Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

Does Putin Back Hillary?

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Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and Demo­c­rat stan­dard-bear­er Hillary Clin­ton in hap­pi­er times. [Cred­it: thepoliticalcarnival.net]

Per­haps because I’m in Italy, I’ve not been infect­ed by the con­ta­gion that has spread more rapid­ly than the Zika virus: the febrile notion that Russ­ian pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin is sub­vert­ing our elec­toral process in an effort to elect Don­ald J. Trump as president.

Nev­er has such con­spir­a­to­r­i­al spec­u­la­tion mutat­ed so quick­ly into received wis­dom. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

There Is No Plan To Destroy The Islamic State

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Hillary Clinton presented her plan for defeating the Islamic State recently. It won't work. Nor will those advanced by her Republican opponents. [Credit: NY Daily News]

Hillary Clin­ton pre­sent­ed her plan for defeat­ing the Islam­ic State recent­ly. It won’t work. Nor will those advanced by her Repub­li­can oppo­nents. [Cred­it: NY Dai­ly News]

When pressed by a nor­mal­ly docile gag­gle of White House reporters recent­ly over whether he would con­sid­er chang­ing his failed Syr­ia strat­e­gy, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma revert­ed to form: he accused Repub­li­cans of reli­gious big­otry and cru­el­ty to children.

His polit­i­cal oppo­nents, he said, believe that “only Chris­tians, proven Chris­tians, should be admit­ted” as refugees and that we “shouldn’t admit 3‑year old-orphans.”

The President’s efforts to divert atten­tion from his for­eign pol­i­cy deba­cles (which helped make orphans and refugees of three-year-olds) have so far fall­en flat.  The vast major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans has lost con­fi­dence in his cam­paign against the Islam­ic State.  A Wash­ing­ton Post poll found that 57 per­cent dis­ap­prove of the way he’s deal­ing with the ter­ror­ist group – includ­ing 46 per­cent who strong­ly dis­ap­prove – against only 35 per­cent who sup­port him.

That pub­lic sen­ti­ment, of lit­tle inter­est to the Pres­i­dent, is a lead­ing con­cern for those vying to suc­ceed him.  Even Bernie Sanders claims to have a plan to destroy the Islam­ic State. Though they dif­fer in cer­tain respects, most of these plans call for drop­ping more bombs against more tar­gets from planes fly­ing the flags of more coun­tries (with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of Rus­sia), pro­vid­ing more arms to fac­tions we don’t real­ly know and can’t real­ly trust, and deploy­ing more mil­i­tary “advis­ers” (not to be con­fused with “boots on the ground”) to the region.

All of them sug­gest that Islam­ic State can be van­quished with rel­a­tive ease and at lit­tle cost.  All of them are blow­ing smoke. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

GOP Debate: Bring Back The CNBC Moderators

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GOP Presidential contenders struggled with substantive questions during last week's debate. [Credit: ibtimes.com

GOP Pres­i­den­tial con­tenders fum­bled sub­stan­tive ques­tions dur­ing last week’s debate. [Cred­it: ibtimes.com]

Don­ald Trump wants a piece of the Key­stone Pipeline.

The issue didn’t come up dur­ing last week’s GOP debate, so Trump didn’t have the chance to elab­o­rate on his dec­la­ra­tion that he would have approved the project only if the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny forked over 25 per­cent of its profits.

“I want a piece of the deal,” Trump told Bret Baier of Fox News.  “When I say I want a piece, I’m now rep­re­sent­ing our coun­try the way I would rep­re­sent myself.” Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Hope And (Regime) Change

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Our drive-by intervention accomplished regime change in Libya, but the country has still not recovered from its liberation. [Credit: National Post]

Our dri­ve-by inter­ven­tion accom­plished regime change in Libya, but the coun­try has still not recov­ered from its lib­er­a­tion. [Cred­it: Nation­al Post]

The Con­sti­tu­tion requires Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to leave office in 700 days.  If he has his way, Vladimir Putin and Ben­jamin Netanyahu will pre­cede him into pri­vate life.

