Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

bin Ladin Wrote a Letter to America

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Guest house at the bin Ladin compound.

If you wanted to be an al Qaeda fighter, you had to fill out an application, found here.

The entire file of released documents are found here.  You will likely never see all the documents and that should be accepted as it would reveal the sources and methods on the actions today by intelligence and the rules of engagement against global enemies but al Qaeda was never on the run.

Curious timing of the declassification on the documents seized from the Usama bin Ladin compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, altering the focus from the failed campaign against ISIS in Ramadi to released bin Ladin documents by DNI.

George Bush was right, this was going to be a long slog of a war. Once control was gained in Afghanistan and Iraq, but since 2011, the wider slog of war continues without any campaign definition from the White House that provided a comprehensive foundation of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) delivered from Obama to Congress.

The Usama bin Ladin bookshelf is found here.

Here’s Osama Bin Laden’s Letter to the American People

Usama bin Laden wanted to speak directly to the American people.

An undated letter promising endless war is one of hundreds of documents collected in the May 2, 2011 raid on his compound in Pakistan that was released Wednesday. The full text is below.

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

From Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin to the American people,

I speak to you about the subject of the ongoing war between you
and us. Even though the consensus of your wise thinkers and
others is that your time (TN: of defeat) will come, compassion
for the women and children who are being unjustly killed,
wounded, and displaced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
motivates me to speak to you.

First of all, I would like to say that your war with us is the
longest war in your history and the most expensive for you
financially. As for us, we see it as being only halfway
finished. If you were to ask your wise thinkers, they would tell
you that there is no way to win it because the indications are
against it. How will you win a war whose leaders are pessimistic
and whose soldiers are committing suicide? If fear enters the
hearts of men, winning the war becomes impossible. How will you
win a war whose cost is like a hurricane blowing violently at
your economy and weakening your dollar?

The Bush administration got you into these wars on the premise
that they were vital to your security. He promised that it would
be a quick war, won within six days or six weeks; however, six
years have passed, and they are still promising you victory and
not achieving it. Then Obama came and delayed the withdrawal
that he had promised you by 16 more months. He promised you
victory in Afghanistan and set a date for withdrawal from there.
Six months later, Petraeus came to you once again with the
number six, requesting that the withdrawal be delayed six months
beyond the date that had been set. All the while you continue to
bleed in Iraq and Afghanistan. You are wading into a war with no
end in sight on the horizon and which has no connection to your
security, which was confirmed by the operation of ‘Umar al-Faruq
(Var.: Umar Farouk), which was not launched from the battlefield
and could have been launched from any place in the world.

As for us, jihad against the tyrants and the aggressors is a
form of great worship in our religion. It is more precious to us
than our fathers and sons. Thus, our jihad against you is
worship, and your killing us is a testimony. Thanks to God, Almighty, we
have been waging jihad for 30 years, against the Russians and
then against you. Not a single one of our men has committed
suicide, whereas every 30 days 30 of your men commit suicide.
Continue the war if you will.

(TN: Two lines of poetry that say the Mujahidin will not stop
fighting until the United States leaves their land.)

Peace be upon those who follow right guidance.

We are defending our right. Jihad against the aggressors is a
form of great worship in our religion, and killing us means a
high status with our Lord. Thanks to God, we have been waging
jihad for 30 years, against the Russians and then against you.
Not a single one of our men has committed suicide, whereas every
30 days 30 of your men commit suicide. Continue the war if you
will. Justice is the strongest army, and security is the best
way of life, but it slipped out of your grasp the day you made
the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our
brothers in Palestine. The path to security is for you to lift
your oppression from us.

Financial Structure of ISIS and a Phone App

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Follow the money, we know where it comes from and where it goes. Islamic State uses the same mafia model, theft, extortion, payment for protection, winning the hearts and minds and then a phone app. Personally I had a gut feeling that there was a Russian component and well, there is…

This also creates a couple of extra issues. Will anyone challenge Russia to stop the app technology and is the West willing to compete with ISIS financially, meaning more than $2 million per day?

