Putin in the 'Mother of All Battles'
Opinion
Ghassan Charbel
He stood alone at night before the map. The decisive appointment is not made by voters. It is an appointment by the spirit of the nation that is awaiting a strong man on whom it can hang its concerns and hopes. A long deep history has charged him with an important task that he will not hesitate in fulfilling. This is a decisive year in his career. He looks at the clock on the wall. If only he could pause it. He will turn 70 before the end of the year. He gazes at the map. The former borders of the Soviet Union are a festering wound in his memory. The vast country died and inheritors clamored to divide the spoils. They are unlucky. Russia has summoned and ordered him to prepare for the major coup. Russia has throughout history lived amidst the dangers. It battled and was battled. It fought and was fought and killed. It is in a better position now. The Persians whom Russia waged several wars with dispatched their president a few weeks ago. He sat at the same chair that the president of the Elysee would later occupy. Raisi came to request the deepening of cooperation after he became certain - like several others - that Russia is no longer the sick man. Raisi is aware that his country was on verge of losing the "crescent" had Russia not rushed to send its military to save president Bashar Assad's regime. The Ottomans, who fought Russia in ten wars, have sent their president several times to Russia after they became neighbors on Syrian territory. Recep Tayyip Erdogan not only sought to appease it, but he went further than that. He bought the S-400 system and effectively deployed it in NATO. He gazes at the map. Europe was always the source of poisonous winds. Napoleon subjugated his neighbors and was deluded in believing that he could crown his victories by subjugating Russia. Hitler did not derive lessons from Napoleon's defeat and he waged a battle that was suicide for his rule and country. Europe is an old continent, but the American shadow guards it and pushes it to play harmful roles in containing Russia through colorful revolutions or abiding by NATO laws. He smiles. Europe is not the problem. It has grown old and haggard. Without Russian gas, it will be killed by the cold. It is the American thread alone that guards its example, awakens its will and revives its stubbornness. He has stifled his feelings long enough and concealed his calculations. He will not accept anything less than closing the chapter on America as the world's greatest power that was born with the fall of the Berlin Wall and that danced on the Soviet Union's corpse. He smiles mockingly. The sun of the single major world power will set at his hands, not Xi Jinping's. There are scenes that he will not allow to be replayed. The American war machine crushed the Taliban regime. The system of fighters who were trained by America forced the Red Army to withdraw weakened from that treacherous country. He remembers it well. He was in his Kremlin office when George Bush appeared from the White House to deliver Saddam Hussein and his family an ultimatum to withdraw within 48 hours or face war. He watched on television how the American forces crushed the Soviet weapons that Saddam depended on. He was prime minister when the NATO pounded Gaddafi's convoys and their Soviet weapons. He will not allow such scenes to play out again. He will not allow Russia to stand helpless on the sidelines as a second rate power. He will never ever allow a repeat of the humiliating scene in Moscow's Arbat Street. The scene of piles of Soviet military uniforms and their medals being sold for a handful of dollars to tourists and gloaters. He looks at the clock. The West is afraid. It does not have the desire for war. It plays the same tune of "dire consequences" and "heavy price to pay". He laughs. When fear invades a country, it may spare you the hassle of sending an army to it. Here we have the West that has turned into a captive of the Ukrainian trap. Intimidation helps you turn a neighboring country into a hostage and helps you dictate your conditions to release it. Forcing NATO to abandon its dream of expansion is the beginning of forcing it to make do with the positions it gained when Russia was buried under the Soviet rubble. By taking hostages, you can guide major countries into small cages because they fear for the lives of their citizens. The West today is confined in the Ukrainian cage. His advisors relayed to him the western comments. This one says his is playing Russian roulette. That one says that backing down is fraught with danger, as was appeasing Hitler. Some claim that he has become detached from reality and that his game may bloody both the world and his country. The czar disdains his rivals and sometimes his allies. It is not true that he is reckless. The recapture of Crimea was a successful test. As was the experiment of military intervention in Syria. He recalls how Barack Obama warned of red lines in Syria and how Sergei Lavrov succeeded in deceiving Washington. Biden, who is cut from the Obama cloth, will not be able to draw a red line on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Revenge is fun when you are strong. They are abandoning Ukraine. One country withdraws its diplomats and another pulls out its military advisors. It is the time to flee Ukraine. He thinks about the president in Kyiv. A director and an actor. He never imagined that he would be confronted with such a harsh and precise Russian series. He was already living in the mysterious and strict world of the KGB when Volodymyr Zelensky was born. The battle is decisive. Sitting on his table is his image and another of his country. How hard it is to turn back. He is counting on the Americans' preoccupation with the "Chinese danger". He is counting on the Europeans' fear of rockets and the rumbling of tanks. He will not back down despite the western visits and calls with the US president. The purpose of the major coup is to convince the world that America has lost its bite. That is why he made sure to showcase to the world the Chinese-Russian alliance before pushing the Ukrainian crisis to its climax. It is a new chapter in the world. If Putin succeeds in turning Ukraine into the new Finland, then why should China continue to keep independent Taiwan as a thorn in its side? If he succeeds in his major coup, then what will the beloved North Korean leader conclude? If the mighty has the right to dictate his choices to his neighbors, then what will Iran, Turkey and all countries, which believe they are being unjustly confined in their current borders, conclude?
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3473891/ghassan-charbel/putin-mother-all-battles
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