Published on Apr 2, 2014
The conventional wisdom holds that Russia is not leaving Crimea; that Putin wants more; and that Putin has outmaneuvered Obama on the world stage.
The conventional wisdom is about half-right.
Russia Is Not Leaving Crimea
Since the Russian incursion into Crimea, Vladimir Putin’s popularity within Russia has soared. CNN has reported that he enjoys an approval rating of 82%, not withstanding a very weak economy.
If Putin had done nothing after his friend and ally Viktor Yanukovych was unceremoniously run out of the country, it would have given the lie to the image of Putin as a strong leader willing to move swiftly to protect the interests and restore the grandeur of Mother Russia.
If Putin had not moved on Crimea, he would have shown himself to be less than a “regional power”. Russia would have been exposed as a country that could not even protect a vital interest on its border. Putin’s approval rating at home would have been cut in half in a New York minute. Continue Reading………
Contrary to Mr. Callaghan’s “take” on the subject, Putin HAS MOST DEFINITELY outmaneuvered that CHIMP, which currently occupies our White House. And I am very surprised that “the Lame Stream Media” did not predict it, and reference the STRONG BOND which the former Soviet Union and its (former) leaders (we can’t seem to get rid of them) have for the Crimea. The “jewel in the crown” of course is the vital port and naval base at Sevastapol, which Russia was NEVER going to give up, any more than we would give up Pearl Harbor or Diego Garcia (But then we “gave up” Cavite in the Philippenes, and we “gave up” the Panama Canal, didn’t we? But we are not Russia, and that CHIMP in the White House isn’t Putin), no matter how many nuclear arms or rockets it might take to “buy” a deal. And don’t forget, Roosevelt and Churchill were “outmaneuvered” by Uncle Joe Stalin at Yalta in the Crimea, within “spitting distance” of Sevastapol. At Yalta, we “gave away” Eastern Europe and much of Manchuria (which the USSR grabbed in exchange for entering the war against Japan, which we were going to WIN because we already had “the Atomic Bomb”) setting the stage for the Cold War that lasted almost 50 years. So Russia is firmly BOUND to the Crimea, which its troops fought hard to take back from Hitler’s Armies in 1944, and Russia isn’t about to let it go like things that our CHIMP in the White House will just throw away. Putin’s actions in the Crimea were entirely predictable, and his designs on getting territory “back” aren’t over by a long shot. Ashton O’Dwyer.
Politically correct as usual…..
“Outmanuevered” is simply a surrogate synonym for the lack of attention by the US nomenklatura as to history.