ISIS Finances Are Strong

By SARAH ALMUKHTAR

The Islamic State has revenue and assets that are more than enough to cover its current expenses despite expectations that airstrikes and falling oil prices would hurt the group’s finances, according to analysts at RAND Corporation, a nonprofit that researches public policy.

ISIS Relies on Extortion and Taxation

The Islamic State takes in more than $1 million per day in extortion and taxation. Salaries of Iraqi government employees are taxed up to 50 percent, adding up to at least $300 million last year; companies may have their contracts and revenue taxed up to 20 percent. As other revenue streams have stalled, like banks and oil, the Islamic State has adjusted these rates to make taxation a larger portion of its income.

ISIS’ estimated assets as of the fall of Mosul in June 2014

$875 mil.

ISIS’ estimated major revenue sources in 2014

$600 mil.

Extortion and taxation in Iraq

$500 mil.

Stolen from state-owned banks in Iraq

$100 mil.

Oil

Kidnapping ransoms

$20 mil.

ISIS’ estimated assets as of the fall of Mosul in June 2014

$875 mil.

ISIS’ estimated major revenue sources in 2014

$600 mil.

Extortion and taxation in Iraq

$500 mil.

Stolen from state-owned banks in Iraq

$100 mil.

Oil

Kidnapping ransoms

$20 mil.

ISIS’ estimated assets as of

the fall of Mosul in June 2014

$875 mil.

ISIS’ estimated major

revenue sources in 2014

Extortion and taxation in Iraq

$600 mil.

Stolen from state-owned banks in Iraq

$500 mil.

Oil

$100 mil.

Kidnapping ransoms

$20 mil.

Oil Is Not the Main Source of Cash

The Islamic State’s oil infrastructure, especially refineries, has been targeted by the United States-led airstrikes. Oil revenue has fallen to about $2 million per week, but the group is not dependent on oil income. Much of the production is used for its own fuel. Past oil sales show that the Islamic State was already selling oil at deep discounts that fluctuated between local markets — for instance, selling oil for less in Kirkuk than in Mosul.

Smoke is seen rising from the Baiji oil refinery on April 18, 2015, during ongoing clashes for control.

A U.S. airstrike on the Islamic State-controlled Mayadin modular oil refinery in Syria on Sept. 24, 2014.
The New York Times|Sources: NASA/USGS Landsat, U.S. Central Command

ISIS Invests in People, Not Infrastructure

The largest expenditure is salaries, which is estimated to be between $3 million and $10 million every month. The Islamic State also invests in police-state institutions, such as committees, media, courts, and market regulation, but provides relatively few services. The group avoids investment in infrastructure because it can be an easy target for attacks, and the territory it holds can change quickly.

Islamic State fighters stand guard at a checkpoint in in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Reuters

ISIS Keeps Its Costs Low

The group minimizes costs by looting military equipment, appropriating land and infrastructure, and paying relatively low salaries. The group also limits its vulnerability by shifting operations, transitioning between expanding its territory and fueling terrorist activity. The Islamic State’s loss of ground in Tikrit last month, for example, has not stopped it from launching attacks in other parts of Iraq and Syria and taking the Iraqi city of Ramadi this weekend.

Islamic State fighters march in the Syrian city of Raqqa in an image posted on a militant website on Jan. 14, 2014. Uncredited/Militant Website, via Associated Press

Now for that phone app…

IS Militants Use Popular Russian Web Payment System To Raise Cash

A  group of Islamic State (IS) militants from Russia’s North Caucasus region are using the popular Russian QIWI wallet electronic payment system to raise money online.

The group’s use of the QIWI wallet sheds light on how individual factions within IS carry out their own fundraising and outreach, and shows that this particular group has managed to raise cash openly using mainstream resources in Russia even though Moscow has banned IS and donating money to it illegal.

