Ukraine War, One Month In

My responses to those who feel a successful Ukrainian resistance is impossible. The objections of the doom sayers are in quotes. Long live freedom, and long live Ukraine.

"We cannot help the Ukrainians." Here are some places to help the Ukrainians.

Four things you can do for Ukraine

Four things you can do for Ukraine Robert Reich Small but practical steps

"This boycott of Russian everything is...useless..." Rather than assuming the worst, just imagine for a moment that there is hope. If there is hope, then anything, large or small, that can be done to improve the situation will contribute to the potential for a better outcome. In that case, it is not useless to stop sending money that aggrandizes the resources of the tyrannical aggressor, but an obvious thing to do. Is the aggressor stronger with more money and weaker with less? There is an obvious answer to that question. Then we try not to contribute to his resources. 

Does this aggressor or any aggressor calculate the costs and benefits of prospective aggressions? If so, then the prospect of weakening economic retaliations for aggression will factor into the calculus and act as a deterrent. 

Economic pain, especially during and as a result of war in which there are battlefield reversals, can energize a society and contribute to the organization of plots and coups, or even successful popular insurrections. Just ask the Romanovs, the Bourbons, or the Mussolinis. 

"they will soon (probably in the same time it took Hitler to take Poland) take Ukraine. Period."

Tomorrow, March 24, will mark the end of four weeks of war. That was the same time period after which Warsaw surrendered and organized Polish resistance ended. The Ukrainians are nowhere near surrender or collapse, so that prediction is already wrong. 

"The Russians are bombing the utter shit out of them..they will resist with our weapons that we gingerly push into the arena on long sticks to keep our hands from the fires they are burning alive in."

Yes, because they want to. It seems they would rather be free than alive, if that's the choice. That's how our own country was born. And sometimes the unexpected happens. Few thought the Americans could win their independence against the foremost world empire of the time. Few thought Britain could resist Hitler and Mussolini once France had fallen and Stalin was still on Hitler's side. Few expected the nascent Israelis could withstand the invasion of seven Arab nations, outnumbered 10-1. Few would have bet on North Vietnam and the Viet Cong to outlast South Vietnam and the United States in that war. Truman won the 1948 election. The Mets won the 1969 World Series. Usually the expected happens. But often enough, the underdog prevails, often enough to fire the dedication of freedom-loving people everywhere. 

Russia under Putin is not a happy, prosperous, and well-adjusted society or polity. Maybe, with enough losses, enough time, enough increasing economic privation, enough military and national humiliation, the oligarchs, the army, and/or the people will rise up there as they have four times in the past 117 years and rid themselves of an overweening despotism.

 

Of course maybe not, in this instance. But we don't know, and nobody knows. The only things that will absolutely insure Ukrainian defeat are if they themselves lose their will to fight or if no one gives them the weapons they need to give them a chance. They show no signs of losing their will to fight as of today. And the democratic world still stands united in giving them the tools they need to fight because it is the right thing to do. Do we stand up for our beliefs or do we abandon them when the going gets hard? Do we tell tyrants and thugs fine, go ahead, you can act with impunity or do we show them their depredations will cost them more than they can afford to pay? Do we help people fighting for their freedom or do we tell them we think they are better off slaves?

I deeply admire the Ukrainians and am proud that the US and so many other countries are supporting them however they can, be the support military, humanitarian, monetary, political, demonstrating in the streets to show support for their government's efforts on Ukraine's behalf, or sanctioning and boycotting Russian sources of income. Long live freedom, and long live Ukraine.

 

Ukraine: How We Got Here and What We do Next

1. Yes, Putin was emboldened by previous moves at little international cost. The sanctions after Crimea at least became consequential, but they are not disabling.

2. No, World War III has not started already. One country is battling another. No other combatants are directly involved. That is not a World War. Whether it becomes a world war depends on what we, Putin, and others do next.

