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President
Obama hopes of using the “Wag the Dog” strategy of starting a small war in
Syria to divert attention from collapsing re-election prospects just got
allot more complicated as Syria successfully just shot down a Turkish Air
Force American made F-4E 2020 reconnaissance plane with a Russian made and
most likely operated SA-5 surface-to-air-missile. Given the plane was hit
while flying extremely low and fast less than a mile off the Syrian coast, it
seems obvious the plane was spying on coastal defenses
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The
loss of a front line NATO war plane prior to hostilities being officially
declared, demonstrates the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad and his Russian
allies are “locked and loaded” to demonstrate they will not be intimidated by
President Obama.
President
Bill Clinton successfully pioneered the Wag the Dog strategy in a 1997 NATO
bombing campaign of Yugoslavia to distracted public outrage from the Monica
Lewinsky scandal. President Obama had hoped to follow Clinton’s play-book of
funding an escalating Syrian rebellion, convince NATO to declare a humanitarian
emergency and then send in the U.S. Air Force to bomb the supposed offender for
the nightly news.
Politically,
the last month has been a disaster for Obama’s re-election campaign, with the
latest Rasmussen election poll showing him now 5 percentage points down to Mitt
Romney and falling fast. Under vicious attack from his own base since the start
of the year for not upholding their liberal progressive ideals, the President
has been forced to triangulate away from ingratiating the Wall Street and big
business financial interests who so mightily funded his last campaign.
Obama’s
highly visible embrace of the divisive issues of abortion rights, gay marriage
and immigration amnesty cooled the ire of his base, but also turned off
Catholics and soccer moms. As his re-election fortunes have tumbled, Obama has ratcheted
up his justification for a U.S. intervention in Syria.
The
shooting down of the NATO member jet comes two days after we published “The
Arab Spring Turns to Winter”, to detail how the Obama Administration and Saudi
Arabia were funneling weapons and foreign jihadi warriors into Syria to bolster
the rebellion. Yesterday, the New York Times followed with a report that
Central Intelligence Agency agents in Turkey are handling the logistics for
trans-shipment of heavy weapons to the
rebels. Our report also warned Hezbollah, Syria and
Iran’s ally, is actively trying to destabilize the rebels’ supply lines in
Northern Lebanon, and Russia has sent a naval task force that includes an
aircraft carrier, helicopter gunships, and marines to demonstrate Russia’s
willingness to protect their Syrian port at Tartus.
The
President had hoped that Syrian adventure would play-out in a similar manner as
ousting Colonel Gadhafi from Libya. But in Libya the eastern half of the
country was able to throw out the Libyan army in the first days of the
rebellion. By the time NATO declared its humanitarian no-fly zone, the Libyan
anti-aircraft system’s over-lapping fields-of-fire was compromised and NATO
planes faced only modest ground defenses.
No
such luxury will be experienced in Syria since after a year of turmoil the
rebels have not been able take any cities as a base of operations. During this
period, the Syrians have been resupplied with the most sophisticated
anti-aircraft systems their Russian benefactors have to offer. According to a
June 15 article in The New York Times, Syria has acquired Pantsyr-S1 and Buk-M2
anti-aircraft missiles that are known to be highly effective against air or sea
attacks. Plus in recent years, Syria had already been spending $500 million a year
on competitive Russian weapons. Brig. Gen. Itay Baron, head of the Israel
Defense Force Military Intelligence Research Department stated that together
Syria and Iran have approximately 3,500 missiles and Hezbollah has about 60,000
rockets and missiles aimed at Israel; 10 times more than Israel faced in 2006.
Desperate
to move the needle of public opinion back in his favor, President Obama now
finds himself in a risky trap of his own making. If he backs off of support for
the Syrian rebels, he risks being seen as cowering when facing a united
strength of Syria, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. If he boldly charges forward, he
risks sparking a full scale war against enemies who know how to fight and will
kill.
If you would like Chriss Street to speak to your organization, contact chriss@chrissstreetandcompany.com Chriss Street’s latest book: “The Third Way” is now available at www.amazon.com
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