The militants involved in the fundraising are doing so through an unofficial Russian-language IS media activist group, ShamToday, which mostly comprises people from the North Caucasus who are with IS in Syria and Iraq.

ShamToday is closely associated with the Chechen-led IS fighting faction Katibat al-Aqsa, a group known to have been close to IS’s military commander in Syria, Umar al-Shishani.

A key ShamToday figure, a Chechen militant named Ilyas Deniev, was killed last month in clashes in Baiji in Iraq.

Another figure associated with the group is a prominent social media activist who goes by the name Murad Atajev. It is thought that Atajev, who maintains accounts on Facebook and VKontakte, operates out of Turkey.

ShamToday first emerged in 2013 on Russia’s VKontakte social-networking website, where the group initially had its own dedicated page. Since VKontakte banned its page several months ago as part of a crackdown on pro-IS propaganda, ShamToday has shifted to using a number of different VKontakte accounts and specific hashtags to spread its propaganda, a method used by other IS groups on various social-media platforms.

Unlike other IS media groups, ShamToday has not been involved in producing video propaganda.

Instead, its main activities are recruitment and outreach to IS sympathizers in the Russian Federation, mostly by spreading news about IS’s activities in Syria and Iraq, sharing Russian audio recordings of lectures given by IS preachers and ideologues, and organizing online pro-IS seminars via its dedicated channel on Zello, a social-media app that is widely used by IS to broadcast sermons.

ShamToday’s Zello sermons frequently involve IS’s most prominent North Caucasus ideologues, including a Chechen named Musa Abu Yusuf Shishani, who has previously called on Chechens in Europe to carry out attacks against civilians, and Abu Jihad, an ethnic Karachai who is a close confidant of Umar al-Shishani.

Raising Funds For The ‘Caliphate’

A recent advertisement published by ShamToday includes a request for donations via the QIWI wallet system.

The request for donations does not say what the money will be used for but uses an interesting call to action to persuade supporters in Russia and Central Asia to donate: the Koran’s Surat al-Tawbah, which instructs Muslims to “fight against the disbelievers collectively as they fight against you collectively.”

The donation request also includes an advertisement for two of ShamToday’s Zello channels, including one named Novosti Khalifata (“Caliphate News”) which the group uses to spread information about IS’s advances in Syria and Iraq to a Russian-speaking audience.

Other Russian-speaking militants associated with IS are also using QIWI accounts to fundraise. A post on the “Official Page KHILAFA” account on VKontakte, which posts news about IS in Syria and Iraq, also includes a QIWI account number and requests for donations.

Why Use QIWI?

Ironically, the ShamToday militants prefer to use QIWI for the same reason as millions of security-conscious Russians: the service allows people to transfer money electronically without having to transmit sensitive bank account information, and without having to have a bank account in the first place.

IS sympathizers who want to donate to ShamToday can do so at a dedicated QIWI kiosk (Russia had over 169,000 of these in 2013) or via their smartphone, by transferring money from their own QIWI account to the ShamToday account number, provided by the group on its donation request.

Besides Russia, QIWI is also available to consumers in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. QIWI users in these countries even make transfers abroad, including to Turkey, where the ShamToday account is most likely based.

The account number provided by ShamToday is a Russian mobile-phone number, which is most likely an untraceable anonymous SIM card and not a working number belonging to a member of ShamToday. Attempts to reach the phone number produced an automated message that said the phone was switched off or outside its provider’s coverage area.

Combating Terror Financing

The use of electronic payment systems like QIWI by banned groups is not new.

Russian lawmakers have taken steps to try to quash the use of electronic payment systems like QIWI for terrorist financing.

In January 2014, a group of lawmakers from Russia’s United Russia party (including Shamsail Saraliev, the former External Affairs Minister for the Chechen Republic) and the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia put forward amendments to existing electronic payment legislation, as part of a counterterrorism package.

