STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Tit For Tat: Obama Engages in a Mud Wrestling Fight with Putin!

We are witness to the rarely seen mud-wrestling fight between two world leaders.   In previous blogs, we talked about the fact that the confrontation between the USA and Russia over the Ukraine/Crimea would result in a standoff which I mistakenly described as ‘psychological warfare’.

  Clearly I was misled by the nature of the representatives of our great nation.

  Usually,  when the USA has a problem with a foreign country over legitimate concerns,  whatever they might be,  the US officials have always acted discreetly,  forcefully,  but quietly.   I hasten back to the memories of the US Presidents whom I had served and  I cannot remember one instance when nation state differences became so personal and so low brow.

When Reagan uttered the famous words about the evil empire,  the Soviet Union,  he never engaged in a tit-for-tat mudslinging fight- daring individual Soviet officials to stand down or they would be ‘black balled’---with  a sanction, of course.  It’s hard for me to conceive of Putin’s two mentors, both Master-Spies,  Markus Wolf [Stasi] and Andropov[ KGB], having been personally sanctioned by either Reagan or Bush Sr.  They were too elegant and too restrained.

  Even Henry Kissinger would resort to public palaver that would allow for a resolution of the Vietnam War without personally insulting or publicly deprecating Ho Chi Minh.  In other words,  diplomacy is the art of stating public non-offensive comments while in private expressing the personal frustrations of the different leaders.

  What we have here between Putin and Obama is the closest thing I have ever seen to a mud-slinging fight which was initiated by Obama and Victoria Nuland,  Assistant Secretary of State [who uttered the words “Fuck the Eu”].

  The article, “U.S. and Europe Step Up Sanctions On Russian Officials” written by Peter Baker, NYTimes March 17, 2014,  illustrates the scope and absurdity of our administration selecting individuals within the Russian Government to ‘punish’ with ‘sanctions’.   In turn,  the article points out a very serious problem for the USG.   While Obama is highlighting Russian individuals who may or may not have visas to the USA and the EU,  Putin has the major trump card, as usual.

  If the mud fight continues ad nauseum,  Putin can simply exclude our major companies—Exxon Mobil, Boeing, Ford, PepsiCo—from the growing Russian economy which supplies the major source of gas/oil to the EU.   So Obama/Kerry keep slinging mud pies at Putin, while Putin cancels billions of American dollars, depriving major American corporations of their just rewards for their hard work.  Hows that for sanctions???

Please remember that the aforementioned American companies are publicly owned and reflect the financial interests of the stockholders and not Obama or Kerry.  Yet a far more serious problem looms for Europe.   Most of the EU depends on the Russian gas transmission through the Ukraine.   Putin can decrease the amount of gas flowing into Germany and other EU countries and watch while their people suffer, forcing the EU citizenry to defy their respective governments.

  In this mud fight,  one can simply say that Putin has the leverage and Obama has the mud to fling without a strategy or a clearly defined goal.   If Obama thinks that placing sanctions on Putin’s cronies is effective and would result in some kind of internal turmoil in Russia which would then result in the overthrow of Putin then POTUS is completely wrong.

Once again, we Americans are witnessed to inept President who understands very little about the dynamics of foreign leaders;  the nature of nation states; or the practicality of foreign policy instruments.   As I have repeatedly stated before in my other blogs,  arrogance and ignorance are the bellwether of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy.  Those two particular attributes lead to one conclusion---self-destruction.

  Our military is strained and fatigued as is the America citizenry from wars that were costly and pointless.   Putin knows our military better than Obama because Putin forced our military to pay him money in order for our troops to fight in the costly, inane Afghanistan War.

Having been part of the Cold War team under Reagan/Bush Sr,  I can categorically state that what is happening now has no correspondence to the quiet, covert, effective actions that were initiated by Reagan/Bush Sr.  Where not one word of threat was ever uttered.  Not one individual was black-balled in the Soviet Regime or even East Germany.

Even the great Markus Wolf was never arrested or convicted for spying.  He was allowed to end his life quietly as a chef on German TV.

  Quirky! But true.

  

Dignity,  respect,  knowledge and quiet strength are the virtues that we need to resuscitate if America is to retain more than a moribund foreign policy.   I think that the most important individual in this mud-slinging disaster is Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.  Merkel is an accomplished PhD Physicist who grew up in East Germany and therefore understands Putin’s authoritarian ways,  somewhat reminiscent of the Soviet occupation.   Unlike our own senior officials,  she speaks German and Russian.  Merkel understands the importance of Russian gas for the EU.   Germany,  in particular,  has a major reliance on Russian gas passing through the Ukraine. 

Therefore its in Merkel’s best interest to quickly resolve this rapidly escalating mud fight.

I think the following quote is appropriate for this occasion:
“The office of the president is such a bastardized thing,  half royalty and half democracy, that nobody know whether to genuflect or spit.” 

Jimmy Breslin,  Journalist.