What is going on in Ukraine? It is a question that begs an answer, but the real answer isn’t obvious.
The simplistic answer is that president Putin, like President George W. Bush before him, ignored all his advisors’ suggestions and went ahead with a military miss-adventure.
His proposed reason is to counter the spread of neo-Nazis and terrorists’ intent on having Ukraine join NATO and encircle Russia with missiles. That’s hogwash. This seemingly impulsive and frankly arrogant excuse goes against the careful military financial and political planning that Putin has been doing until the day came that he felt it was right to invade. This was not an impulsive action; it was planned for years ago.
Likewise, the easy answer here, in the US is that President Biden did his best to persuade the Russians to use diplomacy and shun military intervention or suffer crippling sanctions. This too goes against the fact that President Biden seems to have known a while ago that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine.
The administration repeatedly told us that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. Europe, our so-called ally, sat on the fence because it has interests in Russia that trump its fear of an occupied Ukraine. Many observers suggest that the U.S. wants Russia marred in a costly and bloody struggle.
As for Ukraine itself, not that it matters anymore, but the feeling there is that the West abandoned Ukraine, and Russia betrayed Ukraine. The West promised them they would join NATO, and Russian officials assured them a negotiated settlement was likely.
The more likely outcome of this bloody invasion is that both the Ukrainian and the Russian people will suffer, while the leaders of both countries and the other international parties involved get what they want. It’s an invasion that serve their own interests at the expense of the Ukrainian people. A people misled, and now brutally invaded.
We Syrians have seen this movie before, and we know how bad it is. Russia wants secure borders ruled by proxy regimes that do Putin’s bidding, The U.S. wants Russia to be entangled in another mess. Why should Americans fight when all we have to do is watch Russia deplete itself of resources? It’s a game that hurts no one but Ukrainians, and like Syrians before them, they are expendable.
Ayman Hakki, assistant clinical professor of Surgery, Georgetown University Hospital, member of the Syrian Council for Communication.
