It's discouraging that Germany opposes expelling Russia from the G-8:
"In television interviews, Mr. Kerry suggested that the United States might
impose sanctions, boycott the Sochi meeting in June and expel Russia from
the G-8. Germany, however, publicly expressed opposition to expulsion, an
ominous sign for Mr. Obama since any meaningful pressure would need support
from Berlin."
On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 9:06 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Sorry if somebody already posted this already
>
>
> Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday
> that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with
> reality, people briefed on the call said. "In another world," she said.
>
>
> Pressure Rising as Obama Works to Rein In Russia
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/world/europe/pressure-rising-as-obama-works-to-rein-in-russia.html?_r=0
> By PETER BAKER
> MARCH 2, 2014
>
> WASHINGTON -- As Russia dispatched more forces and tightened its grip on
> the Crimean Peninsula on Sunday, President Obama embarked on a strategy
> intended to isolate Moscow and prevent it from seizing more Ukrainian
> territory even as he was pressured at home to respond more forcefully.
>
> Working the telephone from the Oval Office, Mr. Obama rallied allies,
> agreed to send Secretary of State John Kerry to Kiev and approved a series
> of diplomatic and economic moves intended to "make it hurt," as one
> administration official put it. But the president found himself besieged by
> advice to take more assertive action.
>
> "Create a democratic noose around Putin's Russia," urged Senator Lindsey
> Graham, Republican of South Carolina. "Revisit the missile defense shield,"
> suggested Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. "Cancel Sochi,"
> argued Representative Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who leads the
> Intelligence Committee, referring to the Group of 8 summit meeting to be
> hosted by President Vladimir V. Putin. Kick "him out of the G-8"
> altogether, said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip.
>
> The Russian occupation of Crimea has challenged Mr. Obama as has no other
> international crisis, and at its heart, the advice seemed to pose the same
> question: Is Mr. Obama tough enough to take on the former K.G.B. colonel in
> the Kremlin -- It is no easy task. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told
> Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was
> not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. "In
> another world," she said.
>
> That makes for a crisis significantly different from others on Mr. Obama's
> watch. On Syria, Iran, Libya and Egypt, the political factions in
> Washington have been as torn as the president over the proper balance of
> firmness and flexibility. But as an old nuclear-armed adversary returns to
> Cold War form, the consequences seem greater, the challenges more daunting
> and the voices more unified.
>
> "It's the most important, most difficult foreign-policy test of his
> presidency," said R. Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat who became under
> secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. "The stakes are
> very high for the president because he is the NATO leader. There's no one
> in Europe who can approach him in power. He's going to have to lead."
>
> Mr. Obama came to office with little foreign-policy experience and has
> been repeatedly tested by a new world in which the main threats are Islamic
> extremism and civil war. While increasing drone strikes and initially
> building up forces in Afghanistan, he has made it his mission to pull out
> of two long wars and keep out of any new ones.
>
> But the limits of his influence have been driven home in recent weeks,
> with Syria pressing its war against rebels and Afghanistan refusing to sign
> an agreement allowing residual American forces. Now the Crimea crisis has
> presented Mr. Obama with an elemental threat reminiscent of the one that
> confronted his predecessors for four decades -- a geopolitical struggle in
> the middle of Europe. First, the pro-Russian government in Kiev, now
> deposed, defied his warnings not to shoot protesters, and now Mr. Putin has
> ignored his admonitions to stay out of Ukraine.
>
> Caught off guard, Mr. Obama is left to play catch-up. With thousands of
> reinforcements arriving Sunday to join what American officials estimated
> were 6,000 Russian troops, Mr. Putin effectively severed the peninsula,
> with its largely Russian-speaking population, from the rest of Ukraine.
>
> "Russian forces now have complete operational control of the Crimean
> peninsula," a senior administration official said on the condition of
> anonymity.
>
> No significant political leaders in Washington urged a military response,
> but many wanted Mr. Obama to go further than he has so far. Senator Bob
> Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee,
> has already devised language to serve as the basis for possible bipartisan
> legislation outlining a forceful response, including sanctions against
> Russia and economic support for Ukraine.
>
> The president has spoken out against Mr. Putin's actions and termed them a
> "breach of international law." But he has left the harshest condemnations
> to Mr. Kerry, who on Sunday called them a "brazen act of aggression" and "a
> stunning willful choice by President Putin," accusing him of "weakness" and
> "desperation."
