Who Was Right on Russia?

Two op-ed columns, one from last week by former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and one from six years ago by CNN/Newsweek pundit Fareed Zakaria, highlight the mind-boggling failure of left-wing policy on Russia during the Obama administration, and indicate that our current president has led us down a dead-end street of endless disaster and disgrace.

Fareed Zakaria

In that 2008 column, Zakaria called McCain “schizophrenic” and “radical” and said that listening to his “neoconservative posturing” about Russia filled Zakaria with “sadness.”  Zakaria expressed support for what he termed a “decades-old bipartisan American policy of integrating [Russia] into the global order” and asked plaintively: “What would be the gain from so alienating” the “great power” known as Russia?

Zakaria wasn’t alone; even some in the Bush administration were with him.  McClatchy quoted an anonymous “senior U.S. official who deals with Russia policy” as stating: “It’s not even a theoretical discussion.  It’s an impossible discussion.  It’s just a dumb thing.”  McClatchy explained that America’s G-8 partners “would never agree to toss Russia, given their close economic ties to their neighbor.”

The Bush administration, of course, knew from dumb.  You remember George Bush, the fellow who “looked into Putin’s eyes” and “glimpsed his soul” and pronounced him a trustworthy partner.