3. Yes, we and our allies must continue to arm Ukraine. It ends the policy of appeasement and makes clear from now on that the price of aggression will be high. It signals to countries facing Russian or other intimidation that we will help them, and makes it more likely they will stand up to coercion. It multiplies the cost to Putin and makes him the aggressor if he goes beyond the boundaries of Ukraine to try to staunch the replenishment by widening the war into Poland or Romania. By not immediately intervening to take out these deliveries it is Putin who has emboldened us to continue supplying Ukraine, just as we emboldened him by weak responses to his earlier aggressions. Now if he retaliates directly against us or our NATO allies on NATO territory he would be the one escalating, and would initiate World War III. He's already having trouble bludgeoning Ukraine into line, so imagine his problems if he added Germany, Poland, Romania, the USA and the rest of the NATO Treaty signatories to his active enemies. That's why he hasn't done it. He believes the NATO Charter would be followed by its member nations. He knows that's a fight he can't win. The only way he could stop us all would be nuclear. But he knows if he uses that, he dies too. Again, he indicates he is a rational actor because he has not activated the NATO Alliance, which would insure his conventional defeat, or used nuclear weapons, which would be suicidal. 

4. No, we do not need to send ground troops into Ukraine or send our air forces over their skies to "enforce a no-fly zone." If we do that we become active belligerents, and we start World War III. A no-fly zone means our planes are there to shoot down the planes of any other power that enters that airspace. That means direct aerial combat with the Russian Air Force, because they are already there. It's an unmistakable act of war. No country currently engaged in combat could ever permit the withdrawal of air support for their ground forces currently engaged in life and death combat. The logic of operations would necessitate their striking NATO air bases in NATO territory and we then striking Russian air bases inside Russia. The air defenses of their ground forces would strike at our planes overhead to defend their planes, and our planes in turn would have to target Russian ground forces shooting at them. Before you know it, every American is shooting at every Russian, and vice versa, and it's World War III.

5. Yes, we ought to embargo Russian oil. We should let them know through confidential channels before hand that it's coming (which they can already see by watching the Western news) and let them know it ends when they withdraw. We should also let them know we will play that card any time they invade anybody, including neutrals such as Finland and Sweden. This is yet another case, in addition to the intensifying climate crisis, which clearly demonstrates the urgent need to direct our energy consumption away from oil and other fossil fuels as rapidly as possible.

6. It may well be that China stands as the likely diplomatic key to ending the Russia-Ukraine War. That's probably not what the USA wants to happen though, as doing so would greatly raise China's profile and prestige in the world. But as long as Putin feels he has Chinese support he may be willing to keep paying the costs to pursue his dream of reconstituting the glories of the Russian Empire, pouring more men and material into what looks to be Russia's equivalent of Vietnam. But if the Chinese were to let him know they could not continue to back his folly, he might have to realize the game was up and accept their mediation and some at least implicitly face-saving diplomatic solution. In this case, one wonders what price China would extract from both Russia and the West for their good offices.

Prospect for Ukraine

I write this on Day 5 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are inspiring the world with their much stronger than expected resistance to the Russian onslaught. It is absolutely certain that Putin will not countenance defeat or withdrawal. He's put his chips in and can never be seen to back down. I foresee continuing stiffening Ukrainian resistance as more of our wondrous precision weaponry reaches them, leading to heavier and heavier Russian losses such as the burning columns of T-72s and APCs we have already seen on video. This will multiply Putin's rage and the Russian Army's humiliation such that their campaign will become ever more brutal. 

We've already seen this model before with Putin in Chechnya and Syria. Cities that successfully resist will be heavily struck, then as frustration grows, leveled. Expect Kharkiv and Kiev to be turned fairly soon into piles of rubble. As the Germans discovered at Stalingrad, however, bombed out urban landscapes are extremely perilous places for offensive operations, with roads blocked and innumerable places for defenders to hide and ambush. Russian losses will swell. Still, their preponderance is great, and they will grind forward, and at length, conquer the whole of a devastated Ukraine. 

