40,000 Russian troops to Iraq? October surprise?

[Rose Siding]

The article is from yesterday's Stratfor, a subscription site, except for a blurb.

http://www.stratfor.com/coms2/page_home

Snips are posted at The Agonist

http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/7/16/1870/82806

Moscow and Washington are quietly negotiating a request by the Bush administration to send Russian troops to Iraq or Afghanistan this fall, Russian government sources tell Stratfor. The talks are intense, our contacts close to the U.S. State Department say, and the timing is not insignificant. A Russian troop lift to either country before the U.S. presidential election would give U.S. President George W. Bush a powerful boost in the campaign.
...
Sources close to Russia's Security Council tell Stratfor that Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to the request "in principle" and has directed the Russian General Staff to work up a plan by the end of the month.
...
If a troop agreement is reached, the Bush administration would enjoy not only a timely spike in the polls during the campaign season, but also the strategic, long-term benefit of having a sizable contingent -- as many as 40,000, Stratfor sources say -- of Russian troops relieve beleaguered American forces and free them up for regional purposes beyond Iraq.
...
Formations considered for the Russian deployment include three mechanized infantry divisions and one airborne brigade, Russian military sources say.
...
The Prime Minister's office has issued a directive to the ministry to prepare a Russian "wish list" for Washington seeking some level of quid pro quo, including steps to return Russian oil companies to Iraq and approval of Russia's joining the World Trade Organization.

http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/7/16/1870/82806

If this should happen, how might the election be influenced?

[Malva Zebrina]

1. Bush will win

my two cents

[NMDemDist2]

3. why would that happen?

the russians already made a mess of afghanistan and led to the rise of the mujahadeen

[Malva Zebrina]

17. People on the whole do not keep up

as polical junkies do here.

There is unbelievable support still for Bush's Iraq war--far too much. People will perceive this as a great triump of foreign policy, relieving our troops. Bush propagandists will play it up as very Churchillian, or something similar. You know that.

Most people average people, are not tuned in--they read headlines as they pass by the newspaper stacks in the supermarket. It will be perceived as a good thing, especially if it is played up as a coalition undertaking.

[RummyTheDummy]

42. Wrong

This projects an image of failure. I can just hear it now around the water coolers of America "the Russians had to bail us out?"

This would be a PR disaster of epic proportions for BushCo. which is why it won't happen.

[redstateblues]

48. Exactly-Why Didn't He Do It A Year Ago Before 900 Died?

[jdj]

53. Let's hope they say "the COMMIES" had to bail us out.

[burythehatchet]

38. Every move that the idiote make from here forward are part of a calculus

to offset anything and everything that Kerry states as a position or an objective. In this case its Kerry's position that he would internationalize the conflict.

Its the most pathetic and cynical strategy that you can imagine; bereft of any substance, aimed only at the objective of holding power.

[Zynx]

4. Why do you say that?

[Cha]

35. bush is not going to "win"! Just my

freakin' two cents.

[redstateblues]

41. The Problem For Bush: Why Did You Wait Til 900 Died

Til You offered the ruskies part of the loot.

[LittleApple81]

2. And Putin is another jerk who does not have to worry about approval rates,

free press, oposition, wellness of his troops...
I don't doubt that if he is not afraid of losing something with the European Union, he will come on board.

[bluestateguy]

5. Well

The original plan was to draw down to 105,000 troops. That plan was scotched after things deteriorated in April. Now we have 145,000 troops there. So this would just be going back down to where they said we would be.

And of course, after the election all bets are off. More troops could be sent right back in. Sounds an awful lot like Nixon and Kissinger's "Peace is at Hand" scam from 1972.

[Blue Wally]

30. Peace was at hand

The cease fire was negotiated prior to the Nov 1972 election. The North Vietnamese balked at signing. The US went ahead with another troop drawdown in Dec 72, but unleashed a Christmas bombing of hanoi by B-52s from Guam. The North Vietnamese caved and signed by late Jan 1973. All US and Korean troops left Vietnam by Mar 27,1973 with the exception of those personnel assigned to the Defense Attaches Office which was limited in number by the ceasefire treaty.

