Free Republic

Bush accidentally called the invasion of Iraq "unjustified and brutal" in a speech about Ukraine. He also helped make the war in Ukraine inevitable and undermined efforts to avoid it.Pedro L. GonzalezMay 19The Bush Center / YouTubeFormer President George W. Bush suffered a Freudian slip while delivering a speech from Dallas condemning Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian president, said Bush, launched “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.” The audience fell silent as he realized the mistake. “Iraq too, anyway,” Bush muttered under his breath as awkward chuckles rippled through the room.Rarely does...

President Biden is not very good at his job, and yet, I thank God every day that Biden is president. In the Ukraine crisis, he has redeemed the hopes of those who voted for competence. The administration’s warnings to Moscow were unambiguous without being hysterical. Our revelations of intelligence unmasking Russian disinformation and false flag narratives were on the nose. Biden’s coordination with European allies was a skillful presentation of unity (special kudos to Secretary of State Antony Blinken). There were some missed opportunities. The president should have placed the invasion of Ukraine in a broader historical context and outlined...

Last weekend saw Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin signal a complete reversal of policy direction, saying that a “new security environment” in Europe brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means the country has to rethink its long-standing policy of neutrality toward the NATO bloc. “Russia is not the neighbor we thought it was,” she said of Moscow’s ongoing assault on Ukraine, calling it a “flagrant violation”. “In this new situation and changed security environment, we’ll have to evaluate all means to guarantee the safety of Finland and Finns,” Marin said. “We’ll have to seriously mull over our own stance...

President Vladimir Putin is more likely than not to invade Ukraine again in the coming weeks. As someone who helped President Barack Obama manage the U.S. and international response to Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and our effort to keep Moscow from occupying the whole country into 2015, I am distressingly convinced of it. Why? I see the scale and type of force arrayed by the Russian military, the ultimatums issued by Putin and his officials, the warlike rhetoric that has until recently saturated Russian airwaves, and the impatience with talks expressed by his foreign minister. Add to...