https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/23/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/
Exclusive: American neocons helped destabilize Ukraine and engineer the overthrow of its elected government, a regime change on Russias western border. But the coup and the neo-Nazi militias at the forefront also reveal divisions within the Obama administration, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
More than five years into his presidency, Barack Obama has failed to take full control over his foreign policy, allowing a bureaucracy shaped by long years of Republican control and spurred on by a neocon-dominated U.S. news media to frustrate many of his efforts to redirect Americas approach to the world in a more peaceful direction.
But Obama deserves a big dose of the blame for this predicament because he did little to neutralize the government holdovers and indeed played into their hands with his initial appointments to head the State and Defense departments, Hillary Clinton, a neocon-leaning Democrat, and Robert Gates, a Republican cold warrior, respectively.
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Obamas Strategy
As President, Obama has sought a more cooperative relationship with Russias Putin and, generally, a less belligerent approach toward adversarial countries. Obama has been supported by an inner circle at the White House with analytical assistance from some elements of the U.S. intelligence community.
But the neocon momentum at the State Department and from other parts of the U.S. government has continued in the direction set by George W. Bushs neocon administration and by neocon-lite Democrats who surrounded Secretary of State Clinton during Obamas first term.
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