Sec. John Kerry pauses to snap a phone photo of the Brandenburg gate in Germany, through which he once road his bicycle to East Germany during the Cold War as the son of a foreign service officer. Will his background in Soviet realities like this help him stand up to the Russians or not? See the whole series depicting Sec. Kerry's colourful background and world travels by Glen Johnson at DipNote.
The "red line" regarding chemical weapons in Syria may be wavering, or perhaps was written in disappearing ink, or was merely rhetorical for Obama, but there is no question that it goes through Red Square, as David Rothkopt at Foreign Policy is saying.
I have to wonder how much Sec. of State John Kerry will accomplish on his current mission to Russia to raise not only Afghanistan and Syria but likely the Tsarnaevs and the Boston Bombing. The Israelis have upped the ante by striking Syrian plants where they say chemical weapons are made. The Russians have been in a gloating "I told you so" about Al Qaeda showing up in the ranks of the Syrian rebels, but hey, this is a monster human-made catastrophe largely of their making, which they did nothing to stop.
All along I've said, pretty much alone, that the key to the Syria crisis is to make Russia have full ownership of it — rhetorically, politically, repeatedly, urgently.
We are not going to get into another war with an Islamic country — that's just not on as we are winding down from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and suffering the aftermath of the "limited contigency" (a Soviet expression) or whatever it is we call the war in Libya.
So given that Russia has supplied the weapons and political cover, we should do absolutely everthing in our power, up to and including boycotting the Sochi Olympics, to help Russia take responsibility, and help the worlds loons on Internet forums who think that the US is the problem always to go to another address.
And that goes not only for the actual US government, the White House and the State Department, but the foreign policy elite providing commentary and advice — Anne-Marie Slaughter could re-direct 50% of her Twittering about Syria to Lavrov and other Russias, for example.
My comment:
There are things that the US can do shy of
boycotting the 1980s Olympics as Jimmy Carter did when the Soviets
invaded Afghanistan. Perhaps that should be saved as ammunition for now.
But immediately, the US can do this: not send Obama to the G20
meeting in St. Petersburg in September, and not have Obama join other
heads of states at the Olympics in Sochi when they open — and announce
that *now*. There is no need to reward bad Russian behaviour by giving
them the legitimacy they crave.
There is a problem with this in that they have us over the barrel of
the NDN, the Northern Distribution Network over which we must withdraw
tanks and troops from the war in Afghanistan; 60% of the traffic must go
through Russia, which is why Hillary was out in Vladivostok several
times trying to wire that down with the Russians in recent years. That
60% barrel is quite the problem, but it will end in 2014 and if the
Russians interfere with it now, they only look churlish and not doing
something in their interests. Oh, wait, that is exactly how they are and
what they do.
Precisely why the president of the United States need not grace their events in their country.
* * *
You'll notice when I make this eminently practical — and true — comment — that the usual 50 ruble club appears to bash me with cries of watching Fox news, being a neo-con, hopelessly mired in Cold-war categories, etc. etc. Nonsense. Russia already owns this; it's about us accentuating the ownership so that the world sees for once where the real problems are in the world.
At least Rothkopf entertains the idea of a possible Olympic boycott, but in fact the Realpolitickers that control most of the blogosphere on Russia are saying that the definition of banging your head against the wall is thinking that Russia is going to do something different, and let go of its only remaining ally in the Middle East. Well, that's not really true as I never hear Russia pressuring Hammas or the Palestinians, despite their greater friendliness to Israel in recent years — their old Soviet patterns of networks die hard.
Come to think of it, I can't recall them pressuring their big trading partner Egypt, either; remember, the Russian forest fires, the rise in the cost of wheat, and the reduction of subsidized Russian exports of grain to Egypt was a factor in the Arab Spring. Nobody likes to remember that because they think not people needing to eat but Twitter on iphones was the main factor.
Rothkopf is annoying in getting into high dudgeon — as so many "progressives" do these days — about red lines on chemical weapons that may have not been used yet when 80,000 people have been killed. Say, that argumentation never, ever held on Iraq, where Saddam had massacred tens of thousands of people, including Kurds with chemical weapons! — and filled up mass graves by the dozens, but the left endlessly obsessed about how there weren't really any WMDs there and there wasn't ever that yellowcake. This sort of hypocritical posturing that is SO obviously inconsistent should be condemned more than it is, which is not at all.
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