Unraveling.

I said recently that Donald Trump gives spine to the spineless within the GOP. That his willingness to fight the Democrats and the Deep State on their terms and come out victorious, c.f. Kavanaugh, is changing the domestic political landscape in tectonic ways.

So too, I’m coming to believe, is the case with Putin. His unwillingness to barter away Russia’s future for short-term gains but instead tackle head-on the U.S.’s hypocrisy and aggression on the world stage and win is having a huge effect on other world leaders.

And this announcement by Merkel and Macron to attend Sochi is a perfect example of that.

Germany and France are now looking to broker with Russia against the wishes of the U.S. political and military establishment who have done everything possible to prolong the war and shield the collapse of ISIS east of the Euphrates River and support Al-Qaeda-linked groups in the province of Idlib.^[1]

Tom Luongo, the author of this quote, notes the possibility that Trump will pull U.S. troops out of Syria after the elections next month. God willing that will bring this disgraceful enterprise in Syria to an end.

Even better, Luongo echoes Herb Stein’s famous dictum that what can’t go on, won’t:

Because something has to give here. And all the signs point to a loss of power and control over the geopolitical landscape by the deepest of Deep State actors in the U.S. and the U.K.^[2]

Only good can come out of that, if he’s right. Whatever the Deep State is, it should be clear by now that it hates traditional America, despises the (original) constitutional order, and is an enemy of liberty.

As Luongo’s article makes clear, the Deep State has proved to be too clever by half and “U.S.” “policy” in the M.E. is splintering. Iraq, for example, after much U.S. blood and treasure and even more Iraqi blood and destruction, is tilting toward Iran. Really? That Iran? Busloads of foreign policy geniuses in the State and Defense Departments embraced “nation building” and ended up with a supposed client state that isn’t having the “good doggy” picture America has wanted to paint there. Certain domestic critics moaned about “no blood for oil” but the only problem with that is that it was the Chinese who ended up with the contracts for the oil. I guess that's what you call playing The Great Game.

Too, look at how Libya turned out. Gaddafi, a cooperative and benevolent leader by any standard not embraced by sophomore theater majors at Bryn Mawr, was killed because he was “a threat” to his own people. That there is a steaming pile of distortion and lies if ever there was one. The U.S. and its lick spittle European allies removed “pretty good” and engineered “hellacious” in its place. Terrific! People noticed though this pearl of U.S. ignorance, dishonesty, and incompetence receives little of the condemnation today that it deserves. Could some State Department summer intern please point out to the suits that "regime change" absolutely entails a vision of what change looks like and a guarantee that we will bring about a good result. But the U.S. never makes such a guarantee. "Political solution" is as specific as the State Department will get.

In Syria, the U.S. Syria has pursued regime change with not a thought about what comes next. The picture we have attempted to paint there of Assad the “brutal dictator” is sheer distortion. Even if it’s not, what country is it that the country can point to where what we arranged after the removal of “The Evil Faction” was anything but chaos and endless tragedy? Japan and Germany would fit the bill but both required actual, costly, extended military occupation. So, what is this “political solution” we seem to have in mind for Syria and why would anyone do anything but cringe when we propose it?

I’ve always thought Mr. Putin was playing the strongest hand when he held his fire after not a few provocations. Time has been on his side and, as any demolition expert knows, to destroy a bridge you only need to cut certain support members and the weight of the bridge will do the rest of the work for you. Our servility before the Likudniks and the Saudis and our horrendous expenditures for bases and pointless "kinetic" actions overseas are the charge we are laying ourselves on our own bridge.

The U.S. has no policy in Syria or elsewhere. Provocative military exercises, sanction on every nation that displeases us, and deciding what is good for other people make a mixture or hubris and blindness. Anything the U.S. will do in the coming decade will be (1) stupid, (2) ruinously expensive, (3) dishonest, and/or (4) suicidal. Not what you would call a formula for long-term geopolitical success. Putin's strategy is restraint and firm opposition to the jihadi scum. Something we should emulate.

Luongo’s piece is short and worth your time. He ties a lot of threads together.

Notes
^[1] "More Peace Dividends As Merkel And Macron Join Syria Summit In Sochi." By Tom Luongo, ZeroHedge, 10/21/18.
^[2] Id. (Emphasis removed).