>
> In addition to Ms. Merkel, Mr. Obama spoke with his counterparts from
> Britain and Poland on Sunday and won agreement from all the other G-8
> countries to suspend preparations for the Sochi meeting and find ways to
> shore up the economically fragile Ukrainian government. The administration
> also canceled a trade mission to Moscow and a Russian trip to Washington to
> discuss energy while vowing to also scrap a naval-cooperation meeting with
> Russia.
>
> In television interviews, Mr. Kerry suggested that the United States might
> impose sanctions, boycott the Sochi meeting in June and expel Russia from
> the G-8. Germany, however, publicly expressed opposition to expulsion, an
> ominous sign for Mr. Obama since any meaningful pressure would need support
> from Berlin.
>
> But Mr. Obama offered Russia what aides called an "offramp," a face-saving
> way out of the crisis, by proposing that European observers take the place
> of Russian forces in Crimea to guard against the supposed threats to the
> Russian-speaking population cited by the Kremlin as justification for its
> intervention.
>
> Mr. Obama?s aides said that they saw no evidence of such threats and
> considered the claim a bogus pretext, and that they wanted to call Mr.
> Putin"s bluff. Privately, they said they did not expect Mr. Putin to
> accept, and they conceded that Mr. Obama probably could not reverse the
> occupation of Crimea in the short term. They said they were focusing on
> blocking any further Russian move into eastern Ukraine that would split the
> country in half.
>
> Some regional specialists said Mr. Obama should ignore the talk-tough
> chorus and focus instead on defusing a crisis that could get much worse.
> Andrew Weiss, a national security aide to President Bill Clinton, said the
> Obama administration should be trying to keep Ukraine and Russia from open
> war. "For us to just talk about how tough we are, we may score some points
> but lose the war here," Mr. Weiss said.
>
> The crisis has trained a harsh spotlight on Mr. Obama's foreign policy,
> with critics asserting that he has been too passive.
>
> Mr. Corker traced the origins of Mr. Putin's brash invasion to September
> when, in the face of bipartisan opposition in Congress, Mr. Obama pulled
> back from plans to conduct an airstrike on Syria in retaliation for a
> chemical-weapons attack on civilians. Instead, he accepted a Russian offer
> to work jointly to remove the chemical weapons.
>
> "Ever since the administration threw themselves into the arms of Russia in
> Syria to keep from carrying out what they said they would carry out, I
> think, he saw weakness," Mr. Corker said of Mr. Putin. "These are the
> consequences."
>
> Of course, had Mr. Obama proceeded with an attack, he would have paid a
> different price for ignoring the will of Congress and the grave misgivings
> of an American public weary of war. Republicans who opposed confrontation
> in Syria insist this is different.
>
> Mr. Rubio, who opposed authorizing force in Syria, agreed that that
> conflict had serious ramifications for American interests. But he said the
> showdown in Crimea was about freedom itself and the hard-fought American
> victory over totalitarianism in the Cold War. In that sense, even
> Republicans who opposed Mr. Obama in Syria were pushing for a hard line
> against Mr. Putin.
>
> "The very credibility of the post-Cold War world and borders is at stake
> here," Mr. Rubio said in an interview.
>
> Obama aides reject the notion that he has underestimated Mr. Putin. From
> the beginning, they said, he had a cold-eyed assessment of the
> possibilities and limitations of engagement with Mr. Putin. And they noted
> that neither President Bush's reputation for toughness nor his courtship of
> Mr. Putin stopped Russia from going to war in 2008 with another neighbor,
> the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
>
> While Mr. Obama has not gone as far as many in Washington want him to go,
> the president has been less focused on immediate actions than on making
> sure he and America's traditional allies are on the same page. Working from
> the Oval Office over the weekend, wearing jeans and a scowl, he called
> several of his G-8 counterparts to "make sure everybody's in lock step with
> what we're doing and saying," according to a top aide.
>
> Administration officials said Mr. Putin had miscalculated and would pay a
> cost regardless of what the United States did, pointing to the impact on
> Russia's currency and markets. "What we see here are distinctly 19th- and
> 20th-century decisions made by President Putin to address problems," one of
> the officials said. "What he needs to understand is that in terms of his
> economy, he lives in the 21st-century world, an interdependent world."
>
> Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.
>
> A version of this article appears in print on March 3, 2014, on page A1 of
> the New York edition with the headline: Pressure Rising as Obama Works to
> Rein in Russia.
>
>
>
>
> InfoUkes Inc. Gerald William Kokodyniak
> Suite 185, 3044 Bloor Street West Webmaster InfoUkes Inc.
> Etobicoke, Ontario [email protected]
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>
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