I just spend about 2 hour listening to a TV debate of Russian experts about what to do about the USA.  Here are a few interesting interesting points.
1) They all agreed that the AngloZionist (of course, they used the words “USA” or “Western countries”) was only going to further escalate and that the only way to stop this is to deliberately bring the world right up to the point were a full-scale US-Russian war was imminent or even locally started.  They said that it was fundamentally wrong for Russia to reply with just words against Western actions.
2) Interestingly, there also was a consensus that even a full-scale US attack on Syria would be too late to change the situation on the ground, that it was way too late for that.
3) Another interesting conclusion was that the only really question for Russia is whether Russia would be better off delaying this maximal crisis or accelerating the events and making everything happen sooner.  There was no consensus on that.
4) Next, there was an consensus view that pleading, reasoning, asking for fairness or justice, or even for common sense, was futile.  The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been hopelessly zombified.  The authority of the so-called “western values” (democracy, rule of law, human rights, etc.) in Russia is now roadkill.
5) There was also a broad consensus that the US elites are not taking Russia seriously and that the current Russian diplomatic efforts are futile (especially towards the UK).  The only way to change that would be with very harsh measures, including diplomatic and military ones.  Everybody agreed that talking with Boris Johnson would be not only a total waste of time, but a huge mistake.
6) To my amazement, the notion that Russia might have to sink a few USN ships or use Kalibers on US forces in the Middle-East was viewed as a real, maybe inevitable, option.  Really – nobody objected.
Reach your own conclusions.  I will just say that none of the “experts” was representing, or working for, the Russian government.  Government experts not only have better info, they also know that the lives of millions of people depend on their decisions, which is not the case for the so-called “experts”. Still, the words of these experts do reflect, I think, a growing popular consensus.
The Saker

The prominent Russia Watcher, the American Gilbert Doctorow reacted to:

The Saker’s “Grim View”

In an article posted on this morning’s Russia Insider entitled “Russia is Ready for War. Mood on Prime-time TV is Grim,” the Saker sets out a list of conclusions he found watching Russian television, presumably last night.

 The program he watched seems not to be cited, though it is a safe guess it was Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov.

I salute The Saker for being one of the mighty few colleagues in alternative news, not to mention mainstream news, who actually follows what the Russians are saying at the source: on their television programs directed at the domestic audience

At the same time, while acknowledging the airing of the views he sets out in his essay, he has intentionally skewed his article to promote the negativism he brought with him to the write-up.  My own take-away from that program was diametrically opposite: to find great encouragement that the US generals, especially Chairman  of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dunford, are not the OK Corral shoot-out boys some of us would like to paint them, even if one, Secretary of Defense  Matthis, may be clueless.
What I heard on the Solovyov program is that the US military know precisely the positions of Russian cruisers, submarines, aircraft and missiles in the Middle East region, that is to say, they understand that the Russians are on a war footing and fully prepared to execute the deadly counter strike promised by General Gerasimov several weeks ago if the US dares to cross the Russian red lines and launch a strike against Damascus or other locations where Russia has its armed forces embedded with the Syrians.  The US generals, unlike the US politicians and media and US administration, is risk-averse if the outcome may be catastrophic.  Accordingly, the strike Trump has promised to “avenge” the utterly phony chemical attack in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, will have another vector, most likely to strike against Iran, which Trump held up as the co-supporters of “Animal” Assad.

Why Iran?  Well, that falls entirely in line with Trump’s anti-Iranian stance in general and it will test the alliance between Russia, Turkey and Iran whose presidents last week reconfirmed their commitment to a jointly managed final political and military settlement in Syria.  Indeed, there is no alliance between Russia and Iran, and the US can proceed as it sees fit in attacking Iran, subject of course, to Teheran’s ability and readiness attack US bases and armed detachments in its region in response.
I do not say that this alternative reading of the likely evolution of the Great Power confrontation in the Middle East is a happy one.  But it remains at the level of proxies and does not take us over the precipice to WWIII, as Saker’s and most other Western commentators in alternative media would have us believe.

Gilbert Doctorow