US President Donald Trump offended the entire political spectrum with a tweet this morning blaming Washington for poor relations with Russia. “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of US foolishness and stupidity,” the president said, and he is entirely correct.
By this, I do not mean to say that Russia is a beneficent actor in world affairs or that Russian President Vladimir Putin is an admirable world leader. Nonetheless, the president displayed both perspicacity and political courage when he pointed the finger at the United States for mismanaging the relationship with Russia.
Full disclosure: I was a card-carrying member of the neoconservative cabal that planned to bring Western-style democracy and free markets to Russia after the fall of Communism. As chief economist for the supply-side consulting firm Polyconomics, I got an appointment as an adviser to Boris Yeltsin’s finance ministry and made several trips to Moscow.
Of course, the finance ministry really was a family office for Yeltsin’s oligarch friends, who were too busy stealing Russia’s economy to listen to advice. The experience cured me of the neoconservative delusion that democracy and free markets are the natural order of things.
Unfortunately, the delusion that the United States would remake Russia in its own image persisted through the Bush and Obama administrations. I have no reason to doubt the allegations that a dozen Russian intelligence officers meddled in the US elections of 2016, but this was equivalent of a fraternity prank compared to America’s longstanding efforts to intervene in Russian politics.
The United States supported the 2014 Maidan uprising in Ukraine and the overthrow of the Yanukovych government in the hope of repeating the exercise in Moscow sometime later. Then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland pulled whatever strings America had to replace the feckless and corrupt Victor Yanukovych with a government hostile to the Kremlin. She didn’t say it in so many words, but she hoped the Ukraine coup would lead to the overthrow of Vladimir Putin.
Evidently, Nuland and her boss, Hillary Clinton, thought that the Ukraine coup would deprive Russia of its Black Sea naval base in Crimea, and did not anticipate that Russia simply would annex an old Russian province that belonged to Ukraine by historical accident.
At the time, liberal opinion evanesced with the notion that Moscow would follow Maidan. The Christian Science Monitor reported in February 2014, “Some in Russia’s liberal community see in the Maidan a hope that the Kremlin, no matter how solid it looks, could one day crack under similar popular pressure.
‘What we are seeing in Ukraine is the realization of the Ukrainian people’s aspiration for democracy, of the right to revolt,’ says Sergei Davidis, a board member of Solidarnost, a liberal opposition coalition. ‘It doesn’t mean we’re ready to follow that example. Russian conditions are different. But in the long run, as the contradictions pile up, we may well come to the same pass and find ourselves with no alternatives but the Ukrainian one.’” Of course, no such thing occurred.
The Maidan coup was the second American attempt to install a Ukrainian government hostile to Moscow; the first occurred in 2004, when Condoleezza Rice was Secretary of State rather than Hillary Clinton. As I wrote in Asia Times a decade ago, “On the night of November 22, 2004, then-Russian president – now premier – Vladimir Putin watched the television news in his dacha near Moscow. People who were with Putin that night report his anger and disbelief at the unfolding ‘Orange’ revolution in Ukraine. ‘They lied to me,’ Putin said bitterly of the United States. ‘I’ll never trust them again.’ The Russians still can’t fathom why the West threw over a potential strategic alliance for Ukraine. They underestimate the stupidity of the West.”
American efforts to promote a democratic opposition to Putin have failed miserably, and as John Lloyd wrote recently at Reuters, the Russian president remains genuinely popular. This remains a source of perpetual frustration for the neoconservatives, who cannot fathom why dictatorships still exist.
Russia is a brutal country that always has been governed by brutal men. No one talks about Ivan the Reasonable. Compared to Peter the Great or Alexander II, let alone Stalin or Ivan the Terrible, Putin is one of Russia’s gentler heads of state. I attempted to explain why in this 2016 essay for Asia Times.
Thanks to President Trump, Russia (as well as China) now understands that America’s intervention in Iraq was not a deliberate effort to destabilize the region, and that its support for Sunni jihadists in Syria was not a deliberate effort to create an Islamist monster with which to destabilize Russia. Under the headline “They’ll never believe we’re that stupid,” I wrote in May 2015:
“Beijing and Moscow made up their minds some time ago that the United States had deliberately unleashed chaos on the Levant as part of a malevolent plan of some kind. The Chinese and Russians (and most of the rest of the world) simply cannot process the notion that the United States is run by clueless amateurs who stumble from one half-baked initiative to another, with no overall plan (except, of course, to persuade the Persians to become America’s friends rather than enemies).
Incompetence has consequences. One of the consequences will be that our competitors and adversaries will take us for knaves instead of fools, or even worse, will recognize that we are fools after all.”
Russia is in crisis, but Russia always is in crisis. Russia has a brutal government, but Russia always has had a brutal government, and by every indication, the people of Russia nonetheless seem to like their government. If they want a different sort of government, let them establish one; what sort of government they prefer is not the business of the United States. America’s attempt to shape Russia’s destiny, starting with the Clinton Administration’s sponsorship of the feckless, drunk and corrupt Boris Yeltsin, had baleful results. So did the State Department’s attempt to manipulate events in Ukraine in 2004 and 2014.
That’s why President Trump’s tweet this morning is entirely correct. Once again, it is refreshing to hear an American president cut through the cant and tell the unvarnished truth.
Patrick thanks for the link. It illustrates clearly the author’s deep hypocrisy.
