I think that Merkel is obfuscating. Her original intent with Minsk II was not to buy time to arm Ukraine. Her intent was to prevent a further war and to make peace. The argument, that it gave time for Ukraine to arm, is only made now and only to save her political ass in the current political climate. I think MoonOfAlabama is right. Merkel’s participation in Minsk was a genuine attempt to make peace. There was nothing unreasonable about the Minsk Agreements. Why didn’t they amount to a hill of beans? That, we need to ask Obama, Nuland and other establishment visionaries.
Where MoA is mistaken is in thinking that this will make a major difference in any future peace negotiations. Putin’s making a big thing about Merkel’s “revelation” is self serving. He can claim that the West was only pretending to take Minsk seriously. But you know what? It was totally obvious to everyone, anyway.
_________________
Looking at it from a somewhat different perspective… In Russia, this story strongly resonates with another one. Generations of Soviets - and later, Russians - grew up hearing how the Soviet government concluded the “clever” Ribbentrop - Molotov pact — in order to buy the USSR extra time to prepare for the war with Germany, which they “knew” was inevitable. But if so - then WHY was Stalin so absolutely confident that Nazi Germany would hold up their end of the agreement?? He refused to believe that Germany was preparing an attack.
A deep NKVD agent, Richard Zorge - at the time, serving as a functionary of the German government in Tokyo - was able to obtain the exact date when Germany was going to attack. For his trouble, Stalin called him a traitor - and had him sentenced to death in absentia. (He was soon arrested - and eventually, was hung in a Japanese prison. The man is considered to have been one of the greatest spies ever).
During the entire period while their pact held up, Stalin, allegedly, was preparing an attack against Germany - but that is a different story. Germany attacked first — it could be that Hitler trusted his intelligence people more than Stalin trusted his. |
