How US policy blunders hurt Israel
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If possible, the Ukraine affair is dumberer. Why is it that every time we Americans reach a national foreign policy consensus, we do the stupidest possible thing?
The answer, of course, lies in our own narcissism. We think it's inevitable that everyone will act the way we do, and that some Hegelian Zeitgeist will unfold the Manifest Destiny of democracy throughout the rest of the world. In the Middle East, that got us a Sunni-Shi'a version of the Thirty Years War and an increasing count of failed states harboring dangerous terrorists. In Ukraine it got us a bloody nose, and a huge rise in Vladimir Putin's popularity at home - even after the collapse of oil prices and ensuing shock to the Russian economy.
Putin has played his side of the chessboard with skill, keeping Ukraine in chaos and on the verge of bankruptcy. Putin doesn't want to conquer Ukraine: he wants to create a running sore of permanent instability on the West's eastern flank. That is precisely what I would do in his position, and what I predicted would happen in February 2014: "[The] West [has] a limited number of choices. The first is to do nothing and watch the country spiral into chaos, with Russia as the eventual beneficiary. The second is to dig deep into its pockets and find US$20 billion or more to buy near-term popularity for a pro-Western government - an unlikely outcome. The third, and the most realistic, is to steer Ukraine towards a constitutional referendum including the option of partition."
A year later, Ukraine is in economic freefall, its debt trading at 50 cents on the dollar, just a tad better than Venezuela's. Germany is politely asking the Ukrainian government to start negotiations with creditors, which it has not done because it still has no economic program. Russia, in short, has done precisely what it set out to do.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-280115.html
