Understanding Russia

To understand why Russia is doing what it is in Syria there are several things that might be important to know about. Maybe the first thing to know is the awful war Russia had in Chechnya which is one of the states or provinces within Russia after the Soviet Union Broke up. This was a mostly Russian Orthodox Christian War against Sunni Muslim people in Chechnya who wanted independence from Russia like many other Muslim areas had gotten when the Soviet Union Broke up. One of the reasons the Soviet Union had to break up is all the problems Russia was having with Muslim States within the Soviet Union. So, there is a lot of anger still from Christian Russians and Atheistic more communist thinking Russians against all Muslims in general. So, both Christian Russians and Communistic thinking Russians have no love for those who they see as causing the breakup of the Soviet Empire which was a really huge area that also included Eastern Europe.

So, anything that brings harm to Muslims, especially Sunni Muslims who gave the Soviet empire the most trouble and in the eyes of many Russians in the end caused it's break up, are cannon fodder as far as the Russians tend to see all this. So, possibly eliminating most Sunni Muslims might be their goal here. Also, Russia in General still is very anti-semetic and many Jewish people have left and gone to Europe, the U.S. and Israel where they can be better treated. But, because Russia is very anti-Semitic especially at a governmental level, one of the goals might be the end of Israel as well.

So, understanding some of these ideas gives a better idea of what Russia is up to.

The last thing that might be the most important is that historically, the Soviet Union was instrumental in a lot of what happened in Iran, Syria and Iraq as long as Saddam Hussein was around and before. So, the Soviet Union and now Russia see this area (Iran, Syria and Iraq) as kind of their turf. They sort of gave up on Iraq but aren't going to give up Syria and Iran. They seem to be much less interested in Equality and more interested in Sovereignty and seem to be worried about the Arab Spring spreading to Russia and China in a series of revolts coming closer and closer to Russia and China. So, to combat these uprisings they are trying to stop Arab Spring in it's tracks by causing so many deaths to Sunni Muslims that they will give up and back off maybe much like what they did in Chechnya.

The only trouble with this is it could rearrange the whole middle East in the process. Likely many borders and countries will change as a result of what Russia is doing. Because from the looks of it Russia is just getting started. But wars are funny. Look what happened to the American protestors saying, "No Blood for Oil". Now it is, "Blood for no oil" as Jon Stewart recently coined on "The Daily Show". It is hard to say whether doing what Russia is doing is going to increase the price of gas to where Russia is the richest oil Country on Earth or just Bankrupt Russia? It's hard to say where all this is going or even if Syria or Lebanon or Israel will still be there after Russia and Iran get through doing whatever they are doing now. I think the world needs to look very carefully at a potential blitzkrieg by Iran and Russia taking out all Sunni nations in the blink of an eye if Saudi Arabia and Turkey don't have Nuclear Weapons to make this impossible.