Obama wasn't interested, why sure, Vladimir Putin would be only too glad to help:
