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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Russia Promises to "Hold the Ball" for Us Regarding Iran

And like Lucy promising to hold the ball for Charlie Brown, we know how this turns out.

Robert Kagan of the Washington Post points out Russia's past promises:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052403073.html

This column generated some spot-on observations from my friends:

But, whether it will lead to any sort of critical evaluation of the efficacy of our policies, well, I kind of doubt it. As Kagan writes, the current administration and State's Russia experts have invested way too much in this reset for them to admit failure at this point - it is much easier and politically better at home to continue onwards in the hope that one day Russia will reciprocate in kind.


I guess we’re all about “hoping they’ll change…”
 
Actually, it is worse than that. We are far beyond the self-deception of hoping that Russia will change - we've travelled all the way to believing that Russia has already changed for the better. Corollary to that is the belief that it is our own actions or lack of actions which are preventing the fruits of the reset from showing up. Essentially, the lack of progress in our relations with Russia is blamed not on their obstinancy, but on our own lack of being nice enough - a perfect recipe for continued concessions on our part in exchange for nothing.

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