[BRIGADE] PJB: Meeting Medvedev Halfway
Published: Tue, 11/25/08
By Patrick J. Buchanan
November 25, 2008
The morning after Barack Obama's election, the congratulatory
message from Moscow was in the chilliest tradition of the Cold War.
"I hope for constructive dialogue with you," said Russia's
president, "based on trust and considering each other's interests."
Dmitry Medvedev went on that day, in his first State of the Union,
to charge America with fomenting the Russia-Georgia war and said he
has been "forced" to put Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad to
counter the U.S. missile shield President Bush pledged to Poland.
Medvedev had painted Obama into a corner. No new American president
can be seen as backing down from a Russian challenge.
Three days later, Polish President Lech Kaczynski tried to box
Barack in. His office declared that, during a phone conversation
with Kaczynski, Obama had promised to deploy the anti-missile
missiles.
Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough denied it.
One week later, however, Medvedev wisely walked the cat back.
During the G-20 summit in Washington, he told the Council on
Foreign Relations the issue of Russian missiles in Kaliningrad "is
not closed. I am personally ready to discuss it, and I hope that
the new president and the new administration will have the will to
discuss it."
President-elect Obama should not let this opportunity slip by, for
a second signal came last week that Russia does not want the Cold
War II that the departing neocons wish to leave on his plate.
Moscow offered Spain and Germany use of Russian territory to supply
NATO troops in Afghanistan. As our supply line from the Pakistani
port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass to Kabul grows perilous,
this has to be seen as a gesture of friendship by a Russia that
shares, as a fellow victim of Islamic terror, the U.S. detestation
of al-Qaida.
Opportunity also presents itself with the official report of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on the August
war. According to The New York Times, the OSCE found, consistent
with Moscow's claims, that Georgia "attacked the isolated
separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate
artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers
and unarmed monitors to harm."
Russia's response -- running the Georgian Army out of South
Ossetia, occupying Abkhazia and recognizing both as independent
nations -- may seem disproportionate and excessive. But, contrary
to John ("We are all Georgians now!") McCain, Moscow has a
compelling case that Georgia's Mikhail Saakashvili started the fire.
Medvedev is now on a four-nation Latin tour with stops in Hugo
Chavez's Venezuela and Fidel Castro's Cuba. But this seems more
like diplomatic tit-for-tat for high-profile U.S. visits to Tbilisi
and other ex-Soviet republics than laying the groundwork for some
anti-American alliance.
For, just as for Washington the relationship with Moscow is far
more crucial than any tie to Tbilisi, so Moscow's tie to Washington
is surely far more crucial to Russia than any tie to Caracas or
Havana.
With these opening moves, how might Obama test the water for a
better relationship with the Russia of Medvedev and Vladimir Putin?
First, Obama should restate his campaign position that no
anti-missile system will be deployed in Poland until fully tested.
Second, he should declare that, as this system is designed to
defend against an Iranian ICBM with a nuclear warhead, it will not
be deployed until Iran has tested an ICBM and an atomic device.
So long as the Iranian threat remains potential, not actual, there
is no need to deploy a U.S. missile defense in Poland against it.
Third, he should invite Medvedev to Camp David to discuss what more
they might do together to ensure that no such Iranian threat, to
either nation, ever materializes. For if Iran does not test an ICBM
or atomic device, what is the need for a missile defense in East
Europe?
Fourth, invoking the principle of self-determination, Obama might
propose a plebiscite in Georgia and Abkhazia to determine if these
people wish to return to Tbilisi's rule.
The second bone of contention between us is prospective NATO
membership for Georgia and Ukraine.
As NATO is a military alliance, at the heart of which is Article V,
which obligates every ally to come to the defense of a member who
is attacked, to bring Georgia in would be madness.
To cede to Saakashvili power to bring us into confrontation with
Russia would be to rival British stupidity in giving Polish
colonels power to drag the empire into war with Germany over
Danzig, which is exactly what the Polish colonels proceeded to do
in 1939.
Before the NATO summit next week, Obama should signal to NATO, and
the Bush administration, that nothing irreversible should be done
to put Ukraine or Georgia on a path to membership.
First, because the president-elect will decide himself about new
war guarantees in Eastern Europe or the Caucasus. Second, because
these are matters to be taken up at a Medvedev-Obama summit, not
foreclosed for him by neocons now trooping home to their think
tanks.
SOURCE:
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/11/pjb-meeting-medvedev-halfway/