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Vladimir Putin Tag

Face it, Obama has structured key portions of U.S. foreign policy on Vlad Putin playing nice. Iran nukes? Check. Syria chemical weapons and civil war? Check. Egypt shifting allegiances? Check. Nuclear arms treaty compliance? Check. Central and Eastern Europe territorial integrity? Check. On what key issues does Putin need Obama? Yeah, now Vlad is threatening to leave the relationship and take all the prized possessions with him. Via AP, Russia warns West it may change its stance on Iran:
Russia may revise its stance in the Iranian nuclear talks amid tensions with the West over Ukraine, a senior diplomat warned Wednesday. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, according to the Interfax news agency, that Russia didn't want to use the Iranian nuclear talks to "raise the stakes," but may have to do so in response to the actions by the United States and the European Union. The statement is the most serious threat of retaliation by Moscow after the U.S. and the EU announced sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region. Ryabkov, who is Russia's envoy to the Iranian talks, said that Russia considers the "reunification" with Crimea as far more important than the developments surrounding the Iranian nuclear program.
The featured image, a Branco Cartoon from September 2013, still rings true. So does this photoshop that made the rounds:

With ongoing developments on the crisis in Ukraine, here are some news updates from Tuesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a draft treaty making Crimea part of Russia. From CNN, Ukraine cries 'robbery' as Russia annexes Crimea:
Never mind what the West thinks -- the Kremlin says Ukraine's Crimea region is now part of Russia. A signing ceremony Tuesday between Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Crimea and the mayor of the city of Sevastopol made it official, the Kremlin said in a statement. The territory, ceded to Ukraine in the Soviet era, is now part of the Russian Federation, it said. The annexation -- which had not been expected to occur until Russian lawmakers met later this week -- was met with a howl of protest in Kiev, where Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called it "a robbery on an international scale."
Additional details also at CBS News. Also Tuesday, a Ukrainian soldier was reported to have been killed on a base in Crimea and another wounded, though some of the details appeared to be unclear at the time of this writing. From AFP:

Why was our intelligence community caught so flat-footed about Putin's intentions in Ukraine? That's a question being asked on Capitol Hill, and in Politico. One possible answer to the query is, "No, it wasn't." That one was given by James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, and...

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Tuesday drew parallels between the aggressive actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine and those of Adolf Hitler in the 1930's. She made the comments while speaking at a private event, according to the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, California.
Putin’s desire to protect minority Russians in Ukraine is reminiscent of Hitler’s actions to protect ethnic Germans outside Germany, she [Clinton] said. Putin has been on a campaign to give Russian passports to anyone who has Russian connections, Clinton said. The Russian leader has recently done so in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which, Clinton said, is similar to what happened in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. Hitler resettled tens of thousands of ethnic Germans who were living in parts of Europe to Nazi Germany. Clinton made her comments at a private event benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach. “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s,” she said. “All the Germans that were ... the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”

NOTE: for previous coverage of the situation in Ukraine/Crimea, you can follow this live coverage post. Putin is no doubt quaking in his boots at this warning issued by President Obama:
"We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine," Obama said in a hastily arranged public statement from the White House briefing room. "Just days after the world came to Russia for the Olympic games, it would invite the condemnation of nations around the world. And indeed, the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine," the president warned.
Costs...costs...what could they be? Here are some possibilities:

Within the past two weeks, two of the most prestigious American newspapers published op-eds of enemies of the United States. Earlier this month, the New York Times published an op-ed by Vladimir Putin of Russia arguing that the United States would make matters worse by attacking Syria and (among other things) denying that it was the Syrian government that used chemical weapons. Putin's op-ed also offered Russia's support for a negotiated agreement to end the Syrian civil war. Later we learned that the op-ed was placed with the assistance of an American PR firm.

Putin Op Ed NY Times headline

The public editor of the New York Times later defended the placement of the op-ed. In the course of her defense, she quoted editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal:
“There is no ideological litmus test” for an Op-Ed article, he said. In addition, he said, it is not the purpose of the Op-Ed pages to help or hurt the American government. It is to present a variety of interesting and newsworthy points of view, at least some of which will be contrary to The Times’s own point of view, expressed in its editorials. The Times has published very few Op-Ed pieces by heads of state, Mr. Rosenthal said, partly because they have their own ways of getting their messages out. ... I asked him about Mr. Putin’s statement that there is “every reason to believe” that the poison gas has been used by opposition forces, not the Syrian government – which many now do not believe to be true. Mr. Rosenthal said that “falls into the category of opinion.”
The "ideological litmus test" argument is misdirection.  The Times has not hesitated to refuse Op-Eds from political figures seeking to set the record straight, including John McCain and Scott Walker.

NY Times McCain Op Ed Refusal

The goal of Putin's op-ed was to solidify American public opinion against an attack on Syria. Assuming that that was President Obama's intent, Putin's main goal was to undermine the public position of the American president. (Admittedly, even without the op-ed, the American public was against such a strike. Furthermore, once President Obama chose to ask Congress for the authorization of force, it pretty much eliminated any chance that he would use attack Syria.) Rosenthal's odd assertion that a false statement could be excused as an "opinion," is beyond ridiculous. (More on this later.) A subsequent new article, As Obama Pauses Action, Putin Takes Center Stage, highlighted Putin's role in protecting Syria at America's expense.
In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times released on Wednesday, Mr. Putin laid down a strong challenge to Mr. Obama’s vision of how to address the turmoil, arguing that a military strike risked “spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders” and would violate international law, undermining postwar stability. “It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States,” Mr. Putin wrote. “Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it.” ... Now he appears to be relishing a role as a statesman. His spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said in an interview that the Russian president was not seeking “ownership of the initiative,” but wanted only to promote a political solution to head off a wider military conflict in the Middle East.
By mentioning the op-ed in the course of a news article, the Times gave the op-ed an extra boost of credibility. Now it wasn't just an opinion, but a news item promoted by the New York Times. True, the report later acknowledged that Putin's claim about chemical weapons was dubious. But by writing an article about how President Putin was becoming a statesman (at America's expense) and citing the op-ed they had just published as proof of that, they elevated an opinion article into news.

James Rosen of Fox News sketched the image below while waiting for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to appear before reporters. Rosen tried to parlay it into an exclusive interview, but no luck, via AP: Then Fox News television correspondent James Rosen reached over and handed Lavrov a...

When aliens said "We come in peace," they almost invariably had their sights set on world domination. So beware Vladimir Putin when he comes bearing peace....