So, not surprisingly, Obama wimped out and is only postponing (not cancelling) a pointless summit with Vladimir Putin on the margins of the G20 meeting in St. Petersburg, but still giving him legitimacy by going to the G20 meeting in Russia in the first place.
I can just hear Yeltsin shouting "Polu-mery, polu-mery, polu-mery!" (Half-measures, half-measures, half-measures?)
Except, they aren't even that. It's just an irritant, like the shorter Magnitsky list in the end, that then annoys without accomplishing real deterrence, which is what is needed.
Just as annoying at Obama's wimpishness in failing to stand up to Russia (in keeping with the long-held DSA line that either Russia doesn't matter or is more "progressive" than America or is needed as some kind of fulcrum to American "imperialism") is all the commentary scolding Obama or finding him half-right or concocting other scenarios that make no sense.
Leon Aron's strangely headlined piece makes it seem as if he has suddenly turned as Real-Politik as Samuel Charap when he was at the Center for American Progress or the State Department by implying it was a "mistake" to cancel the summit.
Aron — retweeted=endorsed by Mark Galeotti — makes it seem like there was actually an option that our Obama could have really enacted involving "standing up" to Putin on human rights. Huh?
And thus his message that the G20 appearance should be cancelled gets lost in the shuffle.
In her exchange with Lawrence O'Donnell, Ioffe implies that the other G19 "didn't do anything wrong" so shouldn't be "punished" by going to St. Petersburg. But they did do something wrong, they persisted in legitimizing Putin despite everything that has gone very bad there in Russia — from Snowden's defection with the help of the Kremlin-supported WikiLeaks to the crackdown on NGOs, migrants, and LGBT rights to the corruption and abuses of the Sochi Olumipcs. Europe should get it about Snowden; he's not a whistleblower but a provocation and of course the kind of hacker they themselves would prosecute if it happened to them. That's why they are being especially annoying themselves.
Ioffe also implies the agenda is stale and there is nothing to talk ab0ut anyway — well, the US could be urging the other G18 to come out of the haze and realize Russia not only doesn't help on Iran or Afghanistan, for that matter, really, but that it is needlessly prolonging the Syrian tragedy for its own interests and the world really should be ganging up on Russia to stop the mass crime of humanity that is Syria — not ganging up on the US because it thinks maybe Google/Facebook/Verizon cooperate too closely with the US government to stop terrorism — and hey, combat cybercrime, where Russia is responsible for the lion's share of attacks on Europe.
In the now-demolished world of Surkovskaya propaganda in Moscow that in fact created a space for hipsterdom for awhile even as it harshly curbed it (because Putinism is worse), sure, Julia Ioffe could thrive as a journalist and come to think that Russia isn't really as bad as Americans imagine it who are exposed to "Cold War propaganda' and "don't go there".
I don't notice Julia herself staying there.
As for Galeotti, it turns out that his retweet=endorsement did mean that he was not for dissing Putin and ditching the summit — it was a mistake (cue Men and Work again). He has a point that in the dark days of the Cold War, we still had things like the Kitchen Debate (as I'm adding) and Reagan and Gorbachev arguing in Rejkavik and not coming to an agreement (at least, not that day).
But the difference is that Gorbachev was on a trajectory of reform, letting out political prisoners, unearthing hidden histories, righting historical wrongs, allowing the nyeformaly informal groups to appear, etc. He wasn't going backwards as Putin is doing.
Galeotti concludes:
But it is not to be. Instead, the White House has chosen a compromise
that, as compromises often are, is not disastrous but neither is it
helpful. It is enough to anger Putin–that insecurity means that he is
always conscious of slights, real and assumed–but not enough to suggest
the USA is serious. Instead, he knows he can ride it out and today’s
headlines will soon be forgotten. The irony is that the “monopolar”
power the Kremlin regularly accuses of exerting an unhealthy and
unhelpful “hegemony” over global politics, a country that Russia needs
far more than the other way round, finds itself unable to steel itself
either to accept Putin for what he is or to punish him for it
Yes, exactly. Indeed, Putin will ride it out as past inhabitants of the Kremlin have been able to wait out American presidents who have to face re-election every four years and don't have the capacity to extend their reins beyond eight consecutive years.
Punish? Failing to confer legitimacy isn't really punishment. It's not sanctions or boycotts. It's just not falling for the line. It's just not enabling the swagger. It's just changing the chemistry. That really is what we need to do more of. When that happens, then it becomes clear who needs whom, for what.
As for the unipolar stuff — what about China?
Ioffe then got her revenge against the "mansplaining" Lawrence O'Donnell and lists all the ways she thinks she's right.
They don't become more correct for being told now in hipster text on TRN, as I shall womansplain.
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