Ukraine Crisis Is Too Complicated For The Sunday Shows- International Statecraft is not Junior High

April 30, 2014 12:00 am
By Gene Lyons




First comes the melodrama, next comes the killing. Good vs. evil, suffering innocents vs. swaggering bullies, heroes vs. villains. The “Two Minutes Hate,” Orwell called it — the way of the world since the invention of mass media.
So it is during the current political crisis in the Ukraine. In the U.S. media, the identity of the Bad Guy has been clearly determined: Russian president Vladimir Putin, the one-time KGB operative with the hooded eyes.
“The world has not yet forgotten World War Two, but Russia already wants to start World War Three,” Ukrainian prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk has declared. He accuses Moscow of acting like a “gangster,” of supporting “terrorists,” and alleges that Putin wishes to build a new Berlin Wall.

So what’s taking him so long? If Putin really wanted a shooting war in the Ukraine, he’s had ample opportunities to start one since the overthrow of that country’s Russian-leaning elected government last February.
Instead, Putin managed to transfer the Crimean peninsula, with its strategically crucial military bases, from Ukrainian to Russian sovereignty without firing a shot—an impressive feat of geopolitical gamesmanship whether you trust the cunning rascal or not. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine any Russian head of state willingly surrendering control of warm-water naval bases on the Black Sea.
Even if the vast majority of Crimean citizens didn’t yearn to return to Mother Russia, as quite clearly they did.
Meanwhile, the role of Good Guy in the Ukrainian melodrama has fallen by default to President Barack Obama, who appears disinclined to play it.

“Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force,” the president asked recently, “after we’ve just gone through a decade of war at enormous cost to our troops and to our budget? And what is it exactly that these critics think would have been accomplished?”
He didn’t call any names, but Obama did mention the Sunday TV talk shows, where 2008 presidential rival Senator John McCain (R-AZ) frequently holds forth. It’s a rare interview that doesn’t find the bellicose Arizonan, who’s supported all 14 of the nation’s last three wars, yearning to bomb somebody.


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http://www.nationalmemo.com/ukraine-crisis-complicated-sunday-shows/