Is Syria Putin's Real Goal?

Vladimir Putin believes (probably correctly) that a fall from power will mean his death. Putin came to power after the 1998 oil price crash forced a Russian bond default, drove inflation to 80% and pushed Boris Yeltsin out of office. The price of oil has crashed again. Putin needs a higher price of oil or a significant military victory to stay in power.

Putin's military support of Bashir al Assad is designed to raise the price of oil by fomenting chaos in the Middle East. The price of oil has increased from about $45 a barrel to almost $50 a barrel for Brent crude since Putin's intervention started, nice but insufficient.

Putin has other reasons for optimism on oil prices. The Iran Nuclear deal guarantees a Middle East war in the next 6 months. It both permits unlimited Iranian oil sales and gives Iran access to $150 billion in formerly frozen assets. Iran's oil revenue last year was about $55 billion. This is big money for the Mad Mullahs to spend on weapons and training militias and terrorists.

I don't think the Israelis, Saudis and Egyptians are going to wait peacefully while the Iranians to make enough nuclear weapons to wipe them out. I expect them to attack Iran's two big economic vulnerabilities. Over 90% of Iran's oil exports flow through the Kharg Island oil terminal, 16 miles offshore. All of Iran's gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel is imported. They have no refineries. If Iran's enemies bomb Kharg Island and mine their harbors from the air, it puts Iran out of business economically. Iran would probably try to close the Strait of Hormuz to retaliate. Most of the Persian Gulf oil exports move through the Strait of Hormuz. Even if the Iranians are unsuccessful, the threat of attack may be enough. If the strait is a war zone, oil tanker ships moving through it will have no insurance. A significant amount of oil will not reach the international market.

I come to believe that Putin's Middle East moves may be a feint. If he’s going the military route, his target is most likely one of the three former Soviet Republics that are now NATO members. It's Putin's choice of Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania. I think Lithuania is a logical choice because taking it would give Russia land access to the Russian enclave of Kalingrad, formerly East Prussia. Putin has recently firmed up a deal with Belarus for a big Russian air base within striking distance of the Baltic States. This will be the first Russian military base in Belarus since it became an independent country.  The agreement didn’t get much coverage in the press.  I think even a massive Russian buildup on Lithuania’s border would not get much press either.

Barry the Brilliant has made polite gestures towards defending the Baltic countries, but nothing that would actually be effective. Our Smartest President Ever refuses to have more than a few hundred American soldiers in any of these countries, and they are just passing through. Obama also refuses to establish NATO air bases in any former Eastern Block counties because there's a treaty with Russia that promises we won't do that. Russia already broke that treaty, but we're still living up to it. If any NATO country falls to Russia, the failure of NATO to defend an ally effectively would destroy the alliance. Putin is desperate enough to try it. Given the Middle East chaos distracting world leaders, the general weakness of NATO and the specific weakness of the defenses in the Baltic countries, Putin has a decent chance of getting away with it.

Putin's Middle East Goals are More Economic Than Political

Putin’s goal in the Middle East is to raise the price of oil.  If war and chaos stop or even just reduce Middle East oil exports, the value of Russian oil production goes up.  Putin profits from chaos, so that's why he's selling weapons to the Iranians and putting troops in Syria.  If the Persian Gulf is closed to shipping due to war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, it's good for Putin's business. 

Putin's Russia has only one big money world class export sector, energy. Many of their major competitors in the world energy market are based in the Middle East. Putin hopes war and chaos in the Middle East will result in less oil and natural gas production in the region, which would drive up the price of oil. Putin probably needs an oil price of at least $100 per barrel to keep his regime out of bankruptcy. Today, the price of oil is about $46 per barrel. All of the prestige arguments are nice extras for Putin. But Putin's rise to power came after Russia's financial crisis in 1998 when the price of oil collapsed, Russian inflation topped 80% and Russia defaulted on its debts. The aftermath of the 1998 crisis forced Boris Yeltsin to leave power and Yeltsin choose Putin as his successor. Putin knows he can't survive another Russian financial meltdown. He needs a much higher price for oil and natural gas. So Putin is stirring the pot in hopes that he can foment a major war or at least continued chaos which reduces or completely shuts down oil exports from the Middle East. 

