Should the U.S. have supported the coup in Ukraine?

[The Magistrate]

2. It Is Good To See Your Caveats, Sir

"By bringing up this question, please note what I am NOT saying:

1) I am not saying that the U.S. government is responsible for the movement and eventual coup that overthrew the elected Ukrainian government, or that these would not have happened without U.S. planning behind the scenes. It may be that U.S. government action was not the most important factor. What matters is that the U.S. government supported the overthrow, and did so on the basis of a secret policy.

2) I am not taking sides in the subsequent events, or defending or supporting anyone's subsequent actions, certainly not the Russian state's."

They pretty much destroy the common line that the U.S. procured and caused the overthrow of Yanukovych's presidency, and move the thing onto the simple ground of policy and diplomacy reacting to events.

What is revealed by that telephone intercept is the normal practice of government. In a situation of crisis, diplomats were trying to see to it things came out right from the point of view of the government they represent and act for.

Very little of any government's detail foreign policy is the product of public debate, and ours is no exception. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has been the policy of the United States government, through several administrations, to extend Western influence as far east as can be managed. This is a consensus policy anyone with a modicum of awareness of current events will be familiar with. It is also a policy which has been widely popular among European peoples who were long subject to Czarist and Soviet domination. A fact which is also something anyone with a modicum of awareness of current events will be aware of.

Stating a preference is not the same as making something happen, just as expressing approval or disapproval of some possible outcome is not the same as making it happen. Even stating that one will try and get something done is far from establishing that the thing occurred because of those efforts. Nothing in the call establishes that anything which occurred in Kiev or elsewhere in Ukraine owed to efforts of Ambassador Nuland in particular, or the United States government in general.