
He was right of course. The Bush
presidency became a war presidency that day, and it pounded and pursued
the Islamic fundamentalists of al Qaeda without let-up or apology.
During
that time, it was reported that Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer in
East Germany, deeply regretted the fall of the Soviet Union's empire
and despised the Americans who caused it to fall. But no one cared what
Mr. Putin thought then. Russia's power was a sliver of its former size.
Besides, Mr. Putin's hurt was salved with the limitless personal wealth
that flowed from doing business with the West. Conventional wisdom
clicked in easily: Capitalism's surplus was enough to sate any rational
autocrat.
In 2008, the American people elected a new
president, and Vladimir Putin, a patient feline, would have noticed that
President Obama in his speeches was saying that American power would be
used "in concert" with other nations and institutions, such as the
United Nations. What would have made Mr. Putin's eye jump was the
decision by George Bush's successor not just to leave Iraq but without
leaving a residual U.S. military presence to help the new government of
Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki.
Sometime in the first Obama term,
opinion polls began to report that the American people were
experiencing what media shorthand came to call "fatigue" with the
affairs of the world. The U.S. should "mind its own business." The
America-is-fatigued polling fit with Mr. Obama's stated goal to lead
from behind. A close observer of American politics also could notice
that Republican politicians, the presumptive heirs of Reagan, began to
recalibrate their worldview inward to accommodate the "fatigue" in the
opinion polls.
We are of course
discussing Vladimir Putin's path to the forced annexation of Crimea. And
possibly in time a move on the independence of Ukraine, Lithuania,
Estonia, Latvia, Kazakhstan or Moldova. This narrative has one more
point of Putin demarcation: Syria.
(Click link below to read more) READ MORE Sphere: Related Content
No comments:
Post a Comment