And Now The Waiting Game

With Donald Trump as our de facto president, the next thirty days have become an extended waiting game.

We are seeing this play out in Congress with the squabbling over the continuing resolution, the debt ceiling, and a possible government shutdown. And we are seeing this in trouble spots around the globe.

The Ukraine war is entering the end game. Biden tried hard to escalate to World War III by authorizing Ukraine to use of long-range US missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Putin responded first by the “test” launch of a news hypersonic glide vehicle, which he noted the United States and its allies were incapable of intercepting. The clear implication was that if the US continued to support the attacks inside Russia, he would respond against NATO targets.

But Putin did not take his own escalation bait. Just today, he responded to the latest ATACMS missile strike inside Russia –as well as the assassination of a top Russian general by Ukrainian agents — by launching ballistic missiles against Kyiv, not NATO.

It truly pains me to say that Putin is showing himself to be the adult in the room, when compared to Biden and his sorcerer’s apprentice aides who seem hell-bent on starting World War III before leaving office.

The fake news media and online conspiracy buffs are trying to link Putin to the New Jersey drone scare, alleging that the drones may be US government assets hunting a Russian loose nuke or some kind of radioactive payload that went missing in early December.

To sharpen those fears, they refer to an alleged Russian government statement on December 11 that urged Russian citizens to leave the United States.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did indeed issue a warning during a news briefing on December 11, but it was not to Russians residing in the United States. It was to Russians traveling to the US. The reason? She warned they could be “hunted” by the authorities to use as hostages or bargaining chips.

Both Moscow and Washington have detained each other’s visiting citizens in recent years and engaged in hostage swaps reminiscent of Cold War spy exchanges, so her statement was not mere projection. I expect Donald Trump will return to diplomacy with Russia once he takes office, so these types of provocations will abate.

In Syria, we are also in a waiting game, but of a different sort. With the lightning collapse of the Assad regime, all eyes are turned to HTS leader Ahmad al Sharaa (formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) and his Turkish government backers.

One big concern is the fate of the 500,000 Christians who remain in Syria (another 1.5 million fled at the beginning of the Obama-incited civil war, most of whom today are in Lebanon). There have been isolated reports of Christian villages being attacked by jihadi Muslims, but so far no rebel regime-sponsored exactions.

And al Sharaa himself has been conciliatory in public. During the fighting, he called on the Christians of Aleppo to stay home. As long as they didn’t support the Assad regime, they would be safe, he said.

He also stretched out a hand to the US-backed Kurdish rebels in Aleppo and along the Turkish borders, who among other things have been guarding an ISIS prison camp with 50,000 ISIS fighters and their families.

During the military sweep south, he offered the Kurds to leave Aleppo with their weapons, instead of massacring them as the Turks or ISIS would have done. Since then, he has affirmed that the Kurds are an “integral part” of Syria.

That might sound normal to you and me, since Kurds comprise roughly 10% of the Syrian population, but to Turkish president Erdogan, those are fighting words.

Erdogan has never met a Kurd he didn’t want to slaughter, and has moved troops into northern Syria since the recent fighting began in an effort to crush the US-backed Syrian Democrat Army, which includes the Kurdish YPG fighters Erdogan claims are terrorists.

So in Syria, too, it’s a waiting game. Waiting to see if the new government under the HTS and its Islamist allies will continue their outreach to non-Islamist communities and protect minorities, or if Turkey will slaughter the Kurds.

What will the US do if the Turks dislodge the Kurds who are guarding the ISIS prison camp? Will Team Biden stand by and let them set loose 50,000 jihadi terrorists? We are also waiting to see what the Russians will do with their military bases in Syria.

Reports this week showed Russian ships preparing to leave the naval base near Latakia, and Russian armor moving to the coast from bases inside the country, so they could be evacuated. Russian planes left their Syrian bases weeks ago, desperately needed in Ukraine. Indeed, one factor that hastened Assad’s fall was the lack of Russian air support.

Will the Russians move their forces to Libya, thus maintaining a military presence in the Mediterranean? Or will they fall back to Crimea? Or Kaliningrad?

America’s adversaries have just thirty more days to jockey for position. Then the sheriff is back and the real negotiations begin.

I discuss this, as well as the heightened threats to NATO along the new 800 mile frontier between Finland and Russia, on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. And if you miss us live, you can catch the podcast here.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

©2024 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.