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I have some questions and comments I would like a response from more knowledgeable folks here:

1. Assuming we could pull this off militarily and we land guys there, send warships, etc. in force, does Obama has the credibility to make his “stop” actually stick? He seems to me to have tossed most of that down the drain in Syria. If Russia calls his bluff, what then? Obama cannot afford to lose again. Do we start bombing Volga basin ports? What? It’s close to Churchills, “damn fool thing in the Balkans” Where Obama is the “damn fool.” (I know, it’s not the quite the Balkans but it’s close, the people there are just as nuts as the Balkans, and that part of the world has always been about Costantinople and the Straits of Bosporus, which is what Russia’s intervention is about today).

2. I don’t know enough about our capabilities to pull off an operation today in Russia’s back yard if Russia decides to make us go away. Do we actually go to war over this? And if we do, I’m thinking the public support for Americans dying about Russia’s access to the Mediterranean and Crimean gas is very, very limited—even Obama’s left-wing support. And his youth support fizzles when they learn what a buzz kill a real war can be and they get to fight it. So it all hinges on the bet that Russia backs down. See point 1.

3. Would the EU even support us if Russia decides to try to make us go away, when Russia turns of Europe’s natural gas? And how to we support troops there if Europe doesn’t help out on logistics and basing? Of course the saudi’s and Kuwaitis would lend some support. Probably the Turks too. Would that make up for not having basing rights in Europe?

4. Motivations. Black Sea access is really important to Russia. Their access to the Black Sea is much less important to us.

5. A Jimmy Carter style response (I’m thinking the pathetic hostage rescue) or a Somalia (we seemed to be there just to look tough) would be the worst possible outcome. Guys in turbans and guys driving mechanicals made us retreat in the most humiliating possible ways.

But at 37% approval rating, and looking at things without hindsight or any particular interest in history, might this look like just the symbolic sort of thing that would sort things out for Obama and the dems in 2014?

Having raised the question, actually I suspect not. Obama was a thug from Chicago. Now he’s a thug from Washington DC. But he’s been a very poor thug against anyone internationally. He does great bullying Tea Partiers. But Putin is in different class of thug and somewhere in that narcissistic brain, even Obama knows that.

It’s also kind of early for wagging the dog—there’s a lot of time between now and the election for the voters to digest and discard credit for a poorly executed and, given our CIC, an intervention that probably either (1) fails from being too half-assed; or (2) that escalates to a real war because Obama cannot try and fail on this one. Even NBCCBSMSNBCABCCNN do not have the mojo to make a failure here into a success. Maybe that’s why Russia moved right after the Olympics instead of waiting another four or five months.

6. How does Turkey feel about this? I’m thinking not too comfy.

7. Will Obama go to the UN for approval? Or congress? (OK, stupid question. He doesn’t give a hoot about Congress or the UN, except as a tool to use against domestic opponents).