The trans-Atlantic arm-wrestling match between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama has been fascinating to watch. Whatever you think of Obama’s foreign policy, it has been tough to watch their guy kick around our guy so thoroughly. I’ve been drinking more lately.
The New York Times recently published a piece on its opinions page by Putin. If you haven’t read it yet, put down The Collegian and seek out the op-ed on Google. Content of the piece aside, how often does one president address the people of a rival nation through the opinions page of that rival nation’s preeminent newspaper? This is compelling stuff.
Putin, or the Times editors, titled the piece “A Plea for Caution from Russia.” Let that sink in. After a couple paragraphs about the history of U.S.-Russia relations, Putin says that the United Nations will collapse “if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.”
He continues: “The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders.”
It’s condescending. Its pandering. It’s arrogant. But, most of all, it’s right.
Besides the Obama administration, the Wall Street Journal, and Max Boot, how many Americans actually want another Middle East intervention? According to some polls, around 10 percent, it turns out. What happened to the pandering populist and compulsive poll watcher Obama of 2012, whom we all knew and loved?
The drama of the situation gets better, though, and bringing this to your attention is really the main point of this column: Sen. John McCain will write an op-ed in a Russian newspaper responding to Putin’s piece in the Times.
So let it be known that we live in a world in which the man who lost the presidency to Obama in 2008 will rise to defend his rival from from Vladimir Putin, the Russian president and former KGB agent, who is accusing Obama of being too hawkish, even though the first black president beat McCain in large part because he ran as an anti-war candidate.
I need a drink.