The Hollywood Liberal

Bush, aides ‘grossly misjudged Putin’

McClatchy
Excerpt

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s failure to win Russia’s consent to install U.S. missile defenses in its European backyard and a growing list of other disputes suggest that President Bush and his aides have misread the man whose “soul” Bush thought he’d divined when they first met six years ago.

Bush’s strategy on Russia assumed that Russian President Vladimir Putin embraced democracy, wanted integration with the West and sought a “strategic partnership” in which Moscow would acquiesce to U.S. policies such as NATO expansion. Feuds could be resolved through the close personal relationship that Bush believed he had with his Russian counterpart.

Instead, fueled by record oil and natural gas prices and resentment of what he lambasted in February as Bush’s “almost uncontained hyper use of force,” Putin has led global opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq, hosted Palestinians on the U.S. list of terrorist groups, sold anti-aircraft missiles and other arms to Iran and stymied Bush’s drive to tighten U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.

The Kremlin has steadily increased spending on defense modernization and revived symbolic long-range aerial reconnaissance patrols toward U.S. and European airspace.

Putin also has threatened to re-target Russian nuclear missiles at Europe if Bush deploys U.S. missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, declared his intention to trash treaties that eliminate a class of nuclear missiles and limit conventional military forces in Europe and compared the United States under Bush to Germany under Hitler.

HL’s Take
Putin knows an idiot when he sees one. Click through and read the whole story. I think Bush finally realized he was being played big time when they went fishing together.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 11:59 am and is filed under H.L. News, Main Blog (All Posts). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.