aquilon:

I strongly believe that giving Ukraine this either/or choice was a huge blunder by the EU (and the US, for that matter).

I could not agree more. But in the USA there is a long tradition of Republican sabotage of the foreign policy of Democrat Administrations: Nixon sabotaged LBJ's attempts to make peace in Vietnam in 1968, Reagan's team sabotaged Carter's attempts to end the Iranian hostage situation in 1980, and this evolved into the Iran-Contra debacle in the mid '80s. One pole of this dynamic has been the Republican alliance with the Israelis, and the current situation in the Ukraine is destroying Obama's attempts to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue.

The point is that on matters of national security and foreign affairs the US only has a unified policy during Republican administrations. LBJ, IMO, made a massive strategic mistake in deciding, 'for the good of the country', not to call Nixon on the sabotage of the Vietnamese peace talks as that seems to have set a precedent. I have watched this unfold over my adult life and had assumed that this was what was happening, but have recently had it massively confirmed by reading Robert Parry's

America's Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama

which I got in Kindle form for $5. Parry's work is very well sourced.


"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."