Obama Calls Putin and …

The Crimean issue can be seen from America more or less in the same way as Sarah Palin sees Russia from her home in Alaska, which means — very clearly.

It is on the front page of newspapers more out of obligation than actual need, because — as the funniest newspaper in America, The Onion, writes — Americans’ reactions to what is currently happening in Ukraine can be divided into two types: Those showing complete lack of interest or those showing complete lack of understanding of what is going on at the moment.

As sure as there are two different Russias, there are two different Americas. There is Putin’s Russia, as there is Navalny’s and Niemcov’s Russia. As Vladimir V. Kara-Maza writes in The Washington Post: According to the official — state! — polls, 73 percent of Russians are against the intervention in Ukraine; on March 2, 300 protesters were arrested in Moscow and Petersburg. Liberal America is the counterpart of that kind of Russia — in this kind of America, it is not conceivable for similar incidents to happen there at the beginning of the 21st century. For people who think like this, what we are witnessing right now is as much anachronistic and politically irrational as a potential attempt by Germany to restore its former eastern borders. The kind of emotion a healthy reader should be experiencing right now is that of disgust and bafflement — although it is important not to feel these emotions one at a time, but actually both of them at once. This distaste and bafflement is shared in the same way by left-wing intellectuals, or intellectuals with leftist tendencies on both sides of the ocean, by Russians as well as Americans, including hapless Obama. This is the kind of disgust and bafflement of an adult, who gets beaten on a busy street … in broad daylight … at lunchtime … by some adolescent.

The problem is that these emotions are perceived both in Putin’s Russia and Sarah Palin’s America as political weakness.

So we have two crumbling powers accusing each other of imperialism and a Cold War mentality. Both of them are right. America does not understand what Ukraine means to Russia; it does not understand its nostalgia for the former Soviet Empire, although imperial nostalgia is a favorite American fantasy. Russian greatness and spiritual purity does not convince Americans, though America’s unique position, leadership role in the world and innocent post-colonial games seem as obvious as if they were given by God himself. Everything is clear: “In God we trust.” But what about Ukraine? From Washington’s perspective, Ukraine is of no interest. Its share in the global economy is only 0.2 percent. By itself it does not pose any danger and it can be easily given up — it is probably obvious to everyone that there can be no question of any military intervention on the part of the U.S. Very theoretical considerations by the Council on Foreign Relations, concerning the possibility of military action in the event of Putin’s going further west, show that NATO has already written Crimea off.

For the America which is well aware that sometimes in life you get beaten up by someone on the street, two things are clear. Firstly, instead of being surprised and naively trying to change the world, you have to equip yourself with a shotgun. Secondly, if the Republicans were in power right now, things would look completely different. Did Mitt Romney not point to Russia, saying that it is the biggest threat to the U.S.? He was not wrong! Did Sarah Palin err when she fired off that comment in 2008, saying that if Obama became president, Russia would invade Ukraine? This woman did predict that! A prophecy worthy of Nostradamus — and Palin did not hesitate to bring it back a few days ago on her Facebook account. John McCain, Obama’s competitor back in 2008, triumphs, pointing to the damaging effects of the infamous “reset” with Russia and to the inefficacy of Obama’s administration, because this is what this administration’s foreign policy is all about. Obama’s America betrayed its allies in Poland and the Czech Republic, leaving them at the mercy of their Soviet neighbor. Radosław Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, did ask and still urges Americans to open an American base in Poland. Under Reagan and Thatcher it was no different; even Russian dissidents and Ukrainian oppositionists agree with this, according to an interview published in Gazeta Wyborcza.

Let’s return to the logic of distaste and amazement. On Saturday, March 1, Obama rose from the pavement, readjusted his mangled collar and politely asked Putin to withdraw his forces from Ukraine as quickly as possible. The phrase “Obama calls Putin” sounds like a type of a joke similar to the one about a patient and a doctor. You have to be a liberal or an idiot to expect that such a call would accomplish anything. Obama makes a mockery of America, but funny America is for its people what the collapse of the Soviet Union is to Putin: the tragedy of the century.

Thus, the issue of Crimea is a matter of internal politics in America — maybe with a small external deviation entitled: Will the Middle East cease to be afraid of us from now on?

It boils down to the regret that Obama is a terrible leader, and more specifically, not a leader at all. The deeper right wing indulges in speculation that Putin not only arouses natural hostility in Obama, but also impresses him as a socialist, in the way that one socialist can be impressed by another socialist. As Nicholas Kristof writes in The New York Times, in the discussion on Obama’s passivity toward Ukraine, Americans completely forgot about Russia. There are so many insults in the U.S. media directed at the president that a completely clueless passerby who had just opened a newspaper would initially think it was not Putin who attacked Crimea, but Obama.

Republicans are right — a change of front is necessary! The Democrats cannot be counted on, as the U.S. Department of State, instead of taking real action, toys with literary charades, sending Putin quotes from Dostoyevsky. McCain advises incorporating Georgia into NATO and starting to think again about a missile defense system being placed in the Czech Republic and Poland. Hillary, here is your “reset”! Obama, here is your flop! How could the Middle East possibly be scared when, as Washington gossip has it, Sasha and Malia are not afraid of their dad?