Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Peggy Noonan: Warnings From the Ukraine Crisis - WSJ.com
The thoughts presented here by Peggy Noonan seem spot on to me...
This is from Peggy Noonan's recent Wall Street Journal column:
"Mr. Putin doesn't move because of American presidents, he moves for his own reasons. But he does move when American presidents are weak. He moved on Georgia in August 2008 when George W. Bush was reeling from unwon wars, terrible polls and a looming economic catastrophe that all but children knew was coming. (It came the next month.) Mr. Bush was no longer formidable as a leader of the free world.
Mr. Putin moved on Ukraine when Barack Obama was no longer a charismatic character but a known quantity with low polls, failing support, a weak economy. He'd taken Mr. Obama's measure during the Syria crisis and surely judged him not a shrewd international chess player but a secretly anxious professor who makes himself feel safe with the sound of his voice.
Mr. Putin didn't go into Ukraine because of Mr. Obama. He just factored him in."