[Beetwasher]

6. No Way In Hell

Putin is not that stupid and it would be a stupid move for a lot of reasons. What exactly would he gain by doing this? He has more to gain from staying on the sidelines.

[Rose Siding]

11. He'd get further US support for his own War On Terror

which he can wage against whoever he chooses. And then there's the oil and the power it affords.

Maybe Putin and Bush really did see each other's souls. *cue ominous music*

[Beetwasher]

20. He Needs Those Troops For His Own Country

He doesn't need our support for his own WOT. How exactly can we support him? Troops? He doesn't need our blessings to do anything because we can't stop him from doing anything he wants to anyway.

[Geo55]

45. yep.....dividing the energy control

"Maybe Putin and Bush really did see each other's souls"
...or lack thereof

[shance]

63. How were Americans and our tax money sold down the river for this?

If true, this is unbelievable.

[scarletwoman]

14. What does Putin have to gain? A second term for his "soulmate".

Putin has been busy turning Russia back into a totalitarian police state, bush* is his perfect compliment and with a second term will speedily move the U.S. in the same direction.

James Baker and Poppy Bush have been carefully cultivating the Putin partnership for some time now -- remember their visits to Moscow and their private talks with Putin this past year?

My guess is that there are agreements being forged around control of the world's oil resources, which is becoming a critical issue for many reasons, not least of which is China's expanding demand.

sw

[kodi]

33. oil, as you said.

.

[qazplm]

21. Putin believes

Bush will tolerate his actions much more than Kerry will..

that Bush is more desperate and will give more quid pro quo than Putin will...

that either way, NEITHER American candidate will need him much AFTER the election, so his window of opportunity is now to get something for 40K troops.

How about the irony involved in sending RUSSIAN peacekeeping troops to Afghanistan??

[T Bone]

54. irony of russian peacekeepers in afghanistan

right. I am guesing they will be warmly received by the Afghanis. Lots of flowers & candy will be thrown around.

[bearfartinthewoods]

23. resotration of the very lucritive iraqi oil contracts

that's what putin has to gain.

[Citizen Daryl]

7. Russian troops in Afghanistan fighting *for* the US ... oh, the IRONY! n/t

[Nikki Stone 1]

8. What's in it for Russia?

Is it a carrot or a stick?

[MidwestTransplant]

9. Russian oil companies developing Iraq. Also they will probably

get their billions paid back to them.

[moondust]

51. You mean OUR billions.

Boobya will be glad to repay it in U.S. tax dollars.

[Suzi Creamcheese]

26. Maybe the US would stop hassling them about Chechnya

[Hubert Flottz]

55. The Russians have the oil already but................................

they need companies like Halliburton to develop their oil fields throughout Russia! Russia cannot drill Deep wells and service them like Halliburton and other American oil companies can! Just about every oil well in the USSR can go from total dormancy, to producing, with oil well service companies like Halliburton, servicing those wells and drilling them on out much deeper than the Russians have EVER been able to drill! Russia's deepest lying oil reserves are untouched, because they have always lacked the technology to get at anything but their shallow oil supply!

The Caspian Basin oil is pretty much undeveloped and there in that basin, lies a huge supply of oil and natural gas that is almost untapped so far! Russia needs American help to become wealthy on it's own oil, so Putin is going to play ball! The two huge pipelines through Afghanistan to pipe out their oil and gas, is the prize too! Russia may move to Afghanistan to provide security for it's two 48 inch pipelines that the energy companies plan to build!

I see no reason why Putin would refuse a deal like this with Bushco, because they have SO much to gain! I just hope the deal isn't for the American taxpayers to fund the Russian Army's move into Iraq or Afghanistan, if it happens! I think that this move will cause much more bloodshed, before the violent situation in the middle east is finally contained!

