Moscow Attack Likely Either An Embarrassing Failure By Putin Or Else A False Flag By Putin
It has to be one or the other
The US Department of state warned Russia about a pending terror attack two weeks ago. Vladimir Putin publicly dismissed that warning as “provocative” the day before the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow.
ISKP, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province based in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack swithin hours. To bolster their claim, Amaq, the official ISKP website, has published first-person videos made by the killers.
Nevertheless, Putin insists that Ukraine was reponsible for the attack and refuses to mention ISKP at all in his public statements. Instead, Russian propaganda instantly amplified its long-running conspiracy theory that the United States and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, created the Islamic State because reasons.
Inconsistencies abound, though. Whereas the attack itself seems to have been well-planned, the getaway was apparently planned by an idiot.
Without even changing cars, the assault team drove in the general direction of Ukraine. The attackers are not from Ukraine or connected to Ukraine.
They were captured in Bryansk Oblast, but only after they had time to upload their videos of the attack, or else stop somewhere to hand off the GoPro-style cameras to a confederate who uploaded them. There was no safe house, no thought whatsoever put into a safe extraction.
Captured and tortured on camera, the individuals allegedly responsible for the terror attack confessed to being paid for the job. They are not jihadis motivated by faith and eager to die for God, but mercenaries. Otherwise, why bother with any getaway planning at all?
Indeed, the fact that the attackers left the scene, rather than stick around to kill more infidels and die gloriously, was the first red flag, for this writer. No one strapped on a suicide vest. Nobody stuck around to take on the ‘first responders,’ in this case a Spetznaz unit and firefighters.
Other questions remain. What explains the slow response time of emergency services? How did a building with a state-of-the-art fire suppression system burn so easily? Where did the attackers plan to cross a militarized border in a conflict zone? These are sure to feed a thousand theories about what exactly happened.
They all lead to the same question, though. Was Putin responsible, or irresponsible? It has to be one or the other.
One explanation for what happened at the Crocus City Hall is that Putin has suffered a George W. Bush moment. The reader may be old enough to recall the attacks of 11 September 2001 took place while President Bush was in a Florida classroom listening to students read My Pet Goat, and how the photos were used to embarrass him. Politics aside, strategic surprise never looks good on the one who is surprised.
As we later learned, within 2.5 hours of the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was agitating for an invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was not directly connected to Al-Qaeda, nor responsible for the attacks, but the United States was effectively at war with him by the end of the day. Afghanistan was first, of course, but then that mission was deprecated, and the principal leader of Al-Qaeda was allowed to escape Tora Bora for Pakistan.
Controversies remained. How did the steel concrete rebar in the towers melt? (Answer: it didn’t, steel rebar loses most of its tensile strength well below melting point.)
How did the warning memo from Richard Clarke titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States” get ignored by the Bush White House? (Answer: the Bush White House did not take the threat seriously.)
Why did the United States enter the quagmire of Iraq while letting Afghanistan turn into a second quagmire? (Answer: the Bush White House bought their own story about what would happen when they invaded.)
Perhaps the Crocus Hall burned so well because of bog-standard Russian corruption. Maybe the response time of security forces and firefighters was lackluster because war has crippled them with manpower and resource demands. Contradictory reports that security guards were absent or unarmed may prove false.
Per the ancient dictum about projecting intentions on other people, incompetence and arrogance are valid explanations for the observed behaviors of Russians, and of Putin, in a state of strategic surprise. Interest and policy dictate that they turn their anger on Ukraine instead of ISKP just as interest and policy dictated that the Bush White House turn on Saddam Hussein after 9/11.
Vladimir Putin may feel humiliated by strategic surprise, but he is not about to resign over it, nor will Russian voters hold him to account. No regime change faction exists within the siloviki, or whatever one wants to call the current arrangement of power within the Kremlin.
Nor is Putin likely to invade Afghanistan again, as that would further destabilize his superstitious country. If Russian airpower starts hitting ISKP, it likewise tells us little about the probability that the Crocus Hall attack was a strategic surprise to the Kremlin. A flurry of airstrikes does not seriously threaten the existence of ISKP and might be simple maskirovka.
Incompetence and arrogance are likely explanations. Less likely, but still altogether too possible in Putin’s Russia and therefore far too easy to believe, is the possibility of a false flag attack arranged by the FSB.
Of course, George W. Bush was also accused of ordering, or at least benefitting from, a false flag attack on 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. However, Russian history is far more instructive here, for it is replete with examples of political violence to create a “controlled opposition.”
Under the Tsars, Okhrana agents set up bomb attacks on public officials and police in order to justify crackdowns. A remarkable number of prominent Chekisti, Lenin’s secret police, were former Okhrana agents. Provocation, especially outside of Russia, became a Soviet specialty. Then-prime minister Putin rose to autocratic power by invading Chechnya over the apartment bombings of 1999, widely considered to have been a false flag.
Discerning the truth is difficult. If the Crocus attack was a false flag, the outcome will not look any different from strategic surprise. The propaganda will look the same if it was a case of strategic surprise. Putin will not suffer any public humiliation, nor will rumors of provocation matter to him. His useful idiots in the West will remain useful. His war on Ukraine was already bound to intensify.
The only thing that has changed in the last 72 hours in Russia is the sense of threat. Russians are terrified, and also grieving, queuing up to place flowers at Crocus Hall instead of a Navalny memorial. Putin has them right where he wants them, now.