[TheCommentator] It is not clear what the Left is complaining about over items such as Ukraine and Syria. In Britain, Europe and the United States they all swooned over Barack Obama. They got the weakling they wanted. So, what's their problem?Over in the United States, the attempt by foreign-policy enthusiasts in the Democratic Party to distance themselves from the train wreck that is the Obama administration has been gathering pace for some time now.
Finally, it is starting to happen in Britain and Europe too where, after Syria, Ukraine and many other instances, the leading lights of the political Left seem to have woken up to the fact that Western leadership isn't quite what it might be these days.
"One of the alarming features of the crisis on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula is the staggering confidence with which Vladimir Putin is pursuing his agenda there and in eastern Ukraine," reads the opening paragraph of the Observer's editorial on Sunday.
Actually, there's nothing staggering about it all, unless you have about six years of baggage to shed over your support for Barack Obama. Putin clocked Obama for the weakling he is from day 1. All we're seeing from the Russian leader is more of what we have seen over Syria, Iran and a host of other cases, except that Ukraine is right in Putin's own back yard.
"One thing is certain," the Observer says, "the current crisis presents the biggest threat to security in Europe since the Balkan wars, and western leaders, including Obama and David Cameron (who has spoken to Putin on the phone), have hardly been impressive in their response, demonstrating a weak grasp on the events unfolding. For now, Putin is ahead of the game. It is time for the international community to catch up."
| H. L. Mencken to the courtesy phone. Mencken to the white courtesy phone, please. |
| I don't see how it's Mr. Cameron's fault: Britain is no longer a world power and can't respond to events more than a few hundred miles from its borders. It no longer has a navy or air force, and its army (man for man as good as there is) couldn't get to Ukraine today except as tourists. There are two countries that can influence events this week in the Ukraine: the United States (but we won't), and Poland (and if they do it's a shooting war). The rest of the West is on the sidelines, by their own choices and decisions made the last thirty years. |