More than 200 passengers lost their lives when that Russian Airbus broke up in midair and crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. What we don’t know yet is the specific cause. What we do know is that it’s suspicious, and whetting that suspicion is the ISIS Sinai affiliate taking “credit.” It said it had taken down the plane in retaliation for Russia’s involvement in Syria.
There’s doubt about its wherewithal to do that, but airport security at Sharm el-Sheikh is hardly iron clad. Terrorism possibilities are always a given in such circumstances.
Regardless, even the specter of such a scenario–as payback for Russian intervention in Syria–has to have the Putin government, already uneasy about certain Muslim dynamics–internal and external–increasingly concerned.
Maybe there’s an ironic upside.
It’s obvious what the U.S. and Russia have in conflict since the resurgence of authoritarian nationalism under Vladimir Putin. Russian resentment over NATO expansion and the West’s reprisal sanctions for what happened in Crimea just to name two.
Maybe–just maybe–the upshot of the awful Airbus crash and ever-encroaching ISIS impact will result in something both cooperative and self-serving between America and Russia. Perhaps it will be the stark realization of what we have in common: the ever-growing, evil threat of Islamic terrorist fiends.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe it’s more than a proverb.