It should not be sur­pris­ing that a Pres­i­dent who prides him­self on refus­ing to nego­ti­ate with elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives has so lit­tle patience with some of his fel­low nation­al lead­ers.  Or that regime change has become a lead­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Pres­i­den­t’s for­eign pol­i­cy.   Con­tin­ue read­ing →

In Russia, Nothing Is True, Everything Is Possible

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Russian media coverage of the downing of a passenger flight over eastern Ukraine included a number of fanciful theories. A new book tells of how the Kremlin reshapes the truth.

Russ­ian media cov­er­age of the down­ing of a pas­sen­ger flight over east­ern Ukraine includ­ed a num­ber of fan­ci­ful the­o­ries. A new book tells of how the Krem­lin reshapes the truth.

But what is a Russ­ian point of view? What does Rus­sia Today stand for?” I asked. 

“Oh, there is always a Russ­ian point of view,” he answered. “Take a banana. For some­one it’s food. For some­one else it’s a weapon. For a racist it’s some­thing to tease a black per­son with.”

Noth­ing Is True And Every­thing Is Pos­si­ble, Peter Pomer­ant­sev

When a Malaysian Air­lines pas­sen­ger flight was shot down over rebel-con­trolled east­ern Ukraine last July, Russ­ian media adamant­ly denied that rebel forces were responsible.

Instead they float­ed a series of alter­na­tive the­o­ries, among them that Russia’s ene­mies had secret­ly recov­ered the wreck­age of a Malaysian Air­lines flight that had gone miss­ing the pre­vi­ous March and dumped it in east­ern Ukraine.  Anoth­er had it that the plane was car­ry­ing corpses and not live pas­sen­gers when it left Ams­ter­dam.  Anoth­er that it was a failed assas­si­na­tion attempt by the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary, which shot down the plane in the mis­tak­en belief that Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin was on board.

By gen­er­at­ing a fog of fan­tasies, the Krem­lin obscured the expla­na­tion that almost cer­tain­ly is true: Russ­ian-backed rebels blew the plane out of the sky. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Ukraine And The Echoes of Ravenna

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Ravenna's magnificent mosaics were realized during a time of upheaval that echoes today in Ukraine.

Raven­na’s mag­nif­i­cent mosaics were real­ized dur­ing a time of upheaval that echoes today in Ukraine.

There is some­thing odd about how the ancient mosaicist of Raven­na’s church of San Vitale tells the sto­ry of Moses receiv­ing the Ten Com­mand­ments.  When God presents him with the law, Moses turns away.  His gaze is fixed on the mosa­ic below, in which God pre­vents Abra­ham from sac­ri­fic­ing his son Isaac, instruct­ing him to offer a ram instead, thus ful­fill­ing the patriarch’s expec­ta­tion that God him­self would pro­vide an aton­ing sacrifice.

San Vitale’s mosaics are sixth cen­tu­ry mas­ter­pieces of light and col­or.  They con­vey the Chris­t­ian gospel with inef­fa­ble elo­quence.  They also express polit­i­cal aspi­ra­tions, long-for­got­ten visions of what Europe might be.  Their dis­ap­point­ments rever­ber­ate today in the streets of Kiev, Odessa and Donet­sk. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Why Europe Hasn’t Joined Our Ukraine Crusade

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It typically costs $100 to fill a 12-gallon tank in Italy today. The country imports much of its oil from Russia. Which is why its government is reluctant to sign on to President Obama's anti-Putin campaign. [Credit: NWA online]

It typ­i­cal­ly costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank in Italy today. The coun­try imports much of its oil from Rus­sia. Which is why its gov­ern­ment is reluc­tant to sign on to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s anti-Putin cam­paign. [Cred­it: NWA online]

A gal­lon of unlead­ed gas costs near­ly $9 here in Todi, a tran­quil Ital­ian town whose roots stretch back mil­len­nia to pre-Etr­uscan times.  Diesel is a bit cheap­er at $8.50 per gal­lon, mean­ing that it costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank.

Which may help explain why Pres­i­dent Obama’s cru­sade to impose sys­tem­at­ic eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on Rus­sia has so far fiz­zled.  Euro­peans are unwill­ing to pay the costs that dis­rup­tions in trade with Rus­sia would impose on them.