I do think it would shake up the Kerry camp, but the shape the country is in now is so bad, in so many ways, that I don't think this would mean a lock on it for Bush!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. Why the heck would this give FratBoy a boost??? This does nothing....

...but highlight the failures of the NeoCon policies in Iraq and their inability to "go it alone".

Prediction: Polls stay unchanged for FratBoy at best, most likely a small drop.

[LittleApple81]

12. No. This co-opts Kerry's campaign argument of more "other country"

involvement and Americans would prefer others to be killed not their own.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

36. I disagree 100%. Period.

[madrchsod]

13. russians got their asses

handed to them in afgan and their little war in chezenya has not gone well.the russians would be facing haterd in iraq and waves of terror attacks across russia...there is nothing to gain and alot to lose..puton doesn`t give a shit who is in power in the usa,he`ll work with whoever for his own self interest.

[KoKo]

29. Well, I hope you are correct that it would hurt Russia more than help but

combining our forces with the Russians and our incredible nuke capacity on both sides would create a huge force to contend with.

[Rose Siding]

31. Well, that would shake up the EU

Doncha think?

[BillZBubb]

15. Afghanistan? No Cheneying way that happens.

Afghanistan is already failing, putting the Russians in there would cause all hell to break loose. The Afghans despise the Russians and rightfully so.

As for Iraq, that well could happen. Putin knows going to Iraq just before the US election would be a bailout for Bush*. Bush* is over a barrel and Putin could win all sorts of concessions from him on trade, oil, Chechnya, Iraq reconstruction, World Bank and US aid. If he can ream Bush*, and he should be able to, this very well could happen.

We need to make sure, if it does, that we publicize everything that Bush* has given up to make it happen. There should be at least a half a dozen major flip flops involved.

[KoKo]

32. Drug money from all those Afgan poppies. Lots of money in that and they

have increased their input since we've occupied them. Send the Russians in and they can guard the poppy fields making sure production gets out into the world market and pay for the "occupation."

[POed_Ex_Repub]

16. Ahh, Iraq... Getting more sovereign every day </sarcasm> n/t

[The Lizard King]

18. No Real Difference

There won't be many more US troops availible to redeploy if this happens, as we don't have enough to provide security anyway.

[newyawker99]

25. Hi The Lizard King!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Doosh]

19. Things would get even worse in Iraq

considering Russian troops are not as well equipped, paid, or trained as well as US soldiers. This is purely a political move, replace 40,000 americans with 40,000 russians and things will get worse.

[hedda_foil]

34. Certainly things will get worse in Iraq and Afghanistan but ...

With a properly timed mid-to-late October surprise of the Russian troop agreement, it will be promoted and received as a triumph of Bushian policy and diplomacy. Of course the shit will hit the fan within a few months of the election, but it won't matter because Bush will have won walking away. And he'll look like a foreign policy genius in the process. Nobody in this country (other than us political/policy junkies) will know about the true extent of tit for tat because the pieces of the agreement will be dribbled out dull bit by bit over the next year or so.

Our only real hope in all this is that the Plame indictments come down right after Osama is thawed out in the next two weeks, and that Fitzgerald fingers both Cheney and Bush. We are in such deep shit it may be impossible to climb out of the toilet before we're flushed away.

[punpirate]

22. If in Afghanistan...

... the likely first occurrence would be the assassination of Karzai, then the warlords would start spending some of that opium cash on more sophisticated weapons, then the Pakistan ISI would start playing both sides against the middle, which would eventually cause considerable political destabilization within Pakistan. I can't imagine the Russians having any appetite for going back into Afghanistan, given the political implications of that at home.

