To: Brumar89 who wrote (1010766 ) 4/9/2017 3:23:50 PM From: Brumar89 Read Replies (1) | Respond to How the Latest Reset with Russia Died Another "Russian reset" bites the dust.NOAH ROTHMAN / APR. 7, 2017 called the attack on their client in Damascus a “destructive and dangerous” act of aggression that violated international law and would “inflict major damage” on relations between the two countries. In protest, Moscow briefly shuttered a bilateral “de-confliction” hotline with Washington that had been established to prevent accidental conflict and midair collisions over the skies of Syria. “Washington’s move deals a significant blow to the Russia-U.S. relations, which are already in a deplorable shape,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.Trump’s oft-stated campaign ambition of executing détente and reconciliation with Vladimir Putin didn’t seem to materialize once he took office. The president still conspicuously refused to criticize the antagonistic, human-rights abusing leader of the Russian Federation—even going so far as to draw a moral equivalence between the U.S. and Russia when confronted with Putin’s record of presiding over the deaths of journalists and opposition figures. Yet that repulsive talk was never followed on with conciliatory action from the administration. Trump has not provided Russia with sanctions relief, as many expected he would. Indeed, his diplomats have said no such relief would be forthcoming until Putin withdraws from occupied Crimea and allows it to reintegrate into Ukraine (i.e. never). Trump administration officials contradicted the president by claiming that Moscow needed to make “changes in posture” in Syria for there to be closer operational coordination. On the campaign trail, Trump had claimed that Putin and Assad were both effective prosecutors of the war against ISIS. As president, that illusion was quickly dispelled. Some suggested that the Trump administration had hoped that, through a good cop/bad cop routine, it could drive a wedge between Moscow and its allies of convenience in Tehran. The strikes on Assad’s forces indicate that the Trump White House has given up on this fanciful notion .the third consecutive American president to harbor such delusions. George W. Bush campaigned on retrenching American forces abroad and attacked Bill Clinton for being “locked in a Cold War mentality” when it came to Moscow. [ The one locked in a Cold War mentality is Vladimir Putin. ] burned routinely as a result of his naïveté. We should be thankful Trump’s overtures to Russia met their end within the first 80 days of his presidency before he could do much lasting damage.The greatest fear arising from Trump’s irresponsible propositioning of Russia wasn’t that he would realign the U.S. and join forces with Moscow and Tehran. Institutional pressures are too great and America’s alliance structures too insoluble for any single American president to achieve such a radical realignment. The fear was that, by heedlessly indulging Putin, the expansionist Russian leader would test Trump’s parameters and push him too far. In a miscalculation, Putin could transgress against American interest in a way that would demand a hostile response from Trump, even against the president’s wishes, setting off a cascading series of events that would be difficult to control. The end of Trump’s Russian reset means that this threat has been mitigated. Instead, when it comes to Moscow, we’re in for more of the same. America can handle more of the same.The United States dodged a bullet. We should be thankful that the historically and geopolitically illiterate utopians forever pushing America into the “Russian Reset” cul-de-sac were repudiated before they could imperil the West any more than they already have. Cooler heads have prevailed, and Trump’s foreign policy has become much more realistic.commentarymagazine.com
