In 2015, when Bashar Assad was losing the war to stay in power in Syria, advocated for Russian military intervention and got it.
President Barack Obama He reacted with airy disdain.
“An attempt to Russia and Iran supporting Assad and trying to pacify the population is only going to trap them, and it won’t work,” Obama said in October.
It turned out different.
The Russian military, led by some of the same officers now commanding the Russian president’s war Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, achieved a unexpected victory about a brutalized people and a self-deceived US administration.
The key to Russia’s success was the deliberate, indiscriminate and massive slaughter of civilians.
“Rescue teams in Aleppo reported that their cars and headquarters were among the first targets hit on Friday,” reported Anne Barnard and Somini Sengupta of The New York Times in September 2016.
“The effect was instant: now when people are buried under rubble, no one comes. Or they take longer to arrive. Relatives return to exhume relatives with their own hands.”
This is the approach that Putin, with the help of Iranian drones, is now taking in Ukraine.
On Monday, the Russian attacks left without water to 80% of the residents of Kyiv, according to estimates by Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Dozens of energy facilities have also been affected.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Economy estimates that up to 130,000 buildings have been destroyed in Russian attacks since the war began, including 2,400 schools.
The strategy is clear.
Putin’s armies could be falling back in the field.
But if he can freeze, starve and terrorize the Ukrainian people by going after their water supplies and energy infrastructure — while waiting for winter to slow Ukraine’s advance — he could still force Ukraine to agree to some kind of armistice, leaving him in possession of most of his conquests.
That would count as a victory in Putin’s books, however hurt he might be.
It would also be an encouragement Xi Jinping of China while looking at Taiwan and Ali Khamenei of Iran as it tries to suppress weeks of protest that are beginning to have the color of a revolution.
Much more is at stake in Ukraine’s outcome than the fate of Ukraine itself.
What can the Biden administration do?
Plus.
And more quickly.
Until now, we have had a policy of punctual delivery of critical weapons, such as Javelin and Stinger missiles who saved kyiv at the beginning of the war and HIMARS, the rocket systems that turned the tide of the war in the summer.
We need to shift to an approach that is constantly maintained for in front of of the pace of war and weather.
On Tuesday, the administration announced that it would soon deliver to Ukraine two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS, with ranges of up to 30 miles.
But there is a problem: only “within the next few years”, according to a Times report, Ukraine will be able to receive the next six systems.
The Ukrainians, whose country is almost the size of Texas, need the systems now.
If the United States can’t deliver them quickly, we can at least provide the Ukrainians unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that can provide defensive capabilities and greatly improved detection at much longer ranges.
The Biden administration has been considering the sale of four of the US Army’s long-endurance UAVs armed with Hellfire missiles since June, but the request has been held up in the bowels of the Pentagon bureaucracy for months by excessive fears of that some of their technologies might fall. in Russian hands.
Why not approve the sale, ramp up the numbers, and start training Ukrainians on the systems right away?
We can also start blaming the Russians for their wanton destruction of critical infrastructure, which the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenhas aptly named “acts of sheer terror” and “war crimes”.
I have argued for months that we need to turn Russia’s frozen foreign reserves into a escrow account for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
And we must let the Russian people know that with every criminal bombardment of missiles, they will have trapped hundreds of billions dollars in repairs.
Finally, the administration should warn Iran’s leaders that their unmanned aerial vehicle factories will be attacked and destroyed if they continue to supply kamikaze drones to Russia, in flagrant violation of the Resolution 2231 of the UN Security Council.
Ukraine will never have reason to fear the United States for any of its malign behavior.
All countries must be warned that the price for aiding Moscow in its slaughter will be elevated.
All of these options, and I could add others, such as providing Ukraine with better armor and longer-range rockets that can hit Russian military targets in Crimea, carry risks.
And the administration is right to think carefully about which risks are worth taking and which the American public will support.
Right now, however, the biggest risk is that Putin will use the same heinous strategy that it worked for him in Syria, blanketing Ukraine in terror like it was covered in snow.
Winter is coming.
Let’s help Ukraine prevail before it comes.
c.2022 The New York Times Company