Russia is about to be a global power again. The more America retreats, the further Russia advances. Since Dec. 25, 1991, when the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, the world started becoming a unipolar arena and the Americans could not handle their new status. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill handed over the title and keys of the U.K. colonies to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference. Ever since, the U.S. always had the Soviet Union to deal with.

The presence of the Soviets kept the U.S. in check; they represented the much-needed enemy to keep the U.S. engaged and alert. The U.S. valued its allies; they helped their allies get stronger. When Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state, two seemingly separate but actually inexplicably connected processes were set in motion:

1. The people at the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom (U.S. State Department) started thinking about what to do with this new status of being the boss of the whole world. They noticed that they needed a new enemy to organize against. The U.S. has never been the one to start actions but always to react to something the Soviets would do. The definition of the world as three parts – the West, the East and the Third World – was a result of the imperialism Churchill wrapped around the U.S.' neck.

2. The Russians have gotten in front of the world map that hangs in the office of the first Tsarist Foreign Minister Ivan Viskovatyi in 1560 (now moved to the Soviet Foreign Ministry) and started thinking about how to obtain the status they had a decade ago. Russia had become the part of the Holy League (Austria, Poland, Venice) in 1686; and on behalf of them, it started a century of wars against the Ottoman Empire. There are 17 Russo-Turkish Wars in history. So, when the head of the British Trade Union warned Turkey that the Russians were not happy with the Montreux Convention regarding the governance of the straits that gave Turkey control over the Turkish Straits, the Turks sheepishly accepted this warning and jumped onto the NATO bandwagon. The warning could be termed today as fake news because it had never been confirmed through normal channels. But in the wake of World War II, nothing was normal.

Years passed and Turkey sensed that it needed to fortify its aerial defenses; but could not get it from its allies, especially from the U.S. The next logical choice was Russia, since they were willing to teach Turkey how to manufacture them in the long run. Moreover, the Russians promised to create a joint production mechanism for fighter jets. Not only that but for quite some time now the Russians have been acting in seemingly good faith to join efforts to solve the Syrian problem.

You are only as good as your word, as they say where I come from. In fact, it is true for all Turkish people no matter where they come from. When President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani came together in Tehran on Sept. 7, 2018, in a trilateral summit between Iran, Russia and Turkey on Syria, they promised to take a "step toward peace, security and stability" in the war-torn country. How was that going to be realized? Putin and Rouhani said the regime forces would stop attacking the opposition forces (whom they label as "terrorists") and Turkey would attend to reducing the weapons in the hands of the moderate opposition. The Syrian regime calls these opposition forces "terrorists."

Nobody would agree to disarmament while the enemy continues to bomb you nonstop. Bashar Assad the murderer does not want any opposition with or without arms. President Putin allows this murderer to implement his own "final solution" against the people's demand for democracy.

If Putin wants to counter U.S. imperialism, he can't do it by imitating the Americans. To do this, he needs to stop the massacre in Idlib.