Obama's musings on Ukraine - "what you expect from a Miss America contestant"

Charles Krauthammer:

“The United States does not view Europe as a battleground between East and West, nor do we see the situation in Ukraine as a zero-sum game. That’s the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War.” - Barack Obama, March 24

'Should'. Lovely sentiment. As lovely as what Obama said five years ago to the United Nations: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.”

That’s the kind of sentiment you expect from a Miss America contestant asked to name her fondest wish, not from the leader of the free world explaining his foreign policy.

The East Europeans know they inhabit the battleground between the West and a Russia that wants to return them to its sphere of influence. Ukrainians see tens of thousands of Russian troops across their border and know they are looking down the barrel of quite a zero-sum game. ...

... Obama’s dismissal of Russia as a regional power makes his own leadership of the one superpower all the more embarrassing. For seven decades since the Japanese surrender, our role under 11 presidents had been as offshore balancer protecting smaller allies from potential regional hegemons.

... Even Ukrainians are expressing regret at having given up their nukes in return for paper guarantees of territorial integrity. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum was ahead of its time — the perfect example of the kind of advanced 21st-century thinking so cherished by our president. ...

Ezra Levant reminded us recently of how, during a debate, Obama ridiculed Mitt Romney for stating that Russia was a great geopolitical threat, saying mockingly: "... the 1980's are now calling asking for their [cold war] policy back".  Ezra's excellent, updated reply on Mitt's behalf: "Hey Obama, Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter called - they want their 1930's appeasement policy back".