Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 5:54:10 PM
For a man willing to blame Britain for World War II, this is an easy call. Kevin Drum has already addressed the stupidity
of the idea that the U.S., in Buchanan’s words, might have given
Georgia “a green light” to invade South Ossetia, so read him for that.
I’m more interested in the two strands here. One is the isolationist
point that it’s foolish and dangerous for the U.S. to commit itself to
defending foreign powers by admitting them to NATO; whether NATO
membership for Russia’s neighbors would increase or actually reduce the
risk of war is debatable, but on its own terms that point is fair
enough. It’s the second strand that carries the distinctive Buchanan
odor. Tell me if I’m wrong to read this — particularly the tender
description of Putin as a “Russian patriot” — as a none-too-veiled
attempt to defend Russian expansionism
Whereupon he lurches into a climactic perfunctory sneer about
getting Saakashvili a job at AEI and calls for Joe Biden to hold public
hearings on whether Bush Knew. There’s no reason I can see why
anti-NATO isolationists can’t also be pro-Georgia: Restricting the use
of U.S. military force to our own “sphere” isn’t inconsistent with
wanting to help fledgling former Soviet satellites protect their
independence through trade, military training, foreign aid, and
diplomacy. Buchanan seems to be saying otherwise, that not only should
we get out of Putin’s way, we should actually informally (or formally?)
recognize Russia’s dominion over those satellites. How else to read the
creepy nostalgia about Yalta being a resort for Russian aristocracy or
the suggestion that Putin, a guy known for bumping off journalists who
cross him, reached out to the U.S. in good faith by nobly “shedding”
his empire before the evil neocons slapped his hand away? (PB must be
the only person left in the world who thinks Bush’s infamous assessment
of Putin’s soul
was correct.) To put it another way, just what does he mean by Russian
“primacy” and how far exactly does its “sphere” extend? If we’re
supposed to stand idly by while Moscow all but reabsorbs its neighbors,
then never mind Cold War II — we’ll be right back to Cold War I. And
that actually will be our fault.
What kind of isolationist apologizes for another country’s expansionism,
anyway? Answer: The same kind that thinks Churchill was the chief
warmonger of the early 1940s, I guess. Exit question: For people who
complain so much about neocons dramatically overstating the threats
from foreign powers, Birchers like Buchanan and Ron Paul sure aren’t
above dramatically understating them, are they?