After calling 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer” without a soul, 78-year-old President Joe Biden finds himself alienated among world leaders, surprised by his boorish behavior. Showing immediate repercussions of offending Putin, the Russian Federation struck remaining rebel enclaves in northwestern Syria, where former President Barack Obama and Biden spent billions waging proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos March 16 that Puin was a “soulless killer,” warning Putin he “would pay a price” for messing with U.S. democracy. Five days after Biden’s vile public remarks, Putin bombed residual rebel strongholds in Idlib province, where the Syrian army recently killed seven civilians and injured 14 medics attacking a hospital in rebel-held territory. Hitting a gas facility in Samada City in Idlib, Putin has thrown down the gauntlet.
Setting the border crossing from Syria into Turkey ablaze near the towns of al-Bab and Jarablus where Turkey holds control of rebel areas, Putin attacks U.S. interests, part of the bigger proxy war against al-Assad. Obama and Biden’s policy backing various Syrian rebels groups was an abysmal failure, prompting Russian intervention Sept. 31, 2015, throwing a monkey wrench into the Saudi-U.S.-Turkey funded proxy war to topple al-Assad’s Damascus government. Hitting rebel areas today shows that Putin serves notice on Biden that if he wants to play hardball Putin can exact a toll whenever he wants. “The Russian aerial strikes are continuing. Ballistic missiles have also hit areas close to civilian centers,” said Mayor Youssef Hamoud. “They seek sow chaos and confusion,” Turkey has a vested interest in the Syrian border towns, asking Russia to stop the shelling.
Given stepped up military activity along the Syrian-Turkish border, Biden has no options other that redeploying U.S. advisers and coordinating with Turkey’s Kurdish archenemy Peoples Protection Units AKA the YPG militia. Turkey considers the YPG and PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] its mortal enemies, despite the Kurdish alliance with the United States. Unlike most rebel groups in the region, the YPG and PKK have independent governance in the border areas around Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran, operating in what’s called Kurdistan. Kurdistan’s lack sovereignty, having been ignored in the Treaty of Versailles after WW I, where several Mideast countries were granted sovereignty over land once occupied by Turkey’s Ottoman Empire. Kurds were left to fend for themselves, something that gone one more than 100 years. Every time there’s talk of Kurdish sovereignty, there’s violent opposition.
No sovereign country in the northwestern territory of Syria, including Turkey, Iraq and Iran want any part of a sovereign Kurdistan. Last time Kurds voted Sept. 25, 2017 for an independent Kurdistan in Iraq’s oil-rich Kirkuk, the Iraqi government sent it its military drive the Kurds out. Former President Donald Trump had a chance to influence the movement for a sovereign Kurdistan but, in the end, allowed Baghdad to call the shots. Hitting a hospital today in the city of Aareb, killing a woman and child, along with six other civilians, Turkey’s 67-year-old President RecepTayyip Erdogan asked Putin to stop the bombing. Syrian government troops followed up the Russian bombardment shelling the rebel-held town of Anha. Biden finds himself in a real dilemma, having insulted Putin when he could have worked together in the region to help advance U.S. interests.
So when Biden shot off his mouth March 16 to Stephanopoulos calling Putin a “soulless killer,” he’s now seeing the immediate consequences. Things could get much worse for Biden if Putin decides to move into the Donbass regions of southeastern Ukraine. When Putin annexed Crimea March 1, 2014 Obama and Obama did nothing, other that talking up NATO. Former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney found out the hard way Aug. 1, 2008 when Putin invaded Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia, watching as former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili begged for U.S. help. Instead of working with Putin, Biden decided he’s play the 78-year-old tough guy, challenging Putin when he can’t back it up. Now U.S. national security has been compromised by Biden because of extraneous matters related 44-year-old to Russian dissident Alexi Navalny.
Biden’s created a real mess for U.S. foreign policy calling Putin a “killer” to Stephanopoulos on national TV. Stephanopoulos should be ashamed of himself baiting Biden into what about to a major gaffe hurting U.S. national security. Let there be no mistake, Stephanopoulos manipulated Biden knowing he’s cognitively challenged, asking him incendiary questions about Russian meddling in U.S. democracy. Stephanopoulos knows that the questions he asked Biden were not fact-based but based on pure speculation of Russian interference in U.S. election and other matters. Biden lacks the filters to restrain himself from making a colossal blunder. Calling Putin a “soulless killer” shocked leaders around the world, not willing to antagonize one of the world’s most influential leaders. Watching Russian bombing in Syria reminds Biden that he has little clout in the region to confront Putin.
