So I am alarmed by McCain's saber rattling (do we really want to get NATO involved in this?) and reassured by Obama's measured and dispassionate approach.
Apparently there are some Republicans who haven't quite gotten the lesson of the last eight years. Kevin Ivers, posting at Citizen Crain, is disappointed Obama didn't get all riled up:
Where was the passion we (thought we) saw in Barack Obama's primary campaign as the man who would right the wrong-from-the-beginning U.S. policy in Iraq? Where was the man so brazenly adopting the suit and posture of John F. Kennedy on the home stump and in the capitals of Europe? Where was the moral foundation in a man who dared to tell the whole world they could rejoice if he was elected leader of the free world, because he would answer the call of freedom's destiny?
It's almost as if Ivers wants Obama to return to Berlin, re-rally the masses and march into the Russian motherland. As I recall, someone else from Berlin tried that once.
Reason, not passion should rule here. I'm not an isolationist and don't think we can ignore the invasion. But we need something smarter than threatening Russia with NATO.
Cooler heads are cleverer heads. If cooler heads had prevailed a few years ago, Georgia might not find itself under attack today.
Steve Clemmons offers a bit of history at the time the US was pushing for recognition of Kosovo's independence:
Can it be any clearer that a vote for John McCain is a vote for more war? Iran...Russia. Will the list grow longer?When Kosovo declared independence and the US and other European states recognized it -- thus sidestepping Russia's veto in the United Nations Security Council -- many of us believed that the price for Russian cooperation in other major global problems just went much higher and that the chance of a clash over Georgia's breakaway border provinces increased dramatically...
At the time, there was word from senior level sources that Russia had asked the US to stretch an independence process for Kosovo over a longer stretch of time -- and tie to it some process of independence for the two autonomous Georgia provinces. In exchange, Russia would not veto the creation of a new state of Kosovo at the Security Council. The U.S. rejected Russia's secret entreaties and instead rushed recognition of Kosovo and said damn the consequences.
3 comments:
It's not at all clear to me that Obama is going to be significantly better than McSame in that respect, Scott. His piece in Foreign Affairs last summer was remarkable only in that it tried to out-Bush Bush. If it had been under McCain's byline, that wouldn't have been surprising. The fact that it was Obama that at least signed his name to it was what startled me. And I'm amazed that more people haven't noticed that article. It's not like Foreign Affairs is an obscure internet journal or anything. Obama was probably counting on that fact when he chose to publish there.
Do you have a url?
When I originally wrote about it last June, it was here.
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