From what I've seen thus far, that will not be the end of the war. Ukrainian spirit is strong. The Russian occupiers will become bogged down in a widespread and effective insurgency. The resistance will be very well-supplied. Even neutral Sweden has pledged to send lethal weaponry. Think of that. Russian losses will be quite heavy on an ongoing basis. A steady stream of hundreds and thousands of body bags will be brought home for funerals attended by grieving relatives and friends. All the while, sanctions will be sapping the Russian economy. Videos will show dead children. Its pariah status will grow. Boycotts will dry up its exports. The ruble is already crashing. The cost of occupying the ruined Ukraine and fighting the insurgency will not be offset by the seizure of the Ukrainian economy, since much of it will be in ruins. 

The Russian economy, about 8% the size of America's, will crack under the strain. As privation and war weariness grow, anti-Putin demonstrations in Russia will become larger and increasingly more defiant. I wouldn't be surprised to see the denouement to this classic Shakespearean tragedy end with footage of Putin's blood-spattered carcass sprawled across the marbled floor of one of the Kremlin's ornately appointed halls, the victim of a coup engineered by an alliance of disaffected oligarchs and the top army brass, the former's fortunes and the latter's pride having been drastically depleted by Putin's grand overreach. 

First Take on Mueller Report

So now at least Attorney General William Barr's summary of the Mueller Report is before us. It was far-fetched to think Trump himself actually was on Putin's email list sending instructions to Vladimir's Moscow troll farm. That's the bar Trump set and from which he declares total vindication. I never expected that to be discovered, and I'm sure you didn't either. Numerous other obstruction events took place, though perhaps in Mueller's view not necessarily rising to the level of prosecutable--though not necessarily not, either, according to Barr's summary. He is neither indicted nor exonerated on those, according to Barr's summary of Mueller's report. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of probity, but it's not immediately getting cuffed, either.

So Trump can declare victory, and of course, he has. Hopefully now the Democratic investigations in the House can proceed with a tinge less breathless publicity, which is just how we and Speaker Nancy Pelosi want it. If they find damning evidence of a character serious enough to impress 20 Republican senators (the number that would need to vote for conviction were Trump to be impeached by the House and tried in the Senate) then all well and good. If not then let the 2020 election proceed on the lines of the issues, and let us get out our base and the moderate suburbanites whom Trump disgusts and the educated folks who are appalled, and women, along with an effective enough appeal to working class whites to get a few of them back (health care, social security, medicare, education, job training, some cultural sensitivity) and win the election on its merits. Trump hasn't actually accomplished much of anything that doesn't primarily help the wealthy and corporations.

If Reagan was the "Teflon President" Trump is the "Houdini President" for his escapes from conduct and predicaments that would have sunk any other politician.

Might Trump Be a Russian Controlled Asset?

Some are starting to wonder whether President Donald Trump might possibly be a controlled asset of the Russian Federation. Is that a preposterous supposition? Well, think about it. What would a Russian agent as president do? Here are some of the things Russian President Putin would want his stooge to accomplish: Sow dissension in NATO, start a trade war with the EU and China but not Russia, give assurances that aggression against certain allies might not engender a US response, attempt to discredit the reputations of the agencies that defend America from Russian espionage such as the FBI and State Department, refuse to recognize or order countermeasures against Russian threats to our social cohesion and our election system, praise authoritarian rulers everywhere in general and Russia's dictator in particular while finding fault with every freely elected leader, however friendly to America, insinuating that China's "president for life" constitution would be a good idea for the U.S.Yes, those are the kinds of things a Russian spy would do if one were ever to become president of the United States. I don't know whether Mr. Trump is a compromised tool of the Russian government. What I do know is that he is definitely acting like one.