The proposed amendments initially called for banning all anonymous transfers over 5,000 rubles, a move that caused QIWI stock to plummet 19 percent on January 15, 2014.

However, when the final version of the amended law passed on May 5, 2014, anonymous payments under 15,000 rubles were retained, although the legislation did ban anonymous payments of any size if they were between individuals rather than companies or other organizations.

The open use of QIWI by ShamToday suggests that this legislation has not deterred some extremist groups from using the electronic payment system to raise funds in Russia.

In a response to an inquiry by RFE/RL about the use of its services by ShamToday, QIWI said that it “condemns and does not support terrorist, extremist and other illegal activities” and that it was operating in “strict compliance with applicable legislation including legislation to combat money laundering of criminal funds and terror financing.”

“The company is taking all necessary and applicable legal measures to protect its services from penetration by criminal proceeds and also to minimize the risk of the company being involved in the laundering of proceeds from criminal activities and terrorist financing,” QIWI said in an e-mail.

ISIS Strategy, No Counterpunch, No Win

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Even from a liberal Democrat:

A senior congressional Democrat said Tuesday that he’s concerned the Obama administration’s strategy for defeating ISIS is heading in the wrong direction. To the extent that the administration has been measuring success against the Islamist group by ticking off the number of airstrikes against ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria, as a White House spokesman did Monday, “alarm bells should be going off,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told reporters during a question and answer session in Washington. Schiff, the most senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called ISIS’s capture of Ramadi, Iraq, “a very serious and significant setback” in U.S.-led efforts to defeat the extremist group.

Another battle and another chaotic retreat by Iraqi government forces, who abandoned their positions in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province, despite U.S. air support and a last-minute appeal by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who called on his soldiers to “hold their positions.”
Only hours before the fall, the Baghdad government sent in reinforcements to try to contain what was a counterpunch mounted by the militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, to their defeat in Tikrit just weeks ago. Tikrit, in neighboring Salahaddin province, was the first substantial city lost by ISIS and it was hailed by U.S., and Iraqi leaders, as the start in earnest of the rollback of the militants.
U.S. officials are couching the loss of Ramadi as a setback rather than a blow, arguing they had always expected ups and downs and reversals mixed in with steady progress in the fight against the Islamic extremists and their Sunni allies in Iraq. Only on Friday, Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, was describing to reporters how ISIS is “on the defensive throughout Iraq and Syria,” although he cautioned the terror army will still have “episodic successes” but they won’t “materialize into long-term gains.”

Then when the White House sends over to Congress an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and Congress cannot provide approval it speaks to a wide known fact that there is no strategy with defeating global enemies most of which is ISIS. John Boehner, Speaker of the House has called for a strategy and a new AUMF request.

Boehner Demands an Obama Do-Over on AUMF

John A. Boehner said Tuesday that President Obama should withdraw his current war request from Congress and “start over,” coming up with an entirely new strategy to fight the Islamic State after this weekend’s setback in Iraq.

“We don’t have a strategy,” Mr. Boehner said in calling for the do-over.

The Ohio Republican had spent much of last year demanding Mr. Obama send up a request for Congress to authorize the use of military force, known in Capitol-speak as an AUMF. But when Mr. Obama finally did send one up, it left Congress paralyzed, and no major legislative action has occurred in the three months since.

Facing stiff criticism from those who say Congress is shirking its duties, Mr. Boehner said it was Mr. Obama who was failing by sending up a bad request.

He said Mr. Obama asked for less power to fight the Islamic State than he currently has under the 2001 legislation that authorized war against al Qaeda and the Taliban — the powers the president has already been relying on to fight the Islamic State for a year.

“The president’s request for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force calls for less authority than he has today,” Mr. Boehner said.

