Op-ed by Boris Danik
A local resident strokes a dog near destroyed cars after recent shelling in the town of Popasna of Lugansk region on October 1, 2014.
Through the end of September, Russia's war against Ukraine has killed more than 1,000 soldiers and volunteer battalion fighters. By standing up to Moscow’s aggression, Ukraine is delaying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to chip away at NATO’s eastern member states.
Business analyst Timothy Ash asked a rhetorical question in his recent op-ed in Kyiv Post: “What does Ukraine have to do to get real help from the West?” He answers it indirectly: “Dude, the country has been invaded.” If anyone in the West needs an interpreter, please let me know.
Sadly, some are still clutching at a sinking plank, suggesting that it is Ukraine who provokes Moscow. The case in point is Bloomberg News editorial “Ukraine can’t afford NATO” (Sept 29).
Here goes: “Just one day after Ukrainian President Petoro Poroshenko declared the worst of the war in the country east is over, the government in Kyiv appears to be doing its level best to ensure the fighting starts again. The cabinet submitted legislation to parliament today that would cancel Ukraine’s existing commitment not to join any military alliance, and instead seek membership in NATO.”
Anyone noticed that “the existing commitment” has not stopped Russia from invading Ukraine’s territory?
In plain language, Ukraine made a decision last winter to defend itself rather than submit again to Moscow’s embrace. This means that Europe gets a respite from Russian invasion in all its nefarious formats, and the US gets a chance to continue its favorite act in the Mideast as well as try to drag Europe into it.
Russian rebels expostulate mixed rocket launchers through the streets of Donetsk.
US President Barack Obama doesn’t see it that way.
“Geopolitically …. what happens in Ukraine does not pose a threat to us,” he was quoted on Sept. 23, while denouncing ISIS as deathly scourge, a threat to the whole world, and promising to destroy it --- with the help of a coalition starting with 15 states. It is now apparently growing to 50 as of Sept. 28, according to talkative politicians in Washington.
The only item missing in the coalition at this time is willingness to commit ground troops. The American plan, approved by Congress last week with a half-billion dollar tab, is to equip and train Syrian moderate groups who have been fighting the Assad regime in the civil war over the last two years. They will turn their focus against the ISIS --- if they will. This doesn’t quite look like they will forge the missing link, not in the next several months.
To Obama’s credit, he vowed not to get the American ground forces into this mess. American air strikes against ISIS bases in Iraq and Syria, now going several weeks, appear to be effective in slowing the enemy advance against Iraq’s government forces. Still, Obama is under pressure at home to do more, and some in Washington accuse him of being “an ineffective president with the mentality of a community organizer in Chicago”.
The debate often mentions the US national security, the danger of terrorism from ISIS, and the overall national interest. The anxiety is bound to become more intense as the ISIS forces are moving closer to Baghdad, now from the direction of Falluja in the west, and are reported by the BBC News on September 29 to be only 5 miles from Iraq’s capital. It is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that American personnel will be evacuated from roof tops of the US embassy, as it was rescued from Saigon decades ago.
Hopefully, it will not come to such a finale. But it does appear that the US had the best deal in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was Iraq’s president. What happened afterwards was by the Bush and Cheney playbook and it was not very clever, to put it mildly.
What will be the consequences in the worst case, the ISIS victory in Iraq ? One result is obvious, they will sit on top of lots of oil and sell it in world markets. Coincidentally, they have been bootlegging the oil recently and selling at $30 a barrel, 3 times cheaper than world price, and maybe causing the latest (unexplained) decrease of gasoline price at the pump in the US.
But “loss of Iraq” by itself might not be quite the end of the story. The base of ISIS power are the Sunnis at their arrogant worst, the same as was the bedrock of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The ISIS has a fierce foe in Iran, where the Shia clerics, the nemesis of the Sunnis in the last 1000 years are dominant. And there is the Assad regime in Syria, coming from Alawite sub-sect of the Shia, friendly with Iran and kept afloat with weapons supplied by Russia.
Figuring how America’s national interest relates to this conundrum is something else. And it is not clear who in the USA understands it best. One school says that promoting democracy in that region is essential for America’s national security -- if it can be done without sending US soldiers into harm’s way. Sending the troops had been tried big in 2003, and the result was zilch after ten years of military occupation.
Another school of thought suggests the national interest is where the money is. If we had managed to live with Saddam’s Iraq (while arming it against Iran’s Islamic state after overthrow of the Shah), maybe this time watching two Islamic states at loggerheads one against the other would not be a tragedy.
Would Russia gain advantage from an outcome such as above? Not unless Obama makes it easy for Russia. Right now Obama does not comprehend that Ukraine is not only defending Europe (while NATO is dysfunctional) but is also a thorn in Russia’s side if Putin tries to play big in Syria (perhaps in cohoots with Iran).
Obama makes it easy for Russia by being dismissive about Putin’s moves in Ukraine, the only country that really stands in Moscow’s way. Wrapping up Ukraine would reinstate the Russian empire --- which “does not pose a threat to us,” if we follow Obama’s logic.
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Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.
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