RUSSIA DESK

ERIC ZUESSE—The Syrian and Russian Governments had planned to finish them off there in Idlib, so that none of them could escape back into their home countries to continue their jihad. However, the U.S. and its allies raised ‘humanitarian’ screams at the U.N. and other international organizations, in order to protect the ‘rebels’ against the ‘barbarous dictator’ of Syria, its President, Bashar al-Assad — just in order to create more anti-Assad (and anti-Russian, and anti-Iranian) propaganda. And, so, on 9 and 10 September 2018, Putin and Erdogan and Rouhani met in Rouhani’s Tehran to decide what to do. By that time, Erdogan was riding the fence between Washington and Moscow. On 17 September 2018, I headlined “Putin and Erdogan Plan Syria-Idlib DMZ as I Recommended” and reported that Putin and Rouhani entrusted Idlib to Erdogan, with the expectation that Erdogan would keep the jihadists penned-up there, so that Putin and Assad would be able to bomb them to hell after the ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Idlib would be no longer on front pages. As things turned out, Erdogan double-crossed Putin and Rouhani, and just grabbed the territory.

NATYLIE BALDWIN—And now for a sharp counterpoint in how not to do foreign policy. The Trump administration has managed to push Iran even deeper into China’s embrace. Apparently Trump doesn’t understand that tearing up diplomatic agreements – partly on behalf of Israel’s interests – followed by ham-fisted attempts to bully the other nation into total submission is likely to blow up in his face, Wiley Coyote style.

JASON HIRTHLER—Christopher Hitchens once argued that “that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” One wishes this were a staple truth anchored in the American consciousness. Thus we could dispatch such stories just as hastily as they were foisted upon us. But that is asking too much by half. Credulity is both a boon and a curse, as politics proves daily. A Reuters poll found that 60 percent of Americans believed the story. More damningly but unsurprisingly, 81 percent see Putin as a threat to the United States, while 54 percent wanted to impose sanctions on Russia in response to the unproven assertions.

T.P. WILKINSON—To discuss the quantity of suffering an empire’s destruction might cause as “more than the cost of its survival” would certainly have met with considerable wonder in India before 1947. What his type does not see is that the United States is not just the territory and inhabitants of North America and Hawaii. Israel is not just a state settled in Palestine, accommodating the good Jews and terrorizing the Palestinian population. The United States was born as an empire. Had it remained within those boundaries established by the eradication of the indigenous peoples and expulsion of Mexicans by the end of the 19th century, that empire would probably have remained as relatively benign in the world as the Brazilian Empire which has confined itself largely to the exploitation of its own internal boundaries. It is reasonable to say that there was an admittedly very short period when despite the European “invasion” that produced Israel, its legitimacy could have been established.

BRYAN MACDONALD—Western media coverage of the process has been typically one-track, focusing on the Putin term-limits issue while ignoring or glossing over the fact that the vast majority of Russians still clearly support his system. Once upon a time, this was attributed to the power of ‘state TV,’ but today, when the internet is beginning to overtake the zombie box as the primary source of news, that unsophisticated trope is clearly redundant. Russia is not a dictatorship, and Putin is not a dictator. The setup is ‘soft’ authoritarian and it relies on the consent of the majority to keep going. Russian people are not stupid, and they know what sort of alternatives would be on offer if they lost faith in the current arrangement.