Attacks in Syria Ratchet Up Likelihood of U.S.-Russia military clash

… about which Ray tried to explain – and warn – four weeks ago, when Kerry and Lavrov reached their next-to-last Potemkin-Village-type agreement to tamp down the violence.  This clip was posted at the time (on raymcgovern.com).

RT asked Ray for instant reaction to the sputtering marathon talks today in Geneva between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as soon as the concluding press conference was over on August 26th.

(six minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1qFUFCaXVE&feature=youtu.be

Normally, it takes Ray just 15 minutes to get to RT’s studio in Washington.  He suspects this is largely why he has become a go-to interviewee on fast-breaking developments like the penultimate Kerry-Lavrov failure (on August 26) to work out an agreement that could stick.  Ray called the thinly disguised failure what it was and addressed the factors that made it so.  Those same factors have brought the instant crash of what now seems to be the ultimate (as in “last’) Kerry-Lavrov agreement on Syria.

In a word, the Pentagon and CIA are running foreign policy for Obama.  Could Kerry have been unaware that, when push came to shove, they would prevail?  Did he think, rather, that he might prevail by force of personality over the “blood-soaked” arms industry and Russia-bashers?

Most important, the possibility of direct U.S.-Russian military clashes (not just vicarious ones through proxies) now looms LARGE.  Hapless President Obama and his sophomore advisers – with little appreciation of Russia’s military power and its determination to use it to protect its soft underbelly – are in this thing way over their heads.  Needless to say, this is dangerous.

As the November election approaches, Obama is likely to give even freer rein to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.  Carter, together with his hawkish generals and civilian officials (not to mention the bevvy of former officials waiting in the wings for senior appointments under Hillary Clinton), have made no secret of that their common preference is to bloody, not cooperate with, the Russians.

President Putin and his military, for their part, are likely to see the next few months as crucial to saving the Bashar al-Assad government AND decimating the threat from ISIS and other terrorists – “moderate” or immoderate – supported by the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, et al.  As long as Obama keeps playing the fiddle while Syria burns, the U.S. military will be doing more shock and awe in there.  And the Russians, with far more skin in the game than Washington has, are likely to strike still harder.  Fasten your seat belts.