On Swaps and Resets
9th July 2010
The Russian government has realized that Obama can be rolled, so they are busy rolling him.
The Kremlin is upset—but not exceedingly so—at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for pointing out the obvious: Russian troops are occupying Abkhazia and South Ossetia in violation of the ceasefire agreement that ended its brief war with Georgia. The deal, brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, required the Soviet military to withdraw to prewar boundaries. Instead, it is has built permanent bases in the breakaway republics.
Vladamir Putin’s response was noticeably restrained: “While some think South Ossetia is occupied, others think it is liberated.” The message from Moscow is, more of less, this: The Obama administration’s “reset” is paying dividends for us—NATO membership for Georgia is unlikely in the near future, missile defense is a dead issue, the START treaty was but a minor concession—so why respond to Clinton’s empty assurances to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili?
When Kruschev met with JFK in Vienna and realized he could be rolled, the result was the Cuban Missile Crisis. What will Obama, that gift that keeps on giving, get us?