with a different leadership , America should make common cause with Russia and Putin and really prosecute the world wide war on radical Islam to a suitable conclusion ( Victory!) and also to act as a formidable front to keep China reined in . A US-Russia alliance would be awesome
“America should make common cause with Russia and Putin and really prosecute the world wide war on radical Islam to a suitable conclusion”
Naively, perhaps, this is how I happen to see it. I believe Putin is incredibly smart, though not without some degree of viciousness, and maybe not entirely trustworthy. However, standing in his shoes, an 0bama-led US is, as he said during the period when the US was seemingly primed for an intervention Syria, “a monkey with a hand grenade”. 0bama is not only not trustworthy in an absolute sense, he is untrustworthy from the standpoint of being willing to shift his positions to keep his movement and party in power. I don’t think Putin can take him seriously because he is so unstable. I think Putin is quite nationalistic as far as Russia is concerned and I don’t especially blame him for wanting to hold on to both Ukraine and Crimea.
I also think 0bama really spat in Putin’s face and should have thanked him profusely for his help on Syria. After all, 0bama seemed to offer unprecedented cooperation with his comment during the 2012 pres elections [paraphrasing] “I’ll be able to work with you much closer after the elections/after I am re-elected”.
That said, the US has no business getting involved in either Ukraine or Crimea and given the highly elevated persistent incompetence in all things foreign this admin has bumbled into, I can’t support any moves in that/those directions.
I wish it was different. I think the US and Russia could be good partners on many fronts if they could come to trust each other. As I said at the outset of my post, perhaps and probably that is a pretty naive view.
Why would you think Putin is a good partner for a war against radical Islam. The only thing to go by is how Putin acted in the years 2001-09, he did nothing to help us. Putin actually went out of his way to be a bur in our side while our guys were fighting and dying in the Middle East.
After our stupid involvement in Kosovo, any chance for future cooperation with Russia, went “Do Svidanya.”