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Who Restarted the Cold War?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
10/19/07 "CS" -- -- "Putin's Hostile Course," the lead editorial
in The Washington Times of Oct. 18, began thus:
"Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Moscow is just the latest
sign that, more than 16 years after the collapse of Soviet
communism, Moscow is gravitating toward Cold War behavior. The
old Soviet obsession – fighting American imperialism – remains
undiluted. ...
"(A)t virtually every turn, Mr. Putin and the Russian leadership
appear to be doing their best in ways large and small to
marginalize and embarrass the United States and undercut U.S.
foreign policy interests."
The Times pointed to Putin's snub of Robert Gates and Condi Rice
by having them cool their heels for 40 minutes before a meeting.
Then came a press briefing where Putin implied Russia may
renounce the Reagan-Gorbachev INF treaty, which removed all U.S.
and Soviet medium-range missiles from Europe, and threatened to
pull out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, whereby
Russia moved its tanks and troops far from the borders of
Eastern Europe.
On and on the Times indictment went. Russia was blocking new
sanctions on Iran. Russia was selling anti-aircraft missiles to
Iran. Russia was selling weapons to Syria that found their way
to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia and Iran were talking up an
OPEC-style natural gas cartel. All this, said the Times, calls
to mind "Soviet-era behavior."
Missing from the prosecution's case, however, was the motive.
Why has Putin's Russia turned hostile? Why is Putin mending
fences with China, Iran and Syria? Why is Putin sending Bear
bombers to the edge of American airspace? Why has Russia turned
against America? For Putin's approval rating is three times that
of George Bush. Who restarted the Cold War?
To answer that question, let us go back those 16 years.
What happened in 1991 and 1992?
Well, Russia let the Berlin Wall be torn down and its satellite
states be voted or thrown out of power across Eastern Europe.
Russia agreed to pull the Red Army all the way back inside its
border. Russia agreed to let the Soviet Union dissolve into 15
nations. The Communist Party agreed to share power and let
itself be voted out. Russia embraced freedom and American-style
capitalism, and invited Americans in to show them how it was
done.
Russia did not use its veto in the Security Council to block the
U.S. war to drive Saddam Hussein, an ally, out of Kuwait. When
9-11 struck, Putin gave his blessing to U.S. troops using former
republics as bases for the U.S. invasion.
What was Moscow's reward for its pro-America policy?
The United States began moving NATO into Eastern Europe and then
into former Soviet republics. Six ex-Warsaw Pact nations are now
NATO allies, as are three ex-republics of the Soviet Union. NATO
expansionists have not given up on bringing Ukraine, united to
Russia for centuries, or Georgia, Stalin's birthplace, into
NATO.
In 1999, the United States bombed Serbia, which has long looked
to Mother Russia for protection, for 78 days, though the Serbs'
sole crime was to fight to hold their cradle province of Kosovo,
as President Lincoln fought to hold onto the American South. Now
America is supporting the severing of Kosovo from Serbia and
creation of a new Islamic state in the Balkans, over Moscow's
protest.
While Moscow removed its military bases from Cuba and all over
the Third World, we have sought permanent military bases in
Russia's backyard of Central Asia.
We dissolved the Nixon-Brezhnev ABM treaty and announced we
would put a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech
Republic.
Under presidents Clinton and Bush, the United States financed a
pipeline for Caspian Sea oil to transit Azerbaijan and Georgia
to the Black Sea and Turkey, cutting Russia out of the action.
With the end of the Cold War, the KGB was abolished and the
Comintern disappeared. But the National Endowment for Democracy,
Freedom House and other Cold War agencies, funded with tens of
millions in tax-exempt and tax dollars, engineered the ouster of
pro-Russian regimes in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, and sought
the ouster of the regime in Minsk.
At the Cold War's end, the United States was given one of the
great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, largest
nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests
meshed almost perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial,
historic or economic quarrel between us, once communist ideology
was interred.
We blew it.
We moved NATO onto Russia's front porch, ignored her valid
interests and concerns, and, with our "indispensable-nation"
arrogance, treated her as a defeated power, as France treated
Weimar Germany after Versailles.
Who restarted the Cold War? Bush and the braying hegemonists he
brought with him to power. Great empires and tiny minds go ill
together.
Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder and editor of
The American Conservative.
He is also the author of seven books, including
Where the Right Went Wrong, and
A Republic Not An Empire.
Copyright © 2007 Creators Syndicate
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