How to handle the Russian bear? (Wikimedia Commons)
Obama's Russia problem
President-elect Barack Obama "needs a new approach to Russia," said Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, "if we want to avoid a new cold war." One necessary change is for us to "get over our crush" on Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. His country was "mauled by the bear in the brief August war," but Georgia under Saakashvili "isn't quite the shining beacon of democracy that Americans sometimes believe."
The tricky thing for Obama is figuring out how to handle Russia's "official president, Dmitry Medvedev," said Garry Kasparov in The Wall Street Journal, and its real leader, Vladimir Putin. "Obama can treat them like fellow democratic leaders or like the would-be dictators that they are." His decision will say plenty about "how seriously he takes his promises of change."
It's best to tune out the propaganda war over Georgia, said Anne Applebaum in Slate. Saakashvili provoked Russia by storming into semi-autonomous South Ossetia, but Moscow had goaded him by shooting down his planes and shooting Georgia's policemen. So Obama and other Western leaders should "support Georgian democracy—not particular Georgian democrats—and prepare a unified response to the Russian military escapades to come."
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You are just talking Bullshit
Can anyone even picture BO standing toe-to-toe with Putin? Daddy vs the baby! Never has BO indicated that he will be anything other than the dove he is. Those who now see this warrior trait in BO are just fooling themselves. Just as they fooled themselves about what he meant by change. Americas' days of power are over.
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