One can hard­ly blame them. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What the President Can Learn From Ukraine

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Ukrainian army personnel dispatched to reclaim a city from pro-Russian forces decided instead to defect to the Russian side. [Credit: AFP/Getty]

Ukrain­ian army per­son­nel dis­patched to reclaim a city from pro-Russ­ian forces report­ed­ly defect­ed to the pro-Russ­ian side. Last night’s ten­ta­tive agree­ment will put an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion — includ­ing Russ­ian, Amer­i­can and Euro­pean mon­i­tors — at the lead in return­ing the cities to Kiev’s con­trol. [Cred­it: AFP/Getty]

Ear­li­er this week, four armored troop car­ri­ers head­ed toward the east­ern Ukraine city of Slo­vian­sk, which had been occu­pied by pro-Russ­ian forces.  The para­troop­ers from Ukraine’s 25th brigade were dis­patched by the gov­ern­ment in Kiev to spear­head its “anti-ter­ror­ist” offen­sive, designed to reclaim the city for the cen­tral gov­ern­ment.  But after talk­ing with the demon­stra­tors who met them out­side the city, the troops report­ed­ly defect­ed to the pro-Russ­ian side, replaced the Ukraine flag with a Russ­ian one, and drove their vehi­cle into Lenin Square.

Short­ly after Rus­sia invad­ed Crimea, Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry said, “The peo­ple of Ukraine will not sit still for this.  They know how to fight.”

Evi­dent­ly not. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Next Ukraine Crisis

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Pro-Russian Crimeans celebrate referendum results. Putin won this round of the Ukraine crisis. How should the West prepare for the next one? [Credit: China Daily]

Pro-Russ­ian Crimeans cel­e­brate ref­er­en­dum results. Putin won this round of the Ukraine cri­sis. How should the West pre­pare for the next one? [Cred­it: Chi­na Daily]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and his Admin­is­tra­tion have been pro­claim­ing for weeks that the Rus­sians would suf­fer if they didn’t with­draw from Crimea.

They haven’t with­drawn.  They’re not suf­fer­ing.  Now what?

Vladimir Putin seems once again to have pre­vailed, annex­ing Crimea with­out mil­i­tary or eco­nom­ic reprisals of con­se­quence.  Our government’s veiled threats of mil­i­tary action and explic­it warn­ings of deep eco­nom­ic pain have thus far proven emp­ty, though both the US and Europe are expect­ed to add to the list of Rus­sians on whom it will impose trav­el and finan­cial restric­tions. The cri­sis may soon wind down, but we can expect anoth­er in a few months when new elec­tions are to be held and bills come due for a Kiev gov­ern­ment on the edge of bank­rupt­cy.  The Admin­is­tra­tion should han­dle this next cri­sis differently.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Ukraine Economic Woes Could Hold Key To Peace

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Uniformed troops believed to be Russian stand guard outside a Ukrainian military base in Crimea. Is there a peaceful resolution to this crisis? [Credit: Business Insider]

Uni­formed troops believed to be Russ­ian stand guard out­side a Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary base in Crimea. Is there a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to this cri­sis? [Cred­it: Busi­ness Insider]

Ukraine’s inter­im gov­ern­ment, whose part the Admin­is­tra­tion has tak­en in the Crimea cri­sis, includes a promi­nent polit­i­cal leader who has in the past urged his coun­try­men to fight the “Mus­covite-Jew­ish mafia” and called on his gov­ern­ment to halt the “crim­i­nal activ­i­ties” of “orga­nized Jewry.”

The author of this calum­ny, Oleh Tyah­ny­bok, is a leader of Ukraine’s Svo­bo­da (“free­dom”) par­ty, who in Decem­ber 2012 was named Per­son of the Year by read­ers of the coun­try’s lead­ing news mag­a­zine, Kor­re­spon­dent.

Such are the com­plex­i­ties that lurk not far beneath the sur­face in the ongo­ing cri­sis over Russia’s incur­sion into Crimea. Con­tin­ue read­ing →