If Cold War Style: Iran and Syria belong to Russia: "What are the U.S. and NATO doing there?

The best answer I can give is that NATO and the U.S. (and maybe the rest of the world) underestimated Putin.

Putin right now is acting like the Soviet Union did from the 1950s to the late 1980s. And the U.S. hasn't seen this since maybe 1990 at the latest.

We thought our sanctions had worked in driving out Putin from Syria. Nope.

It only appeared that way.

So now Putin is in Syria again which is a disaster for Nuclear Detente because he's saying "Hey. This is my country. Iraq used to be yours. Now it's mine and Iran's along with Syria. Get out of here."

Will NATO, the U.S. and the world listen to echoes of the Soviet Union?

Maybe they should.

Because in the past this is how we avoided World War III and the permanent end of Earth.

However, this would be a loss of face for NATO and the U.S.

It is sort of like Putin is presently on an economic sinking ship for now and Saudi ARabia, and the U.S. and NATO are all there with their navel vessels.

And Putin is saying, "Remember the Cold WAr?" As his nuclear armed ship sinks in the west.

Economically, Putin is a wounded tiger and people shouldn't mess with a wounded tiger because there is no telling just how extreme a wounded nuclear armed tiger (or Bear) is going to get.

So, here's the problem his economic ship is sinking but he might still nuke Saudi Arabia or Syria or ISIS, Europe or the U.S.  or whatever out of the water. (or at the very least put up one hell of a bluff.)

Remember this guy is macho, Terminal Macho, and right about now even if he died in a showdown he is going for history like a Stalin or some other historic Russia leader. So, dying is not the worst thing that could happen to him according to terminal Macho logic of a warrior.

We haven't seen any leaders like this since:

1. Nikita Khrushchev - Wikipedia, the free...

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_KhrushchevCached

   Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 15 [O.S. April 3] 1894 – September 11, 1971) was a Russian politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. 

   
   

   And if you were alive then: (I was 14 in 1962) you know just how scary that was with the nukes in Cuba and Kennedy and then Kennedy being assassinated the very next year after that. 

   
   

   What I'm saying here is these are really crazy times like the Cuban Missile Crisis maybe once again this fall and Winter.