The fact that Putin is openly putting Russian troops on the ground in the Middle East says bad things about President Obama.  In 1973, when the Soviet Union was getting ready to send 6 paratroop divisions to Egypt, President Nixon raised the DEFCON alert level of all US Armed Forces.  I was a computer programmer in the 26^th Air Division Headquarters, a huge concrete blockhouse near Phoenix, Arizona, that controlled air defense for the Southwestern United States.  My war time duty was to use prevailing wind direction and speed to predict fallout radiation levels at Air Force bases downwind from nuclear ground bursts.  I got a phone call at about 9:30 PM calling me back to base.  Since we had a practice war that morning, it was not a drill.  Nixon, in effect, was threatening to get nasty if the Russians sent troops to help the Egyptians.  The Russians backed down.  I did not find out until the next morning why the DEFCON alert level had been raised.  My superiors had their orders, but were not given the reason for them.

The president we have today would never think of ordering a higher DEFCON alert level.  Barry the Brilliant has stopped the US from protecting innocent Syrian civilians from the choice of either barrel bombs and poison gas from Bashir al Assad, Iran and Russia, or holy terror, beheadings and sex slave auctions from ISIS.  However, Obama can't stop the Israelis from defending themselves against Russian aggression. 

The Russians have just entered a very tough neighborhood.  They probably have forgotten the lesson of the Israel-Syria Air War of 1982. The Russians, then as now were Syria's main arms supplier.   During a few days in June, 1982, the Israeli Air Force wiped out Syria's ground based air defense systems and shot down 82 Syrian fighter planes. Both the crews of surface to air missile sites and the fighter pilots were officially Syrian, but actually mainly Russian.  IAF losses were 0.  That's right, no Israeli aircraft were lost.  Although times and technologies have changed, the motivation of the IAF has not diminished.  They know that they either win or their families will be slaughtered. 

Putin probably has no intention of trying to win in Syria.  Realistically, I think a Russian win in Syria is beyond Putin’s reach.  Israel will not permit a Russian base which provides unlimited military supplies to their enemies in Lebanon and Syria to exist, and they have the means to destroy it militarily.  Putin just wants to extend the chaos in the Middle East for as long as possible.  If he gets a permanent naval port and airbase out of it, so much the better.  But chaos itself is good for Russian business and thus good enough for Putin.

What Did Corker's Deal Do For Republicans?

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, written by Republican Senator Bob Corker, set up a framework that mandates Congressional review of any arms control agreement with Iran, but allows the agreement to go into force unless Congress can override President Obama’s veto of a bill to stop the agreement.  Since the agreement seems very tilted in favor of President Obama, why would Corker write and help pass such legislation?

What Corker bought us is an on the record vote by every Democrat in Congress on the Iran agreement. Without the Corker bill, there would have been no vote at all. Traditionally, Congress does not vote on Executive Agreements. You must measure Corker’s agreement by the way the Smartest President Ever got the agreement ratified in the UN before Congress could even vote.  Without Corker’s agreement, there would have been no vote and no debate in Congress on the Iran deal.

Further, once that vote is taken, it will be a matter of public record that Barry the Brilliant acted without the advice and consent of anybody beyond his circle of cronies. The Israelis and Saudis are not going to wait quietly while Iran gathers the strength to kill them. They will attack first. The situation will quickly deteriorate in the Middle East to the point that even the Pravda Press can't ignore the general, perhaps nuclear, war that the agreement triggered. We will have a Democratic president, Obama, supported by Congressional Democrats who voted on the record, who made an agreement the majority of both Houses of Congress voted against. This Chicago Machine Prodigy will carry it out anyway, showing his true colors as an arrogant aspiring dictator. That will be a great campaign issue against every Democrat in 2016.

You should note that the Obama administration feels free to ignore Executive Agreements concerning nuclear disarmament whenever convenient. In 1994 the US, UK and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum with the Ukraine. In return for the Ukraine surrendering all of the former Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory, the US, UK and Russia guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ukraine. Last year, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from the Ukraine, then invaded the Ukraine from the east. The Smartest President Ever refused to send any weapons to help the Ukrainians. He only sent "non-lethal" aid. I know that US field rations are much better than Soviet era leftovers, but do you really believe that's keeping the promise of the Budapest Memorandum?

Since the Smartest President Ever has ignored Executive Agreements he didn’t like, and since the Iran Executive Agreement will have been put in force after being rejected by a majority in both houses of Congress, it should be relatively easy for a Republican president to cancel it in 2017.  If a Democrat is elected in 2016, the country will have so many problems that nuclear war in the Middle East may seem relatively minor.