The hacking of my VISA card has had more impact on me than all this bs.
Russell Shaver Might as well say that so-called “Russian” interference was caused by a 400 lb. baby in a diaper in Milwaukee. The intel is well detailed that the preceding is not the case. Enjoy blowing your horn.
Stephen Moore EVERY SINGLE INTEL AGENCY!! WRONG!!! YOU BOUGHT THE PROPAGANDA ,4 DID WITH THE HAND PICKING OF THE ANAYLISTS TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE .12 OTHERS SAID NO WAY AND THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE DID AS WAS WELL.THE NEOCON ZIONIST DEEP STATE IS IN HYSTERIA WITH WHAT TRUMP OVER HIS REVELATIONS AND HIS MEETING WITH PUTIN.THE ENTIRE US, MEDIA ,POLITICAL CLASS AND PUNDITS ARE ALL BEING TOLD TO DEMONIZE THIS SUMMIT BY THE DEEP STATE AS JUST DESCRIBED. TRUMP WAS FORCED BY HIS NEOCON ZIONIST SEC OF STATE POMPEO AND HIS NSA BOLTON TO RETRACT AND HE DID .
Art Laramee How many little wars are ongoing in Africa that the Congress does not even know about? The US is at war with a bunch of other countries. Ever heard of Yemen, or Niger, the list goes on.
Stephen Moore now I know you are stupid or willfully ignorant, conviently forgetting Obama on the hot MIC saying" tell Vlad I will have more flexibility after the elections or his blatant meddling in the Isreali elections.
Stephen Moore You agree with the man then call hi baby like the propaganda swallowing idiot you are
Perfectly stated. One problem. Americas Military Congressional Industrial Complex cannot profit in times of peace. So the madness will continue. . .
Stephen Moore Um, Mr. Moore, tell us how the Russian "hack" had any impact on the American election? Tell us about these "specific" and "well-audited" findings of "every" single US intel agency? You can’t. Because very little information has been released by intel agencies. And it certainly hasn’t been audited. Russia’s hack of the American Electorial system, at best, consists of a phishing operation against some Democratic operatives, and few social media campaigns by "Russian" organizations that seemed more interested in getting monitizeable income that real political influence.
This is all nothing more than a tempest in a tea-cup.
"I have no reason to doubt the allegations that a dozen Russian intelligence officers meddled in the US elections of 2016"
Show your reasons or just shut up!…
Would it be too much to expect the President of the United States to produce some kind of detailed arguments to support the claims in his endless barrage of cryptic tweets? I largely agree with Goldman’s post but does Donald Trump? We have no idea. We do know the men he appointed as his National Security Adviser and Defense Secretary would disagree vehemently with just about every word Goldman wrote. It seems perverse to appoint advisers who cling to stupid, foolish policies.
On past evidence Trump has no idea why past policy was ‘foolish and stupid’. He thinks that about any policy he can’t take credit for. So Goldman is putting arguments in Trump’s head that I doubt he would even understand.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/2012/10/11/spengler-must-be-joking/
There is no such thing as "deep state."
Trump’s question about the so-called "missing servers" was beyond idiotic. And your claim of an "inside job" to leak DNC emails is a proven lie.
Also, the GRU did not hack into Hillary’s 100% LEGAL private email server, because no one ever hacked into it. And there’s no such thing as the “Awan Spy-ring in Congress”.
What "Nato broken promises" would that be? The completely fictional claim about NATO having promised not to expand eastward?
Putin absolutely is a brutal ruler. He’s a murderous dictator on par with Stalin. Russia is actually a worse actor now than they were during the Cold War. And the fact that Putin is so popular within Russia demonstrates that the problem isn’t just with Putin, but with the Russian people themselves. There can be no true peace until Russia is defeated.
It’s a good thing for America to have bad relations with Russia. They’re our greatest enemy, and there is no potential for them to ever be anything else.
Art Laramee True, the US and other nations meddle with one another in many ways. However. your argument and purely speculative opinion on Russia’s impact on the US election is irrelevantly based on Whataboutism. That unlinked connection in no way refutes the specific and well-audited findings of every single US Intel agency. Move on to considering facts or are you more of a Trump Birther or an InfoWars Crazy? You speak from ignorance only, the pop-currency of these preposterous times.
President Donald Trump is one of America’s worst president ever.
Trump is the man who betrayed his country and the people of the United States. Donald Trump did not deserve the tittle of President of the United States because he had knelt down to a rutless American rival. The humiliating American has a President like Donald Trump. If there is a little bit of honor, Donald Trump should resign prior to adjudicating.
It is your opinion … completely subjective … the truth is that Trump and Putin have reached a common understanding … "knock down" the "deep state". Maybe you get a more vision OBJECTIVE! http://www.voltairenet.org/article201762.html
I guess the US leaders always know what is right or wrong, they are not stupid. The reason they were apparently wrong is that they want it that way to suit their propaganda and to implement their strategy.
Didn’t you notice that whenever they want to change their strategy, they simply point fingers to other parts of the government and end of story and no liability?
If they really wanted to things right, there are currently so many countries that the US are intentionally blaming them for no reason and cause pain to them. Simply start to correct their action towards these countries first. But no, don’t expect this to happen until one day when they want their strategy and someone comes out to say some good thing. That will be it.