Posted on 03/02/2014 2:42:09 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
There may be no way for the United States to reverse the Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. The Obama administration still has the opportunity to send a strong message to Russian President Vladimir Putin to punish Moscow for this aggression in response to the ouster of one of their stooge in Kiev by a popular uprising. Indeed, he would do well to listen to the advice of Senator Marco Rubio who outlined eight steps the U.S. should take in response to the crisis. But whether or not the president acts appropriately now, it’s probably too late to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine from a predatory Russia. As he did in Georgia in 2008, Putin counted on both America and Europe being too weak and irresolute to stop him from aggression carried on in his own backyard even if meant violating international law by carrying out a unilateral partition of Ukraine to either annex part of that country to Russia or, as is more likely, set up another puppet state in the strategic Crimea. At this moment, there’s little reason to believe that calculation was incorrect.
But even if we take for granted that it’s too late to save Ukraine, the spectacle of Russian aggression should provoke a re-examination of the direction of U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It should also cause us to think again about the assumption that the American people are, as Senator Rand Paul and a growing chorus of isolationists on both the right and the left have advocated, perfectly happy to retreat from the world stage and let aggressors such as Putin ‘s Russia or Iran have their way. The lessons of the tragedy unfolding in the Crimea are many, but surely the first of them must be that when dictators don’t fear the warnings of the leader of the free world and when America demonstrates that it is war weary and won’t, on almost any account, take firm action, to defend its interests and to restrain aggression, mayhem is almost certainly always going to follow.
No doubt there will be many, whether they call themselves realists or isolationists, who will in the coming days argue that what happens in the Ukraine is none of our business. Americans who are sick of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan say they want no part of foreign wars or even a strong foreign policy that carries with it the chance of engaging in conflict. They may not cheer when Barack Obama speaks of “leading from behind” but they are entirely comfortable with the general drift toward retreat that has taken place in the last five years under his leadership. But, as we have seen in Syria and now in the Ukraine, there is a price to pay for such weakness and it is not one that will be paid by Bashar Assad or Putin. Nor will others who seek to test the mettle of American resolve, such as the leaders of Iran, fail to observe that the free world is led by a paper tiger. U.S. allies will draw the same conclusion.
A world in which dictators do as they like despite clear American warnings — as President Obama did first in Syria and then again this week about attacks on Ukraine — is not only a far more dangerous place. It also creates a dynamic in which every such American warning or diplomatic initiative is discounted as mere rhetoric, even if those daring to defy the United States are not so well situated as Putin is with his bold stroke in the Crimea. That is especially true with regards to the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
The circumstances of the U.S. diplomatic effort to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions are starkly different from those in the territories of the former Soviet Union. But the basic formula of a bold rogue regime that has no reason to fear the threats or the blandishments of either the U.S. or Europe is present in the P5+1 talks. Lack of credibility in foreign policy cannot be compartmentalized in one region or particular issue. Weakness and irresolution are fungible commodities in international diplomacy. The Obama administration gave up the formidable military, political and economic leverage they had over Iran last fall by signing an interim agreement with Iran that gave Tehran what it wanted in terms of recognizing their right to enrich uranium as well as loosening sanctions in exchange for almost nothing. If the Iranians had good reason to think they had nothing to fear from the Obama administration before this latest humiliation of the president at the hands of Putin, their conviction that they can be as tough as they like with him without worrying about a strong American response can only be greater today.
It is too late to save Ukraine from the theft of its territory. But it is not too late to reverse the U.S. retreat from the world stage that has been going on in the last years. President Obama can begin to regain some of his credibility by taking a strong stand on sanctions against Russia and sticking to it. But if he doesn’t no one should be under the illusion that it won’t affect Obama’s ability to prevail in the Iran talks. The cost of Obama-style weakness and isolationism will not be cheap, either for U.S. allies or for an American people who must now understand what it is like to live in a world where no one respects or fears their government.
America will do nothing. Ukraine is the Russians’ backyard - if they want to slap it silly, who is going to stop them?
Russia also has a border dispute with Canada. Doing nothing now when a neo Brezhnev KGB thug rampages against his neighbor will have big costs later.
The Russians do not think the way Westerners do. They look at their huge country and know much of it is kept together only by force.
They look at what Gorbachev did and for them that was a time of national humiliation they want to live down. They remember how weak they were when their Serb allies were pummeled by the Americans and NATO and they could do absolutely nothing.
The lesson they learned is letting the West taking advantage of them brought NATO right on their doorstep. And they will not allow the West to take away their freedom to run their “near abroad” as they see fit. They may have lost their empire but they are not about to let any one else take away the influence they wield in their part of the world.
If asserting Russia’s interests means they won’t be invited again to a future G-7 summit, so be it. For the Kremlin, making sure Russia is the leading country of the post-Soviet space overrides all other considerations. And its on this basis that Russia is claiming the right to act as it pleases in Ukraine today.
Like they did in East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia?
Don't make me laugh.
This shows the false promise of international “law,” U.N. “peacekeeping” and/or treaties.
The Ukrainians are Europeans. The only reason the Russians lost Eastern Europe was the empire was draining them dry.
