Has Mr. Obama Seen the Light?

Filed under: Russia

I seriously doubt that there is anyone in the country who would be more delighted to cast a presidential vote in favor of a black candidate, or a woman (ideally, both) than I would. I've had deep concerns about Barack Obama's fitness for office, however, based in part on what I consider to be irresponsible statements he's made about Russia in the past, and been frustrated by my inability to consider him a reasonable candidate because of it (not that I'd be likely to vote for him over a competent Republican).

However, nobody would be more delighted to be proved wrong than me. Obama has hired a fairly hardcore critic of the Kremlin, Michael McFaul, as his Russia policy guru -- McFaul recently published a long scholarly paper arguing that Russia would have been far better off without Putin. And now, he's fired a blistering broadside at the Kremlin which seems to indicate that all three remaining presidential contenders are on the same page where Russia is concerned. Kommersant reports on the most recent presidential debates:

Obama began with criticizing the Bush administration for being too soft with Russia, as Obama regards it. "Just think back to the beginning of President Bush's administration when he said -- you know, he met with Putin, looked into his eyes and saw his soul, and figured he could do business with him. He then proceeded to neglect our relationship with Russia at a time when Putin was strangling any opposition in the country when he was consolidating power," said Obama. That statement, both in style and in content, resembled the notorious statement by Arizona Senator John McCain, who also tried to ridicule Bush's utterance about the soul he saw in Putin's eyes.
The Russian theme of the Democratic debate in Ohio was not over yet. Russert asked Obama what would he do, in the president's capacity, if "President Medvedev says to the Russian troops, you know what, why don't you go help Serbia retake Kosovo."
"Fortunately, we have a strong international structure anchored in NATO to deal with this issue," replied Obama, adding that "the Clinton administration deserves a lot of credit" for "the way in which they put together a coalition that has functioned" [in 1999, the U.S. persuaded its NATO allies to launch a joint military operation against Yugoslavia].

I can't see how I could ask for anything more than that. The Kremlin's jaws are on the floor, that much I can guarantee. If this keeps up, I will sleep content in the event Obama is elected, at least insofar as Russia policy is concerned.

Perhaps Mr. Obama has seen the light. If so, I will be the first to laud his insight. This is exactly what should be happening, there should be total bipartisan cooperation when the issue is neo-Soviet Russia. Hopefully, we are now on the road to making that reality.

Imagine this scenario if you will: Obama is elected. Already inclined to crack down on Russia because of its anti-liberalism, he finds its wonderfully convenient to do so since he appears hawkish, and this mollifies the right. He cracks down further. Upon actual study of the country, he learns it's populated by some of the most furiously insane racists on the planet. He ups the ante yet again, and when he actually meets some Russians and sees that racism flashing in their eyes, he becomes an even more fervent opponent of the Kremlin than John McCain would have been.

It's a nice thought, isn't it?

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Comments

Vova says:

Well, it's not quite sleep time yet in America although it is where I am. "I will sleep content in the event Obama is elected, at least insofar as Russia policy is concerned" only to wake up to gaseous Hussein smooching with Holocaust-denying Ahmadi-Nejad, Bashir Assad, Yuri Jin (aka Kim Jong Il), Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and all the other usual suspects.
Gaseous Hussein is a national socialist. His socialism is European and nationalism African.
I actually miss Hillary now. As for Hussein's criticism of Russia, what else do you expect him to say. He's a Leninist, and for them the end justifies the means, so he will say anything and everything never believing in either, just to get elected and shaft you. Like Leib Bronstein Trotsky and his gang, Hussein and his gang can anly accomplish their secret agenda through a military defeat. So preemptive surrender is their first priority for now, and whatever they say means nothing. These people are hard-core Trotskyites

LibertyBoyNYC says:

I'm with Vova, in my ears Barack clearly adopts the personality cult strategy so deftly applied by Bill Clinton's machine, to pose visibly and say anything that deeply researched studies indicate votes can be garnered. He has Hollywood at his beck and call and his image shows it.

B says:

Why do you need to hire a hard-core specialist of any country to figure out what to say about where you stand on issues concerning that particular country. I don't need to be a specialist of any country to understand and believe in sound moral principles, individual self-determination, individual freedom, and limited and responsible government. Having stated that I can tell you that Robert Mugabe has shafted his country without knowing much about the nuts-and-bolts of his country; just like I can tell you that Putin has done the same to Russia. Obama is nothing more than a political shape-shifter!

Misha says:

John McCain is actually a better president than Barack Obama from a Russian perspective, because McCain is far more likely to continue American military misadventures in the world than to consolidate and concentrate American power (both hard and “soft” power). Barack Obama is by far the more intelligent of the two men and thus the one most likely to find a way to extricate the US from the multiple military engagements now bleeding the US with little to show strategically. By contrast, McCain is more likely to diminish American “soft power” in the world and continue (or even increase) the current bleed-rate for American power and money.