The demand comes just days after Iraqi troops retreated and Islamic State fighters took control of Ramadi, a city 70 miles from Baghdad. But it also comes after a U.S. special forces raid in Syria on Friday killed about a dozen Islamic State terrorists.

The contrast left some military analysts insisting it was evidence that U.S. troops will be needed to win the fight against the Islamic State.

 

More Details, Raqqa Delta Force Operation

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Kayla Mueller was from Arizona and was killed by Islamic State in February of 2015. She was taken hostage in Aleppo, Syria while working with Doctors Without Borders. She herself became a human rights activist supporting Palestinians through International Solidarity Movement and was even allegedly married to a Syria. Yet there is more.

US Looking Into Whether Hostage Was Kept by IS Leader

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating the possibility that the Islamic State militant leader killed Friday was the captor of American hostage Kayla Mueller for a time.

Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, confirmed the connection at a breakfast with reporters Tuesday, but declined further comment. ABC News first reported that U.S. officials believe Mueller, whose death was announced in February, spent time in the custody of the Tunisian Islamic State finance man known as Abu Sayyaf.

A U.S. official on Tuesday said Sayyaf’s real name was Fathi ben Awn ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi.

Murad was killed Friday during a rare ground operation in Islamic State-held territory in Syria by Delta Force operators. His wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, was taken into custody and is being interrogated, U.S. officials say.

Murad had a number of aliases, the official said, but officials believe that Murad is his real name. Murad is believed to be the Islamic State’s head of oil operations.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Islamic State group said Mueller was killed in a Jordanian air strike, but U.S. officials have cast doubt on that assertion. Mueller and her Syrian boyfriend were taken hostage in August 2013 after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria. The boyfriend was later released.

White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan declined to address the issue.

“We are currently debriefing the detainee to obtain intelligence about ISIL operations,” she said. “We are also working to determine any information she may have regarding hostages – including American citizens who were held by ISIL.”

A U.S. official also provided more details on the Friday night raid.

The commandos who flew by Black Hawk and V-22 Osprey aircraft into Syria under cover of darkness quickly met resistance on the ground. They blew a hole in the building where Murad was believed to be staying and as they ran into the building and up the stairs, they encountered more insurgents. The official said that at that point the U.S. forces battled in close quarters combat, including some hand-to-hand fighting.

The goal of the mission, which had undergone months of planning, was to take Murad and his wife alive, in the hopes that he would provide intelligence on the group’s operations, finances and information on who they do business with and potentially on their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Another part of the plan was to free an 18-year-old girl who is a Yazidi and was believed to be kept as a slave by the Islamic State leader and his wife.

The girl was found and freed by the commandos and is expected to be returned to her family after she is debriefed by the U.S.

A team from U.S. intelligence agencies is poring over the laptops, cellphones, computer drives and other data recovered at the site.

No one can know what Syria looks like today given the civil war in its 4th year. Where are the former moderate Syrian leaders? Is there some kind of shadow government and what is the future of Syria?

The Dicey, Dangerous Future of Syria’s Exiled Government

Read more: The Dicey, Dangerous Future of Syria’s Exiled Government | Fast Forward | OZY

In part:

The Syrian National Coalition, which is headquartered in Istanbul and created the SIG, has been riven by bitter infighting. People now ask not when the war will end, but if it will. And yet, experts say that however uncertain Syria’s future, the dentist prime minister, his Cabinet and the coalition that elected him might be its best shot at a semblance of peace. “There needs to be a political alternative to Assad, and that’s what they are,” says Mahjoob Zweiri, an expert in the Syrian conflict at Qatar University. “A power vacuum during the transition would be a disaster — look at Yemen or Libya.”

In fairness, the SIG has managed to provide some basic services to parts of Syria despite the difficulties of governing a wrecked state from a distance. It’s built schools and set up hospitals, for instance. In January, after the Qatari money dried up, the SIG received $6 million from the United States — the first time America directly funded the rebel body. And in March, it won an opportunity of sorts to show that it can do more: The northwestern city of Idlib had fallen from Assad’s control, opening up a space for the SIG to build support within Syria.

