Obama Doesn't Want To Play Chess with Putin

A lot of bitter words were addressed to Barack Obama last week, when Ukraine was standing on the edge of the precipice.

Naturally, it is nothing new: Some of us — Poles, Ukrainians, Europeans — have been feeling forgotten, neglected or misunderstood by the U.S. president for years. I’ve often heard malicious comments that someone who was born and brought up on a small island in the Pacific Ocean is not able to understand Europe, Russia or trans-Atlantic relations.

Such opinions also exist in Washington — among Republicans.

“The naiveté of Barack Obama … is stunning .… This is the most naive president in history .… Putin has played us so incredibly,” said Senator John McCain on Thursday. He referred mainly to Obama’s policies toward Russia, in particular to words the president spoke the day before, when the streets of Kiev were already full with tens of victims and authorities in America and Europe were wondering how to outsmart Putin and win over Ukraine.

“I don’t think this is a competition between the United States and Russia … Our approach as the United States is not to see these as some Cold War chessboard … Our goal is to make sure that the people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their future …” claimed Obama. It was his first relevant statement regarding Ukraine since last November.

Actually, no one should be surprised. Obama never wanted to play geostrategic chess. On the contrary, he was the one to extend the peace-offering hand toward Putin. This is how we got the famous “reset” of relations between Washington and Moscow, which — as it turned out after a few years — was only a daydream.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan is also disgusted with Obama’s naivety: “Last June, Mr. Putin was theatrically rude to Mr. Obama at a joint press conference, turning from him like a bored student who knows his professor isn’t marginally capable of operating in the real world. What Mr. Putin longs for is a Nixon with whom he can do business. Instead he has Mr. Obama, for whom he appears to have little respect.”

It is possible that Putin misses Nixon; he is an ex-secret service agent raised in Cold War times. We are all children of our times. Senator McCain and Mrs. Noonan learned in their youth that Russia is America’s main enemy, and it continues to remain enemy No. 1 (what’s worse, this unknowingly follows Putin’s point of view).

In the meantime, Obama adopts an emotionless attitude toward Russia (as opposed to all the previous presidents of the United States), which may indeed be caused by the fact that he was brought up in Hawaii and he is too young for Cold War memories. He forms realistic judgments about Russia and he can see that — in spite of their immense gas and oil deposits — Russia’s national income in 2014 is eight times lower than the U.S. national income. Is that what they call a superpower? On the other hand, Italians have no deposits, they are suppressed by the Mafia, they take long siestas, keep living with their mums until the age of 40 and their population is two and a half times smaller than that of Russia. Yet, they generate exactly the same national income as the Federation.

Naturally, Russia is more important or, speaking more precisely, more threatening than Italy. For two reasons: It has a few thousand rusty atomic bombs and a grotesque president, who, from day to day, was ready to promise $20 billion to Yanukovych in order to keep Ukraine at his side.

But the billions didn’t work. Ukraine’s fate wasn’t decided in Moscow, Washington or in Brussels. It was decided in Kiev, where the people overturned the “Russian” tyrant. [This is] just like two years ago, when Egypt’s fate was decided in Cairo, where people overturned the “American” tyrant (however, Americans stopped supporting Mubarak the moment he gave orders to shoot at people).

Russia is not a superpower and geostrategic chess matches are not as important as they used to be. It seems reasonable of Obama to not start any game with Putin, because it is better to talk to madmen in a normal manner than in a crazy one. This is why the “reset” with Russia was a good idea. And what about the fact that Putin didn’t take the opportunity to become normal? We can’t do much about it.

If Obama was naive, it was only in good faith, as there exists a positive naivety, which has the power to change a cynical reality. Thousands of naive people gathered on Maidan Square because they believed they are not pawns in the geostrategic game of chess. Unexpectedly, they won. However, it may still happen that — just like Egyptians — they will not cope with their freedom.

This is, however, a totally different story.