Senator Jeff Sessions on Putin...
March 26, 2015
Interview with Jeff Sessions: U.S. and Europe "Have to Unify" Against Russia
excerpt...What do you expect next from Russia?
Sessions: Well, there's a danger that they may continue this overreach. They just solidified power in Georgia, in South Ossetia. That was I think in the last week. Pressure is still on Ukraine. We don't know whether the Minsk Agreement will hold, I don't think it's holding very well now.
We have the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Romanians, they're very worried. This is reality, I wish it weren't, but I'm afraid it is. It needs to be clear that Russia knows that there will be a high price to pay if this behavior continues.
If Minsk breaks down, at what point does the president have to act and supply Ukraine with lethal weaponry? What is the breaking point? We know from what Victoria Nuland said that the administration hasn't decided yet.
Sessions: From what I understand from this conference, I think it's clear that Germany has said publicly that they will support harsher sanctions and more military support if the Minsk Agreement fails. And that will be key.
Merkel has worked very very hard to establish a relationship with Putin and Russia. It's been a good-faith effort. If it fails, I would hope that Europe and the United States would have to unify and push back more firmly against Russian overreach. ..."
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"In a Montgomery speech in March 2014...he [Sen Jeff Sessions] called for international scorn toward Russia for its aggressive actions in Ukraine and, before then, Georgia.
"I believe a systematic effort should be undertaken so that Russia feels pain for this," Sessions said then. "Because if you don't act now to make some sanctions against Russia then why will they believe in the future that we're going to impose sanctions or do anything aggressive if they move forward to take all of Ukraine, all of Georgia?""
Sessions, not that long ago, was calling for more sanctions against an expansionist Russia that was rattling U.S. allies in Europe. And he regularly blamed the Obama administration for what he argued was an overly optimistic and weak foreign policy, including a decision to scale back planned missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland.
“There’s no good solution now. The bottle of milk has shattered on the floor and you can’t put it back together,” the Alabama senator said about relations with Russia in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea.
Sessions has also pointed to Russia’s record as justification for a robust missile defense system, which has deep roots in north Alabama.
“Russia’s recent actions in Georgia remind us that country, which we once hoped was on a path to greater integration into the global world community, might again be seeking to restore old Soviet ideas of dominance throughout their neighbors and in Eastern Europe, all of which should serve as a motivation to move ahead with the necessary capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies from missile attack, in particular,” Sessions said on the Senate floor in 2008.
Two years later, Sessions voted against the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, in part because he thought Obama conceded too much ground to the Russians.
“Just signing an agreement on a piece of paper does not create security,” Sessions said. “A consistent, principled, just approach to our legitimate national defense, advocated clearly and forthrightly without misunderstanding, is the best way to have security in this dangerous world.”
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