And yet, Idlib had fallen into the hands of the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front. Even if the SIG manages to fend off the Nusra Front brigades that now control the city and survive Assad’s chemical attacks, bankrolling their vision of law and order will be difficult. Minister of Finance Ibrahim Miro says that rebuilding the country will cost about $100 billion.

Everyone at the SIG is aware that what they’re trying to pull off is just shy of a miracle. And while the Syrian National Coalition tries to quell the infighting among its various factions — from secular feminists to the Muslim Brotherhood — maintaining the legitimacy of its government in exile has become increasingly difficult. History doesn’t offer much hope. Aside from the one set up during the Nazi invasion of France, interim governments have worked only when they are located inside their home country, like the one in Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s fall.

But time to make a difference is running out fast. If Syrians stop believing in the SIG, it will be hard to maintain its raison d’être. And accusations of mismanagement, high salaries and meetings in five-star hotels have not helped sway the hearts and minds of most Syrians. It’s obvious why the SIG is so eager to return home.

Read more: The Dicey, Dangerous Future of Syria’s Exiled Government | Fast Forward | OZY

Kerry’s Groveling Continues

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There is not a single State Department mission or a White House global challenge that does not require cooperation, check that, the groveling by Kerry to Iran or Russia. Diplomacy in 140 characters or less. Cant make this up.

Please Iran, we need an agreement to sign with the P5+1 on the nuclear program and we will allow Iranian hostilities to continue in Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Kerry has proven to ignore the hegemony of Iran in all corners of the globe and the historical terrorism at the hands of the Ayatollahs. Then enter Russia, where Putin and Lavrov agree to cooperate but there are never any breakthroughs unless Putin’s demands are met and his own aggressions are ignored as witnessed by Crimea and Ukraine. A side note, 6100 people have been killed in Ukraine since Putin occupied the eastern region there.

So, in a rather quick trip to meet with Russian leadership, some clandestine agenda items are in the near future. Twitter is the communication platform of choice, at least for John Kerry. Sheesh…

There the readout of the meeting was ‘frank’ face to face talk. What? Putin is former KGB, frank talk? Hardly.

Ties between Moscow and Washington were shredded when Russia seized the southern Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in early 2014 and allegedly buttressed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Kerry visited Sochi after Obama snubbed Russia’s huge military parade to commemorate Soviet victory over Nazi Germany last week, in what was seen as punishment over Russia’s meddling in Ukraine.

Earlier in the day, Kerry and Lavrov laid wreaths at a World War II memorial to pay tribute to the Soviet dead.

On the balmy shores of the Black Sea, the top US diplomat’s Russian hosts also treated Kerry to locally made sparkling wine, according to Putin’s aides, while Lavrov gave his counterpart two baskets of potatoes and tomatoes.

Kerry-Putin Talks Could Deliver a Global Surprise

At 8:12 a.m. last Tuesday, Secretary of State Kerry Tweeted from Sochi, the Black Sea resort, with this mind-blower: “Had frank discussions with President #Putin & FM #Lavrov on key issues including #IranTalks, #Syria, #Ukraine.”

In 140 characters and a photograph, Kerry may have described the biggest thing he’ll get done as President Obama’s top diplomat. It’s early days and anything can happen between Washington and Moscow—as Kerry just demonstrated—but if this turn toward cordiality and cooperation holds, the consequences will refract like neutrons all over the planet.

And there’s nothing in any of the potential outcomes not to like.

As Kerry’s Tweet made plain, the Obama administration’s motivations in this demarche go to three immediate issues—two key to stability in the Middle East and one that has made the phrase “Cold War II” common currency in the past year and a half. Analysts of all stripes are unanimous: Washington has now concluded that there’s no resolving any of these questions without Moscow’s help.

