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Hillary Truth Reset Button

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

Remember Tuzla Air Base in Bosnia-Herzegovina – where brave Hillary Clinton landed while under gunfire while trying to visit US troops in 1996? Except that she wasn’t remotely under fire, etc. Well, I’ve got bad news: Hillary’s on-again, off-again relationship with Truth is creeping back to the latter, if we can credit today’s New York Times article about the “gag gift” Clinton brought along to break the ice at her first meeting as Secretary of State yesterday with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

What it was, was a red plastic button labeled “peregruzka” (that’s presumably перегрузка), which was supposed to be a “reset button” for US-Russian relations, a phrase Vice-President Biden had used in that context a month ago at the annual Munich Security Conference. “We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Hillary said as she gave it to Lavrov. “Do you think we got it?” To which Lavrov replied, “You got it wrong.” (more…)

Posted in Denmark, Russia | No Comments »

Poles Down the River?

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

The big news the past week on the international relations front was President Obama’s “secret letter” he had hand-delivered to Russian president Medvedev last month. In it, he supposedly suggested – or at least hinted at – a possible deal whereby the US would stop the planned deployment of an anti-missile system with the radar installations in the Czech Republic and the actual anti-missile missiles in Poland, in return for Russia’s assistance in stopping the alleged drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

Even if nothing ultimately comes of it, this move certainly denotes some new thinking being applied to both Russo-American and Iranian-American relations. Then again, what about the Czechs and the Poles? As is so rightly pointed out in that NYT article (the one I link to above), in those countries “leaders invested political capital in signing missile defense cooperation treaties with the United States despite domestic opposition.” (more…)

Posted in Poland, Russia | No Comments »

Spicy Russo-Georgian Potpourri

Monday, September 1st, 2008

“Georgia – again?” Well, yes. What else would there be? The Republican National Convention? Coming up (we think). Sarah Palin? Not today, but definitely stay tuned on that one, it could turn spectacular. Hurricane Gustav? The European viewpoint there is probably not too interesting, even if we might be somewhat honored by the choice of that quintessentially (Central) European given name for bestowal on the storm. My best sense of the EU’s official position on Gustav – gathered from that extensive trawling through the various national presses that I do for you on a continual basis – is that it’s taken to be a bad thing, definitely.

Actually, developments on the Georgia story do keep on coming, especially if you take the unpleasantness there of last month (not at all unreasonably) as a proxy for the new Eurasian balance-of-power that conflict suddenly revealed to the world. Today is when the EU heads of government are due in Paris to meet on a European response (if any) to Russia’s recent behavior. Looking ahead last Friday, the Berlin correspondent for Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, Bartosz T. Wielinski, put forth a mostly pessimistic outlook on what could be accomplished (What the Union can do to Russia on Monday). (more…)

Posted in France, Germany, Poland | No Comments »

Hillary Truth Reset Button

Poles Down the River?

Spicy Russo-Georgian Potpourri

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