Putin Up. Time To Reset The Reset Of The Reset?

In a 'news analysis' the NY Times declares Putin the winner of his year-long scuffle with Team Obama over the crimea, the Ukraine, and the world:

A Diplomatic Victory, and Affirmation, for Putin

MOSCOW — For Russia, victory came three days after Victory Day, in the form of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit this week to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. It was widely interpreted here as a signal of surrender by the Americans — an olive branch from President Obama, and an acknowledgment that Russia and its leader are simply too important to ignore.

Since the seizure of Crimea more than a year ago, Mr. Obama has worked aggressively to isolate Russia and its renegade president, Vladimir V. Putin, portraying him as a lawless bully atop an economically failing, increasingly irrelevant petrostate.

Mr. Obama led the charge by the West to punish Mr. Putin for his intervention in Ukraine, booting Russia from the Group of 8 economic powers, imposing harsh sanctions on some of Mr. Putin’s closest confidants and delivering financial and military assistance to the new Ukrainian government.

In recent months, however, Russia has not only weathered those attacks and levied painful countersanctions on America’s European allies, but has also proved stubbornly important on the world stage. That has been true especially in regard to Syria, where its proposal to confiscate chemical weapons has kept President Bashar al-Assad, a Kremlin ally, in power, and in the negotiations that secured a tentative deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

 

...

 

“Putin is looking pretty smart right now,” said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute, a Washington research group focused on Russia and the former Soviet Union.

 

Putin is looking pretty smart and we are looking pretty stupid. And who could have seen this coming? Was it more than a year ago that the Times was explaining, to modest derision, that Obama had a plan for isolating Putin while continuing to garner his cooperation on Syria and Iran? Ron Fournier of the National Journal used the phrase "a fundamental failure of leadership" in describing Obama's approach. And that was being charitable.

Comments

[henry]

Who is this "we" that is looking stupid? Clinton, Kerry, Obama, Biden, the NYT editorial board, sure. But that is "they" not "we."

[Lazybusy]

First, maybe.

[MarkO]

Obama’s just not that smart©

[Jeff Dobbs]

Henry, it would include the majority of voters who twice put Obama in office.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Putin is looking pretty smart and we are looking pretty stupid.--

If all you have is a Barry everything looks smart.

[cathyf]

hey, where is everybody?

[narciso]

the first paragraph, was correct, the middle illustrated the category error, that has us in this situation,

[Jack is Lightnings!]

To all my fellow veterans and those who stil serve:

Happy Armed Forces Day.

As a kid growing up on Air Force bases this was a special day for the families since we got a chance to go up in one of the planes or choppers. My favorite was the SA-16 seaplane that the ASR units had in their fleet. Some time the local Navy guys would come by with their PBY and we could go up in that and look out the bubble window. That was a big deal to a 12 year old kid.

[DrJ]

hey, where is everybody?

Well, I'm taking a short break. I've been working on company actual expenses, NIH-allowed expenses and NIH-billed expenses for a two-tier indirect cost structure based on modified total direct costs. It also includes a previous award that overlaps with this one that used a different indirect cost basis (one-tier based on total direct labor, if anyone cares).

The government is turning this PhD into an accountant.

[Miss Marple]

I have been attempting to pull weeds and plant flowers in between bouts of rain.

I wish it would quit!

Grandson is coming over tonight so I am going to get him to move a couple of things for me.