We all remember those images of a smiling Hillary Clinton in 2009, standing with her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who played along with the entire charade of the Obama administration’s Russian “reset” knowing he was dealing with a real patsy. How in the world did the new secretary of state get the word wrong on the plastic button anyway?
Hillary’s Russian reset proved to be anything but — in fact, it was the beginning of amateur hour when it came to American-Russian relations. President Trump is changing all that, resetting relations for real in fields like national security where it matters, without the plastic buttons from OfficeMax and the sickening fanfare.
Mr. Trump realizes that Russia pushed too far. He knows that the U.S. needs to get back to a position of strength when it comes to dealing with the Kremlin, since only then can we collaborate effectively to solve some of the world’s most vexing problems. That is to say, Russia will work with us only when it realizes it can no longer take advantage of us.
Moscow Alarmed To Face ManPADs In Syria
You can’t really blame Moscow. Under Mr. Obama, we had a White House that gave in to dictators at every turn, effectively handed Iran all it wanted militarily, along with cargo planes full of cash delivered in the middle of the night. Think back — you can date so many of our problems with Moscow to that day when Mr. Obama told Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that “he would be more flexible after the [2012] election” on bilateral problems. Can you imagine the chit-chat over shots of vodka in the Kremlin? Can you believe the president of the United States really said that?
That was likely the day when Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to get all he could get before an adult was back in the White House. That was the day he probably decided he could take Crimea if he wanted, could push back against the European Union in Ukraine and could conduct cyberwarfare with impunity against American interests worldwide.
We all remember those images of a smiling Hillary Clinton in 2009, standing with her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who played along with the entire charade of the Obama administration’s Russian “reset” knowing he was dealing with a real patsy. How in the world did the new secretary of state get the word wrong on the plastic button anyway?
Hillary’s Russian reset proved to be anything but — in fact, it was the beginning of amateur hour when it came to American-Russian relations. President Trump is changing all that, resetting relations for real in fields like national security where it matters, without the plastic buttons from OfficeMax and the sickening fanfare.
Mr. Trump realizes that Russia pushed too far. He knows that the U.S. needs to get back to a position of strength when it comes to dealing with the Kremlin, since only then can we collaborate effectively to solve some of the world’s most vexing problems. That is to say, Russia will work with us only when it realizes it can no longer take advantage of us.
You can’t really blame Moscow. Under Mr. Obama, we had a White House that gave in to dictators at every turn, effectively handed Iran all it wanted militarily, along with cargo planes full of cash delivered in the middle of the night. Think back — you can date so many of our problems with Moscow to that day when Mr. Obama told Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that “he would be more flexible after the [2012] election” on bilateral problems. Can you imagine the chit-chat over shots of vodka in the Kremlin? Can you believe the president of the United States really said that?
Russia Steps Up Idlib Strikes After Su-25 Downing
That was likely the day when Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to get all he could get before an adult was back in the White House. That was the day he probably decided he could take Crimea if he wanted, could push back against the European Union in Ukraine and could conduct cyberwarfare with impunity against American interests worldwide.
Originally posted at The Washington Times
