Vladimir Putin is pulling Assad’s fat from the fire in Syria. At least that’s how it looks to America. He’s sending military assets to Syria and told Assad all he needs to do is just whistle and Russian troops will be on the way. The U.S. government is still wondering what all of this means. The U.S. government doesn’t realize that in the grand scheme of things, it all comes down to knowing culture. Russians play chess. America plays poker. Putin was looking at moves on the board ten years down the road. America was only worried about bluffing its way through the next hand. The United States thought it needed three more queens to make a four-of-a-kind and forgot to guard its own queen on the chess board. Hilariously, it will be Russia to clean up Syria and it’ll probably take two months. Putin walks away with Syria and Iran will be kicking the tires on a neo-Warsaw Pact offer from Russia which will certainly emerge.

The U.S. will sit there looking at its irrelevant cards and then slap its forehead, not realizing this was a chess match, not a poker game. Putin has the U.S. in check over there in Syria and the U.S. did the only thing it could do: Move its king out of check. That is, it had to accept Russia in Syria. John Kerry is sitting there going, “Well, uh, we need a meeting to make sure U.S. aircraft don’t accidently hit Russians. And, uh, why are there Russian fighter aircraft and SAMs there?” Because, dummy, if American aircraft “accidently” hit Russians, they’re going to get a hotfoot.

The Pentagon is scared witless. See, ISIS managed to capture several M1 tanks from the Iraqi army who conveniently bailed out of them and ran, leaving the keys in the ignition. Now, Russia has sent some of their latest T-90s to Syria. I would wager those T-90s are under orders to take out those M1s. At which point, the “invincible” U.S. M1 tank is shown to be highly vulnerable to Russian armor and the entire world gets to see it on You Tube. And any U.S. threats over Ukraine can be laughed off because we haven’t got the armor to back it up. We can’t afford to go into production of a new main battle tank and then make them on a scale the Russians can. Besides, we’re talking the U.S. defense industry. The “new” tank they’d dream up would probably have a design glitch that killed the crew when the gun was fired. Plus, the Pentagon is crapping bricks over the possibility that a Russian SAM or, worse, a Russian fighter could shoot down America’s trillion dollar Wunderwaffen, the F-22s or F-35s. Perhaps in a mistaken identity incident where U.S. aircraft hit Russians and they defended themselves. That’d be as embarrassing as the M1s getting de-turreted by those T-90s. It would show how for all the money spent, none of that aircraft is actually superior in reality against genuine opponents, as opposed to camel caravans. So they want to avoid that at all costs. Hence, the “cooperation” with Russia over Syrian airspace protocol.

Putin certainly knows that, so he’ll use that as an advantage. He can use his aircraft to clobber ISIS with impunity and use them for ground-support operations of Syrian ground forces. Something the U.S. refused to do. Plus, if Putin embeds Russian troops with Syrian forces, the U.S. will be in deep dookey if our aircraft have an “oopsie” with Assad’s people. So far, no American has seen the hand writing on the wall. The message is this: American foreign policy in the Middle East is about to come to an abrupt end. The future there belongs to Russia.

Now, back in history, the U.S. and the Soviets waged a proxy war during the Lebanese Civil War. Our aircraft and SAMs in the hands of Israel against theirs in the hands of Syria. And the U.S.-made toys came out as vastly superior. But that will not happen a second time. Vladimir Putin does his homework. This isn’t Leonid Brezhnev over there. The U.S. has gotten itself into check in Syria very nicely. Anywhere it moves on the board, it’ll get back into check. It can’t risk hitting Russians, it can’t continue trying to topple Assad but it can’t back Assad, and it can’t afford to have its weapons defeated by Russian weapons and the whole world see that. However, the thing is, the U.S. is going to lose its entire foreign policy over there if Russia defeats ISIS, which it will. How so?

For one thing, the U.S. has been involved in operations against ISIS for a year now. Let Russia go in there and get rid of ISIS in a few months, the entire Middle East will see who gets results and who doesn’t. That translates into who has the best military capabilities, better weapons for the money, and more advantageous defense alliances.

Iran could benefit from an alliance with Russia. To wit, access to military aircraft it needs badly. Hey, they pulled off an airstrike against ISIS several months back using F-4 Phantoms they cobbled together. They could use some newer birds. Now that the U.S. has been repeatedly poking the Russian bear, they have no reason to embargo weapon sales to Iran anymore. They sold Iran some missile defense systems recently to break the ice, so to speak. Iran wouldn’t need to bother with America anymore. Especially if they signed a mutual defense pact with Russia. Iraq might just join the party, too.

Oh, the Republicans are going to whine about this soon enough. As soon as they figure out our king on the Middle East chessboard is in some pretty serious doo-doo. Not to mention the Saudi king who’ll sweat ballistic missiles, to say nothing of bullets, if Iran and Syria have Russia backing them. The balance of power over there is about to change and the United States is soon to become Option Two on the Emergency Call phone list for everyone over there except Israel, Saudi Arabia, and a few other Gulf states. The Republicans will blame Obama for dropping the ball. Actually, there never was a ball, guys. It was a chessboard. The pieces were on the board when Emperor Dubya ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003. For now, the Republicans are too busy worrying about Muslims running for president in America and, one supposes, a First Lady wearing a hijab. Putin just opened a mosque in Moscow; said to be Europe’s biggest.

See, chess is a very fascinating game. It’s a game of deep thought, which the American government is unable to perform. Recently, Putin met with al-Sisi over in Egypt. He presented al-Sisi with a gift—an AK-47 rifle in a nice display case. Now, do you see the United States giving a gift like that? No, they probably gave al-Sisi a solar-powered watch or something. Putin opened a mosque in Moscow, showing he’s not afraid of Muslims and they’re welcome there. He knows that to make friends in the Middle East. He can take a stand against radical Muslims without alienating Muslims as a whole by making ignorant remarks about them as have Republican presidential candidates and politicians. By the time the Republicans figure out what just happened, it will be too late.

All I can say is, the sooner the better. American foreign policy wars in the Middle East have been nothing but a Vietnam miniseries. Hilariously enough, they paved the way for Russia to come in and probably have success. The U.S. sat there watching the Russian rook in Ukraine and that might not have been the actual move to even be worried about. That’s the thing about chess. You’ve got to know how to play it. American presidents don’t. So even a Republican elected in 2016 is going to fumble this one. The biggest mistake made was alienating Russia in the first place. That mistake right there was the single biggest mistake that touched off the Fall of the American Empire. We are now witnessing the very beginning of that watershed event.  Like I said, you’ve got to know how to play chess. The U.S. government came to play politics. But Vladimir Putin came to play chess. And win.

Jack Perry is an arrowmaker and writer who lives in the Four Corners area of the Southwestern United States. He has been a truck driver, a purchasing agent at a now-defunct renewable energy company (don't even ask him about the "Green energy" scam), and served in the 101st Airborne Division. He spends his time practicing traditional archery, making arrows in the wilds of the Arizona high desert, and finding himself only mildly amused by the antics of the Great Father in Washington. himalayanraven@yahoo.com  - Via Lew Rockwell