That’s sound thinking except that it’s late by at least a year. One thing above all others prompted Obama and Kerry to get smart quick: These guys have a year and a half to leave a legacy of any value on the foreign side, and there’s not much other than failure in the hopper at the moment.

In Syria, the administration should have come to wiser conclusions in September 2013, when Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, saved Obama’s bacon by persuading Damascus to give up its chemical weapons inventories. Remember Obama’s foolish “red line” gambit? Lavrov threw the life jacket.

Kerry has said since mid-March that he wants new talks toward a political settlement in Syria, and Moscow is essential in making this happen. In this, the administration is straight out of Churchill: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.”

It’s something of the same on the pending nuclear deal with Iran—which was the No. 1 topic in Sochi. It was Lavrov who got Tehran to consider, if not yet agree, to ship its stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia and re-import supplies as needed for peaceful purposes. With two and a half months before the deadline for this deal, Washington needs all five negotiating partners—Russia above all, I’d say—to keep their oars in the water.

As to Ukraine, its economy deserves emergency status, even if you read next to nothing in the news reports. Absent the kind of debt write-down the European Union refuses to grant the Greeks, Lawrence Summers argued in the Financial Times over the weekend, default is now a serious option.

Equally, Kiev has done little to address the terms agreed in Minsk last February, which included new constitutional provisions granting rebellious eastern regions greater autonomy. With Europeans increasingly impatient and Russia not even close to stepping back, Kerry’s assistant secretary for European affairs, the controversial Victoria Nuland, was in Kiev two days after Kerry’s Sochi sit-down to confer on implementing the Minsk II agreement, of which Russia is a primary signatory.

Small wonder Kerry spent seven hours in back-to-back talks—three with Lavrov and four with President Putin. It was his first visit to Russia in two years, and these the objects of his attention—cooperation getting the Syria crisis under control, the final stitching on the Iran deal, and a settlement in Ukraine that—it’s finally clear in Washington—cannot be achieved other than via a negotiated compromise based on Minsk II.

It’s a full agenda, but stop there and you don’t get the half of it. Look at the other factors that sent Kerry to Putin’s Black Sea resort residence:

• It has been clear for months that Washington’s assertive stance toward Russia has been a source of increasing trans-Atlantic tensions. The very real risk of a lasting rift in U.S.-E.U. ties can now be alleviated.

• European leaders are due to meet next month to consider the status of the U.S.-led sanctions regime, and at least six nations are on the record saying they’ve had enough. When Kerry hinted after the Sochi sessions that it could be time to step back, he opened a path away from an embarrassing display of disunity, if not mutiny.

• E.U-Russian relations can begin to mend, too. This is especially key on the economic side. The virtual freeze of banking operations, a drastic slowdown in investment flows, and Russia’s countersanctions against E.U. exports have all hurt the eurozone just as it struggles to recover from seven years of financial and economic crisis.

• Tensions within the E.U., heated of late, also stand to abate. Greece has been the most evident problem in this regard, as the Syriza government draws closer to Moscow in plainly purposeful defiance of the Brussels consensus. But Greece, we should note, is not alone in harboring these sympathies.

Russian officials close to the Kremlin, to the perplexity of many Western analysts, have been advancing a worst-is-over line for several weeks. Putin added his voice when he met Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, just before the Sochi talks.

Indeed, sanctions may have backfired in certain respects. While Moscow announced a 1.9 percent drop in 1Q GDP Friday, it was less than expected, and Russia’s industry seems to have been energized. It reminds me of Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe, when international sanctions forced a not-unimpressive manufacturing sector into being: If you can’t bring it in, make it.

The ruble, meantime, has come back so strongly this year that Moscow started buying $100 million to $200 million in foreign exchange daily last week to hold it down.

Those hours in Sochi, let’s say, were long due, wherever you sit and however you look at it. Now to watch what comes of them.