In Iraq, the moment Russian troops start shooting at Iraqis, they will be seen as oppressors, and former mujahideen will come out of the woodwork, as they would be seen as the most knowledgeable about fighting the Russians. Funding for them from other Arab states would increase dramatically, giving them the resources to both fight the Russians and engage in terrorism in the US and Russia. As well, a lot of the insurgent heat would be taken by the Russians--first, because they are not as well-trained or equipped as the US soldiers, and second, because they were forced out of Afghanistan, suggesting they can be driven out of Iraq.

Nothing good will come of this, just as nothing good has come of the initial American invasion.

I doubt that this would push Bush out of the hole he's in as far as the election goes. The hardliners in his base still don't trust the Russians (and are busily trying to ruin Russia's oil business, so US companies can absorb it), so the quid pro quo would not be liked by the old money types in the Republican Party.

And, domestically, bringing some of the troops home is not the same as bringing all the troops home. If Bush were willing to do that (and that was never the plan), then he'd get a big bump.

[KoKo]

24. And remember when Shrub looked into Putin's eyes and Poppy and Babs

visited Putin and his wife?

Set Up....all along they planned to work with Russia it seems. And remember the Forbes Editor gunned down this week after publishing a list of Russia's billionaires.

[starroute]

27. Time to get the Paleocons stirred up

Buchanan et al are already pissed at Bush. Nothing like giving a toehold in the Middle East to the Russians to make them go ballistic -- from their point of view, it's got to be all too reminiscent of FDR supposedly handing Eastern Europe on a platter to Stalin. And keeping the Russians out of the Middle East has been a central premise of US foreign policy since the 1940's.

But if it's planned as an October Surprise -- with the media talking heads cooing all over it -- that wouldn't leave much time for negative reactions between then and the election. This has got to get out on the table right now.

Does anybody know what Stratfor's stake in this is? I read that they're basically pro-military, but I don't know what their relationship is to the administration. Is it possible that they're putting this out now as a way of shooting it down?

[Rose Siding]

28. I hadn't run across Stratfor before.

The Agonist, however, has been very informative and no bells go off in my memory about them using flaky sources.

[starroute]

39. Disinfopedia's take on Stratfor

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Stratfor

Al Giordano, details what he calls "20 Stratfor Lies about Latin America":

Stratfor is one of these snake-oil disinfo sales firms that traffics in "intelligence briefings" for people gullible enough to pay for them. Imagine that: you can get lied to for free all over this great land, but some people actually pay to be deceived!

Stratfor's track record in Latin America is abhorrent (how many years in a row did it predict that Hugo Chavez would not survive that year as Venezuela's president?). It's "spin" is ideological: pro-corporate, which is no surprise, given that it's undisclosed clientele purchases something called "Business Intelligence Services."

In my opinion, Stratfor engages in circulating disinformation into the datasphere through its free and paid email memos in ways that seem aimed to help the agendas of that very same corporate world that contracts its services.


On edit: Found a link for the original Al Giordano piece which Disinfopedia is quoting:
http://www.bigleftoutside.com/archives/000255.php

[burrowowl]

37. Say 40,000 fresh Russian troops

are substituted for 40,000 US troops. That leaves 110,000 or so very battle weary U$ troops.
Russia is closer to Iraq and better able with nearness to supply their troops. They could send in more troops.
What happens if Russia has its own agenda and not necessarily that of the US agenda?

[lovuian]

40. If it keeps us from having a draft Whoo Hoo!!!

Let Russia join the fun!!!

Heres the ? though
Who will be in charge of the Russian troops

[freedomonk]

43. hahahahahaha

this is too funny

i am a russian immigrant, and let me tell you firsthand, if 40 thousand troops were sent to iraq it would be a disaster. russian military is so poor right now it can't afford food, much less weapons, soldiers get virtually no training. an entire russian army could not win in chechnya against a small muslim insurgency, now iraq, give me a fucking break.