Iran Deal Will Lead To Middle East War

Democrats believe that Saudi Arabia and Israel will wait patiently until Iran uses the benefits of Obama's deal to gather enough strength to kill them.  The deal frees $150 billion in frozen assets that Iran can use to buy weapons, train terrorists and finance weapons development.  The agreement allows the inspection of only "civilian" Iranian nuclear sites and allows the Iranians to demand 24 days advance notice of inspections.  So Democrats believe this deal has secured peace in our time.

I believe that Saudi Arabia and Israel will attack Iran very soon after the deal goes into effect because both Saudis and Israelis believe that Iran's threats to convert or kill all Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia and to wipe Israel off the map are exactly what the Iranians intend to do if given the chance.  

Iran's economy is very easy to damage.  About 90% of Iran's oil exports flow through the big oil terminal on Kharg Island, 16 miles off shore.  The Iraqi air force knocked out Kharg Island during the 198-1988 Iran Iraq war.  Both Saudi Arabia and Israel have air forces far superior to the Iraqi air force of the 80's.  

Also, while Iran has lots of crude oil, it has no oil refineries.  They import all refined oil products, including gasoline, diesel and kerosene.  Kerosene is widely used for home cooking, so shortages would cause political instability.  Mining Iran's major ports from the air would stop the importation almost all refined imports.

If the Saudis and Israelis decide to hit Iranian nuclear facilities directly, they can't do it with conventional weapons.  In particular, Iran's nuclear facility at Fordow has equipment levels as low as 300 feet below ground.  A 30,000 pound bunker buster bomb with conventional explosives might be able to inflict significant damage.  Unfortunately, only the US Air Force has the capability to deliver a bomb that heavy against current Iranian air defenses. The alternative for the Israelis is nuclear weapons.  What's worse is that any nuclear weapons targeted at Fordow will have to be ground bursts, that is the fireball will have to touch the ground.  This means a lot of radioactive dirt would get sucked up into the atmosphere.  Also, it’s not clear that only one nuclear weapon would do the job.  Due to payload restrictions of Israeli aircraft, they might not be able to use the kind of heavily armored ground penetrating nuclear bombs required to destroy Fordow.  Instead, they might have to dig Fordow out with two or three nuclear explosions spaced out 15 to 30 minutes apart.

To sum up, in my view, no deal means continuing the brush fire wars of the Middle East.  Singing the agreement means a general war in the Middle East that would likely escalate to nuclear weapons.  Liberals who back the deal with Iran are the real war mongers.

Is Obama's Deal Less Damaging Than Bush's Invasion?

The left is saying that Obama’s agreement with Iran is less damaging than Bush invading Iraq.  Given their own arguments, this can’t be true.  As the left reminds us constantly, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Under Barry the Brilliant's agreement, Iran will have nuclear weapons in at most 10 years time. A failed state in Iraq can inflict at most one World Trade Center scale attack on the US. While that would be terrible, three thousand killed would be dwarfed by the casualties of a successful nuclear attack on New York City. The left seems to be arithmetic challenged in both budgetary and military matters.

The Smartest President Ever has maneuvered the world to the point where Israel's only option appears to be war with Iran. Ironically, this appears to be the only option left to Saudi Arabia as well. The Saudis and Israelis have been quietly discussing cooperation in the last year or so.

The deal gives Iran access to $150 billion of frozen assets. To put this in perspective, Iran has about $55 billion in oil revenue per year. I don't think Iran's enemies in the region will permit Iran to sell oil in addition to the $150 billion they will have to spend on weapons and financing terrorism. About 90% of Iranian oil exports pass through the Kharg Island oil terminal, which is about 16 miles offshore. It is packed with oil storage tanks. We will know the war has started when we see a big fire on Kharg Island which destroys the oil terminal. In the Iran Iraq war (1980-1988), Saddam Hussein's air force knocked out Kharg Island.

The biggest problem that the Community Organizer in Chief has created with his extended diplomacy is the fortification of Iran's nuclear infrastructure. It's now the case that to destroy key facilities would probably require a 30,000 pound enhanced bunker buster bomb. Only the US Air Force has the capability to deliver this conventional explosive bomb against Iran's current air defenses. The Saudis and Israelis would need to use nuclear weapons. The Israelis have an estimated 150 nuclear warheads. The Saudis financed Pakistan's bomb, so they can always buy a few if they need to.

So all of this "peaceful" diplomacy has created a situation where war is almost inevitable. The only good news is that it won't involve US military action right away. We will probably have to pay some ransom to get back our troops in Iraq from Iran's control, but that's the end of our short term involvement.

Longer term, the world will be a huge mess we have to live in.