War on the horizon

Turkey helped Iran evade international sanctions, but has since fallen out with the Islamic Republic of Iran over its support of Syria's Bashar Assad. A Muslim Brotherhood supporter, Erdogan was close to Egypt's former President, Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi, and has been an outspoken adversary of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Turkey was and remains a conduit for arms and money for various parties to the Syrian civil war. The U.S. has demanded that Erdogan seal Turkey's border with Syria, which he has not done. Turkey also has bombed Kurdish fighters; deployed its forces to Iraqi territory and declined to remove them; and sold ISIS oil on the black market. There are allegations that the Turkish government knew sarin gas was transferred to ISIS across Turkish territory. In November, Turkey shot down a Russian military jet, in the biggest move down the current slide of Turkish-Russian relations, which began when Vladimir Putin stepped in to prevent the collapse of Syria. [This is on top of historical animosity between Turkey, the successor to Muslim Ottoman rule, and Russia, the self-proclaimed defender of the Christian Orthodox Church.]

Russia, furious at the downing of its plane, instituted a series of economic sanctions against Turkey, the most important of which is suspension of the TurkStream project, designed to boost Russian gas exports to Turkey. Turkey is the second-largest importer of Russian gas, after Germany.

It's not long ago that Turkey wanted to buy Chinese missiles and was reprimanded by NATO. They joined the low rank in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and wanted to be on the path to full membership. When told that this was not possible while being a NATO member, they were quite dismissive of NATO. They were also dismissive of EU membership. Now it's buddies again. Erdogan + Assad, google that, they were quite friendly for a while, buddies like the French President Chirac and Saddam Hussein.

In that region they change their attitudes and allegiances like the weather. Anybody who takes them seriously will be burned. 

"Any targets threatening our [military] group or land infrastructure must be immediately destroyed," Putin said, speaking at a Defense Ministry event.

Putin said over 5,000 members of the Free Syrian Army are operating on the terrorists’ side.

"In general, the actions of the Russian groups deserve high praise. This is a result of work by the Ministry of Defense, General Staff officers, Russian Air Force pilots and the Russian Navy," he added.

In the meantime, Sergey Shoigu, Russian Defense Minister, added that Islamic State is controlling about 70% of the Syrian territory, adding that in both Syria and Iraq there are about 60,000 militants.

"The Islamic State area of influence is expanding. Militants have seized about 70 percent of the Syrian territory," he said, “There is a threat that their actions will be transferred to Central Asia and the Caucasus.”

To the date, the Russian military have carried out about 4,000 sorties, striking around 8,000 terrorist objects in Syria, he added.

The Russian government has relied on responsible, non-provocative responses. Russia has taken the diplomatic approach, relying on European governments coming to their senses, realizing that their national interests diverge from Washington’s, and ceasing to enable Washington’s hegemonic policy. Russia’s policy has failed. To repeat, Russia’s low key, responsible responses have been used by Washington to paint Russia as a paper tiger that no one needs to fear.

We are left with the paradox that Russia’s determination to avoid war is leading directly to war.

Whether or not the Russian media, Russian people, and the entirety of the Russian government understand this, it must be obvious to the Russian military. All that Russian military leaders need to do is to look at the composition of the forces sent by NATO to “combat ISIS.” As George Abert notes, the American, French, and British aircraft that have been deployed are jet fighters whose purpose is air-to-air combat, not ground attack. The jet fighters are not deployed to attack ISIS on the ground, but to threaten the Russian fighter-bombers that are attacking ISIS ground targets.

There is no doubt that Washington is driving the world toward Armageddon, and Europe is the enabler. Washington’s bought-and-paid-for-puppets in Germany, France, and UK are either stupid, unconcerned, or powerless to escape from Washington’s grip. Unless Russia can wake up Europe, war is inevitable.

Have the totally evil, dumb***** neocon warmongers who control the US government taught Putin that war is inevitable?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-racing-recklessly-toward-world-war-iii/5494920">http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-racing-recklessly-toward-world-war-iii/5494920

Once in motion, things have a momentum of their own, heading toward what may be unstoppable. Washington’s grand strategy calls for replacing all independent governments with Western-controlled ones – mainly Russia and China, the main obstacles to achieving its hegemonic objectives.

Middle East tinderbox conditions rage, Washington determined to achieve regional control, waging one war of aggression after another, endless ones in multiple theaters , challenging Russia recklessly.