Comment on The Belmont Club "Attacking in the opposite direction"

Turkey was an ally of the US and Israel through the Bush 41 and Clinton years. The John Kerry left wing of the Democratic Party sided with France's Jacques Chirac (who was paid off by Oil for Food) in pressuring the Turks to keep out the 4th Infantry Division during Desert Storm. Ever since then the religious extremists have been gaining power in Turkey. This week Turkey agreed to establish diplomatic relations with the Russian client regime in Armenia. Georgia is now surrounded. We can expect Russian and Georgian ships to cooperate in "peace keeping" patrols to escort shipping into Abkhazia. It will be easy for them to arrange a provocation to set in motion the subjugation of Georgia.

After another Winter with Russia tightening the energy screws on the Ukraine and Western Europe, already being tossed to Russia by Obama's breaking faith with Poland and the Czechs, will set the stage for the reabsorbing, starting in the Spring, of Russia's Near Abroad.

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Dan in Colorado,
"Steve J. Nelson" is our regular SVR control. He has a chair already set up for him and if you need cigarettes made with cardboard or a decent bottle of Slivovitz from Vojvodena he should be able to arrange delivery. For most of the Summer I wondered where the visitors we had during the Georgian War of last year went. Their return could be an indication that plans are being executed and, to draw an analogy from another thread, railway timetables are being dusted off.

Mick,
I claim no expert knowledge. My expectation is that Putin is being methodical and let this years campaign season go because he sees things moving his way in the near term. In the long term he has demographic problems but that is another story. Therefore I think he is moving step by step to isolate, destabilize and reestablish subservient client regimes in his victims one at a time. What order will he select to move on them? Will Georgia be next? Probably but the Ukraine is there and eventually the Baltics and Poland. Each sits shivering in the dark now awaiting its turn.

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The argument that Israel, or the "Neocon Israel Lobby" in America, should accept Russian subjugation of the Caucasus, and by extension most of Europe, in return for a future promise of natural gas to be supplied by Russia and a nuclear armed Iran belongs in the Trial Balloon Hall of Fame. This lends new meaning to the term "natural gas."