One major focus of American imperialism is Afghanistan; due to the fact that it represents really the only (economical) way for the US to move large qualities of Caspian Sea oil and natural gas from Russia’s former colonies in Central Asia to world markets. If the United States really wants to compete with Russia for access to these resources, then it has to pacify Afghanistan to the point of being able to built pipelines and other infrastructure across that unfortunate and war-torn (and still guerilla infested) country. Obama seems to grasp this reality better than McCain, who would keep the US full committed (fully tied down) on the diversion in Iraq.

If the US manages to disengage itself from Iraq it could then focus its energy on the war in Afghanistan. It is in Russia’s interests that the US remain tied down in Iraq, bleeding maximum resources and draining its economy, for as long as possible. I would not rule out Russia establishing contact with and giving assistance to Iraqi rebels fighting the US in Iraq (either directly or more likely via Iran). The longer the US is bogged down, wounded and bleeding (blood and money) in Iraq, the better it is for Russia, at least from a geo-political and strategic standpoint.

Afghanistan is by no means a “done deal” for the US either, whether they stay engaged in Iraq or not. And, Russia certainly has the capacity to intervene in that conflict as well, with very real effect, even as the US once armed the mujahedeen guerillas there to fight the USSR. The danger for Russia is that arms funneled into Afghanistan could well make their way back into the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia. Russia needs to balance this risk against the risk of the Americans being successful in pacifying Afghanistan, which would almost certainly be followed by an American push for oil and gas deals, and expanded American strategic influence in Central Asia. Personally I think it’s a no-brainer. Give the mujahedeen fighters modern weapons, including anti-aircraft SAM missiles that can knock out US aircraft. Let the chips fall where they will.

The Americans allegedly went into Afghanistan to defeat Al-Qaeda, but Al-Qaeda, left Afghanistan during the battle of Tora Bora in 2001, and they fled to their bases in the remote tribal areas of Pakistan. In fact “Al-Qaeda,” which means “the Base” in Arabic, really refers to “the Base” in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan. The Americans can stay in Afghanistan for 100 years (which John McCain says he is happy as cake to do) and it still won’t defeat Al-Qaeda because Al-Qaeda is not in Afghanistan. (Al-Qaeda remains a common enemy of both the US and Russia).

So the US and NATO now find themselves engaged in a rather pointless struggle against the Taliban, (which are really the old Mujahedeen, and which must be sharply distinguished from the terrorist Al Qaeda now in Pakistan). The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is a war that cannot be won, since they control the political situation in Afghanistan, and NATO doesn’t even have a small fraction of the forces needed to properly engage them, let alone defeat them (which in my opinion could not be done with a million NATO troops in that country). Afghanistan is a large country and one of the most rugged and mountainous countries on earth. If fact, if you pushed Afghanistan flat, like a pancake, it would expand to 4 times the size it occupies on the map. It’s a country that essentially cannot be pacified, as one would-be invader after another has found out throughout history. But if NATO continues to think propping up the Karzai regime (which has no power 20 minutes outside of the capital city) is a worthwhile venture, then who are we to say otherwise?

The Americans and their NATO allies are now engaged in a fruitless black hole of a war there, against the Mujahedeen (the Taliban) while meanwhile the terrorist foe (Al Qaeda) has fled south to Pakistan. Pakistan is the larger challenge for the USA. First the US forced General Mushariff to engage Al Qaeda in the vast tribal mountain regions. This broke the truce which has existed for generations between Pakistan’s corrupt political elite in the cities, and its Islamic brotherhood in the more remote regions. The truce was, “we will let you form the government and play politics but you will leave us alone in our own regions.” Now the Pakistani government is not leaving the Muslims alone, and the Muslims are beginning to react against the government themselves. There is now very real political instability inside Pakistan that could cause that government to fall. If such a thing happens it will make the US-NATO war in Afghanistan look like a mere sideshow and the entire region will be embroiled in war. Oh and did I mention that Pakistan has nuclear weapons?

McCain has a reputation as a militarist and a hot head to boot. He apparently has severe anger management issues. I would think that John McCain would be far easier to manipulate into getting the US involved into all sorts of diversionary military campaigns that would only serve to further bleed the US and which would have little strategic value, other than for US enemies. The US is already stretched to the limits of its force capacity, without resorting to a new military draft. The massive US deficit spending on the war in Iraq Iraq (now over $1 trillion dollars or $1,000,000,000,000.00) has seriously undermined the US economy and lead to the recent hard fall in the US dollar in all world markets, along with the associated banking and housing crises.

Misha says:

To illustrate the depth of the American crisis in Afghanistan, the US recently demanded that its NATO allies sharply increase their troop commitments there. The US said the entire NATO alliance might unravel over a NATO defeat in Afghanistan (that serious!) Canadian forces now make up a substantial fraction of the overall NATO commitment in Afghanistan, and Canada has threatened to withdraw unless further troop commitments are forthcoming from the other NATO allies. The US is straddling the very edge of its own troop-capacity, by trying to wage simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US is already extending deployments and pulling out all the stops in an effort to keep up its force levels for as long as humanly possible (and then some). The US really has no more troops to throw into the battle, literally, unless the US reinstates the military draft.