[CRK7376]

44. the Russians are

the most hated of the infidels in Afghanistan. The Russians willnot return to Afghanistan regardless of how much Shrub and buddies push them to...Now maybe Russians into Iraq....whole other story...But I suspect that will just inflame the Muslims in the Checkyan Rebellion even more...But we are at an end of all major combat operations aren't we?

[grasswire]

46. many people in George's base...

....have no trust in Putin. They fear him. I can't see how this would help George. It would make him look naive and manipulable.

[loudsue]

47. Putin is many things, but STUPID isn't one of them.....

He knows that everybody who gets in bed with bunnypants gets screwed w/out the K-Y Jelly. Every deal dubya makes, he waits until the other party has made their required move, then dubya does a turn-around. Putin knows this.

Also, Putin was alive and well, a full-grown adult, when he saw the USA supply the Taliban & train Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.... which lead to the bankruptcy and downfall of the USSR.

My guess? If shrub moved forward and began publicizing such an agreement, Putin would turn the tables and let bush hold it... hang bunnypants out to dry. The EU would LOVE to see bush take a walk out of the whitehouse, and Putin is real cozy w/ many in the EU these days.

I just don't see it working out the way Poppy & Baker would hope. At least, not unless Pootie-Poot woke up w/ a horse's head in bed w/ him. I mean, we're talking about the bush family here.

:kick:

[burrowowl]

49. The troops

would give Russia a foot-hold in Iraq and remember Russia and Iran are still on pretty good terms.

[bemildred]

50. Not buying it.

What's in it for Pooty-Poot that's half as good as watching the
American Emipire crumble? Show me the troops arriving first,
then I'll reconsider. Tell me why Pooty Poot would be interested?

[Aidoneus]

61. share of the loot?

Though as it stands, not so much 'loot' involved aside from the great holy tubes that are meant to carry it..

[bemildred]

64. What loot?

I know there is theoretical loot, but real loot, in
excess of expenses? Don't make me laugh. This is a
lunatic idea, wishful thinking. Why would Pooty-Poot
really want to make the Middle East safe for Amurika?
So we could export lots of cheap oil and damage his economy?
To recruit for the Chechen resistance? To piss off Iran?
Why would Pooty-Poot give up the rich pleasure of payback
for Afghanistan? This is stupid on so many levels you don't
know where to start.

[bigbillhaywood]

52. If this happens it will be a VERY scary development.

Two strongmen propping up each other's drives towards fascism. It would be a MAJOR coup for American imperialism, and the extreme right-wing's ravings about the "New World Order" would no longer seem so looney. VERY SCARY STUFF.

[Tight_rope]

56. Boy,...I tell you....US ain't nothing but a mess...this is getting funnier

everyday.

[Jack_DeLeon]

57. Russians in Afghanistan....

Yeah that will go over real well there. :eyes:

[bigbillhaywood]

60. If the Red Army were still there, we wouldn't be in this mess. Smooth

move arming and training the mujahadeen against them, US government. Imagine, the former Soviet client state actually strted permitting women to go to school-- the nerve! Good thing we sided with the good guys in that conflict.

[Chomskyite]

58. This would sign Bush's death warrant

The sizeable contingent of Southern good ol'boys who make up Bush's base will look severe askance at any hint of us turning over our piece of oil-laden real estate to the Russians.

And John Kerry would knock the hell out of Bush for this. As he well should. For starters, it's an all-out admission that our military has been decimated by the Bush administration. Kerry would be able to cast himself as a rebuilder of our armies. He'd be able to outflank Bush to the Right.

No way in hell this is going to happen.

[shance]

62. When has Kerry truly confronted Bush on imperialistic urges?

Glad you are an optimist, but look at the facts.

Again, Democrats should be all over this. How soon we disregard both the casualties and realities of both Iraq and Afghanistan?????

[Swamp Rat]

59. I would go around in public shouting "Bush is a fucking Commie!"

I'd be, if not converting, blasting freepers non-stop as Commie pinko traitors.