If the Ukrainians are smart, they will let the Russians occupy them and pick up the tab for their bankrupt country.
In the end Russia will disgorge them because the financial costs of keeping them happy are not worth it.
If the only reason Putin is deterred from invading Ukraine, is not due to moral scruples, respect for international law, or even a regard for human life but simply because acquired real estate is very expensive to administer in the modern world.
And rebuilding the Russian Empire involves more than grabbing huge chunks of land in the bargain.
“to save Ukraine” ???
The e-mails of Klitschko, the boxer dubbed pseudo-president of Ukraine, have been hacked.
They reveal that Klitschko wanted from the start that the situation escalate in Maidan Square and protestors die, because he needed dead bodies to blame for and expell the sitting, legitimate president.
Putin doesn’ want all of Ukraine.
He’ll probably take the East, russophone et russophile, the rich and industrialised part and leave the poor east with its batch of nazis to the EU.
Why are you licking Putin’s boots in all these threads? Are you an isolationist?
Some are. Some are Russians.
And the truth is, the Europeans who live in Ukraine have had all the press these last two weeks. We have no reliable, testable method of determining what TASS used to refer to as the "correlation of forces".
I presume that the Russians who live in Ukraine want reunification. I also presume that, in the West, there is a so far silent faction of unknown size who were proud to be Soviet citizens, who don't like being small and weak, and/or who don't want to be homosexualized or to be overrun with the Turks and Africans who will arrive with the IMF and the E.U.
I absolutely recognize that Lwow (and Brest, and Grodno for that matter) will never be Russian. But I bet you anything that the silent majority East of Galicia won't fight and die to reverse Putin's coup.
Of course, I could be wrong. That's why they play the games.
Why are you backing a Neo Nazi who has already tried to remove the citizenship of every Russian speaking citizen.
It boggles my mind that there are several people here who think a Neo Nazi Chief Prosecutor in a corrupt 3rd world country known for brutality and ruthlessness (see the fear worldwide of Ukrainian Mobsters) poses no problem.
This is a powder keg and Jews that can get out should get out until this settles down.
“........There is a train of thought among some libertarian types that the Ukraine is “not our fight” an eerie parallel to the thinking among isolationists and appeasers of the 1930s regarding Hitler’s territorial demands. But the imperative of preventing the rebirth of the Soviet Empire and the second coming of the balance of nuclear terror makes the Ukraine everyone’s fight. Because it will not be Putin’s final territorial demand.”
http://voices.yahoo.com/why-ukraine-crisis-matters-12555481.html?cat=9
Jews are front and center as to be the ones to lose again..
Some here think there are no Neo Nazis in power in Ukraine.
The idea is LUDICROUS. Mccain has actually backed them..but then he is a senile ole’ coot.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/28/352614/us-mustnt-back-neonazis-in-ukraine/
Does anyone here think of Obambi and his Black Panthers when reading this story
People had better WAKE UP....before the Neo Nazis have suddenly risen to the top
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-28/roberts-its-ww1-that-has-the-lessons-for-our-time/5290470
It’s WWI that has the lessons for our time
NEWSNIGHT: Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY&feature=youtu.be
but But but..Jews have nothing to fear according to some here...
Despite the Chief Prosecutor being a Neo Nazi
Why are you backing a Neo Nazi who has already tried to remove the citizenship of every Russian speaking citizen.
That is a false choice. But if it was a real choice I would still pick some “neo nazi” bureaucrat over a murdering KGB thug with an army of 700,000. Putin is running the Brezhnev doctrine playbook, killing those that disagree with him politically and living in the 1970’s. I don’t care to go back there.
This is really about isolationism isn’t it? It’s none of our business yada yada yada. If that’s your position just state it. Willfully ignoring the the murdering KGB thug in the room while you chase strawmen is unbecoming a conservative. Would Reagan do that?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/26/us-china-philippines-idUSBREA1P0I320140226
Feb 26, 2014: “............On January 27, a Chinese coastguard vessel tried to drive away Filipino fishermen from Scarborough Shoal by using a water cannon, General Emmanuel Bautista, the head of Philippine military said on Monday.
China claims about 90 percent of the 3.5-million-sq-km (1.35-million-sq-mile) waters of the South China Sea. It provides 10 percent of the global fish catch, carries $5 trillion a year in ship-borne trade and has a seabed believed to be rich in energy reserves.
Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam also claim parts of the sea.
The Philippines has urged regional grouping the Association of South East Asian Nations to conclude a binding code of conduct with China to avoid accidents and miscalculations in the disputed waters.
The Philippines has taken its dispute with China to arbitration under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea but China is refusing to participate.
China has rejected challenges to its sovereignty claims and accused the Philippines of illegally occupying Chinese islands in the seas and of provoking tension.”
Simferopol, a well known hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism.
The Neo Nazis backed by Mccain helped lead to the destabilization of the Ukraine.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100260665/ukraine-the-opposition-arent-all-angels-some-are-neo-nazis/
That’s right.
This is about destabilization.
So, basically what you are saying is that it is okay to let the Neo Nazis who hate Jews take power.
How many said that as Hitler gained power.
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