Russia’s deputy foreign minister said Sunday that his country was poised to retaliate aggressively against any new U.S. sanctions on Moscow.Because:
President* Donald Trump has reviewed the final version of Russia sanctions legislation and plans to sign it, the White House announced Friday night.Trump has no choice but to sign it. Oh, he could veto it, but any such veto would be overriden in a New York minute. And if he were to veto it, many people, including Your Humble Scribe, would insinuate that Trump was vetoing it on the tacit (or overt) instructions of his master in Moscow.
But maybe he'll change his mind. Nothing is ever sure with Trump. As our allies in the Western Pacific should be aware by now, Trump's promises and vows might as well be written on flash paper.
So what Putin got for all of his spooks' efforts last year is an American president who, while personally sympathetic (and somewhat pliant) to Putin, has been hamstrung by a suspicious Congress and populace. The chances of Russia having good relations with the United States are even more remote, now, than they were before Russia's "little green men" began mucking about in Ukraine.
UPDATE: Weapons for Ukraine. That'll please Putin not a bit.
Oh, Putin got his money's worth, all right. This little sanctions deal is just a good punctuation mark at the end of a successful bid to influence our election, and to discredit Western democracy in the eyes of the Russian people.
ReplyDeletePutin got a state department that's being dismantled and defunded, a weakening of the alliances that stand against the reunification of the Soviet Union, a complete reversal of our objective in Syria of replacing Assad, a heightened image on the world stage as a legitimate power, and most importantly to him, the US looks weak and ridiculous to the rest of the world as the result of a presidential election, which undercuts any aspirations of the Russian people to try and upgrade their form of government. Putin is really sensitive to those trends in his populace; he freaked the fuck out over protests after the last election over there, and blamed them all on Hillary Clinton.
He doesn't like the sanctions, but I find it difficult to believe that he did what he did without expecting them, even with his preferred candidate in the white house.
-Doug in Oakland
About the Ukraine weapons update: Yup, not one little bit.
ReplyDelete-Doug in Oakland