But such a draft reinstatement has its own political consequences, which would inevitably result in massive anti-war protests on American campuses, which haven’t been seen since the days of the Vietnam War. The American public has one level of scrutiny for a war being fought by the “all volunteer” army of the unterclass (economic conscripts) and an altogether different level of scrutiny for a war that American boys—and perhaps girls--will actually be drafted and compelled to fight (and die) in. Realistically a resumption of the American draft is not even on the table, and anyone who proposed it would be committing political suicide.

Now all of this is to say nothing about the massive financial cost to the Americans of running two wars simultaneously. The US Congress has appropriated over $1,000,000,000,000.00 (one trillion dollars) on the war in Iraq alone, and every penny of that money was added to the US deficit and national debt, as Bush cut taxes dramatically for wealthy Americans early in his first term, and Bush has been politically incapable of proposing higher taxes, or even a repeal of his earlier tax cuts—which more than erased the Clinton surplus, to pay for the “war on terrorism.” (This is a political incapacity that most likely would continue under a McCain administration, which would have to appeal to its republican “base,” which is “philosophically opposed” (whatever that is supposed to mean) to paying higher taxes for any governmental reason, including the cost of the military. Of course this level of deficit spending could not be sustained, even by an economy as large as America’s, and the inevitable consequences are now being felt in the US economy, in the form of a credit and housing crunch, a US dollar that has tanked on every world currency market and a resurgence of inflation even as the US heads into a major recession. (This combination of rapid inflation and stagnant growth, or “stagflation” and the associated “misery index” has not seen in the US since the Vietnam era, the last time the US overextended itself both militarily and financially at the same time, and that is no mere coincidence.)

So then let’s honesty survey the American position in the ongoing so-called “war on terrorism” in 2008… You’ve got a NATO that is unwilling to pony up even a dozen more of its troops, even after the US essentially threatened that the whole organization might collapse if they didn’t. Meanwhile you’ve got an American public that is unwilling to sacrifice their sons and daughters (through a resumption of the military draft), and an American wealthy elite that is unwilling to pay even a penny more for the cost of the war (through increased taxation). This situation has forced the Bush administration literally to borrow money from the Red Chinese (who now have more dollars than anyone else in the world) in order to pay $40,000 re-enlistment bonuses to any member of the American socioeconomic unterclass who is willing to go back for “just one more—we promise this time” tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan; this is unsustainable and it is obvious. This is a recipe for long-term American defeat. This adventure was sold to the American people by a cocky peacock of a president who pranced around on the stage and convinced them that the whole thing would be rather quick and almost painless, but before it’s over it will prove to be anything but quick or painless.

In addition to this, a lot has been said recently about the alleged success of the so-called American “surge” strategy in Iraq. But what has really changed? What has changed is that the Bush administration has shifted its strategy from one of fighting a shooting war in Iraq (which the US was losing) to one of basically paying off all the sides in the conflict not to fight (and paying them more than the value of the arms and money received from their sponsors). So the US has now embraced a strategy of playing all ends of the war against the middle, by buying everyone out of his position (at least temporarily, and such a strategy can only be temporary because the US is burning borrowed money in Iraq at a rate it is simply incapable of sustaining without bankrupting the nation). The moment US cash bribe payments to Sunni and Shiite tribes stop the fighting will resume. So what the US has bought is a mere ceasefire, not a permanent settlement of this tragic and bloody US-created conflict. This has given a temporary illusion that the violence has subsided, but this is only because Iraqis are now too busy buying SUV’s and hot tubs on America’s dollar. But when the American punch bowl disappears, as it must, the arms will be picked up again and the fighting will resume. The long-term animosities unleashed by the 2003 US invasion of Iraq remain as real as ever, and they will be just as easily exploitable by an interested 3rd party ten years from now as they are today.

Rovin says:

Bush cut taxes dramatically for wealthy Americans early in his first term , and Bush has been politically incapable of proposing higher taxes, or even a repeal of his earlier tax cuts—which more than erased the Clinton surplus, to pay for the “war on terrorism.”

Taxes under Clinton 1999
Single making 30K – tax $8,400

Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K -tax $4,500

Taxes under Clinton 1999
Single making 50K – tax $14,000

Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 50K – tax $12,500

Taxes under Clinton 1999
Single making 75K – tax $23,250

Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 75K – tax $18,750

Taxes under Clinton 1999
Married making 60K – tax $16,800

Taxes under Bush 2008
Married making 60K – tax $9,000

When someone begins their story with fabricated data, how does one interpret the remainder of the story?

These are hardly our weathiest Americans Misha.

What I do agree with you is NATO should be removed immeadiatly from Afghanistan and replaced by three divisions of Marines which General Petraeus and Crocker will advise this summer....game over for taliban and al qaida.

Spudkin says:

"when he actually meets some Russians and sees that racism flashing in their eyes"

Wow - and how exactly does this statement not make you a racist?

Exactly how many Russians have you met? Have the really all had racism "flashing in their eyes?" I live in Russia - I've seen that racism - but it certainly is not pervasive throughout Russian society - or the Russian genome as you appear to apply here.

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Has Mr. Obama Seen the Light?

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