Manage

Trump Believes Putin, Not US Intelligence Community

President Donald Trump continues to make the most incredible statements. Yesterday during his trip to Asia he was asked whether he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Trump's response:
“Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin. Trump also called the American intelligence services that determined Russia had undertaken major efforts to influence the American 2016 presidential election "political hacks." (Source)

It is difficult to believe anyone is that naive or stupid. Vladimir Putin is a former KGB colonel who has said "Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century." (Source)
Putin has systematically dismantled democracy in Russia. Opposition papers and television stations have been shut down. Demonstrators who criticize Putin are arrested. Political rivals have been shot dead on the streets or died of radiation poisoning, and the perpetrators are never caught. He has launched invasions of Armenia and Crimea, has committed Russian forces to prop up the genocidal Assad regime in Syria and and his forces have surreptitiously intervened in Ukraine to support pro-Russian separatists who are fighting the legitimate government there. As Senator John McCain said today,

 "President Trump today stated that he believed Vladimir Putin is being sincere when he denies Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and reiterated that he hopes to cooperate with Russia in Syria," McCain, a strong critic of the President, said in a statement. "There's nothing 'America First' about taking the word of a KGB colonel over that of the American intelligence community. There's no 'principled realism' in cooperating with Russia to prop up the murderous Assad regime, which remains the greatest obstacle to a political solution that would bring an end to the bloodshed in Syria. Vladimir Putin does not have America's interests at heart. To believe otherwise is not only naive but also places our national security at risk."(Source)


If Trump actually believes the word of such a man he is an international babe in the woods whose credulousness is a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. If instead he knows better but is lying to the American people to protect his business ties to Putin's Russian oligarchs, collusion between his campaign and Russian agents, or simply because his ego cannot stand the thought that he may at least partly owe his election to the disinformation and meddling of a foreign power, then he is a corrupt figure deserving of impeachment.

Trump's Web of Lies

It's the smoking gun. A trusted British intermediary with Russian connections (Rob Goldstone helped arrange Donald Trump's Moscow Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013) contacted Donald Trump, Jr. during the 2016 campaign race. He offered to set up a meeting "with a Russian government attorney" who would provide material that would "incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." He was explicit that this offer was part of a Russian government effort to swing the election in Trump's favor. The candidate's son, son-in-law Jared Kushner, who happens to be the President's most trusted confidante, and campaign manager Paul Manafort were also invited to the meeting, which took place in June of 2016. It's collusion with an adversarial foreign power to further its ends against the United States. To me it fits the textbook definition of treason as spelled out in Article III Section 3 of the Constitution. In addition, American campaign law makes it illegal for a campaign to "accept anything of value from a foreign government." And Trump himself is defending it. As was asked about Richard Nixon, what did the president know and when did he know it? I believe this is impeachable.

The progression of the web of lies is most instructive. Trump and his spokespeople denied any association with Russians beginning in September during the campaign, when Democratic emails began appearing and suspicion was first thrown on Russia as the originator. After the election, so did Trump's staff and nominees, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions who was later found to have met privately with the Russian ambassador at least twice. Gen. Michael Flynn, the National Security Advisor, was found to have lied about his contacts with and promises to Russia in conversations he held between the election and Trump's inauguration. As more information began to come out, Trump took to calling each latest revelation "fake news" and whining that he was the subject of "the greatest witch hunt in political history." President Trump then had his Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General come up with derogatory performance evaluations of FBI Director James Comey to provide cover for his firing of the Director, to let him maintain the firing was not about Comey's investigation into Russian meddling in the election. Trump's public relations corps, including Press Secretary Sean Spicer, spread this story to every media outlet. In a subsequent interview with NBC's Lester Holt, Trump then stunningly exposed his own lie by asserting that he didn't need the evaluations, that he had already made up his mind and that the real reason for the dismissal was Comey's pursuit of the truth in the Russia investigation.

For his part, Trump Jr. knew about his meeting with the Russian agent lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya and let his father speak in error for 13 months without saying a word. That is lying by omission. Beyond that, it stretches credibility to think that a meeting including Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort would not have been known to candidate Trump, particularly since on the campaign trail he publicly called for Russia to hack Clinton's emails and release them. One can easily imagine Trump Junior eagerly telling his father about the oppo-research coup he was about to engineer thanks to the intelligence services of Mother Russia. We do not know yet for certain whether Trump Sr. knew, though between the press's continued digging and the investigation currently underway by former FBI Director Robert Mueller the truth seems to keep finding its way out. In fact, it was the New York Times's call to Trump Jr. that it had the incriminating emails and asking if he wanted to make a public statement they could include in the article they were working on that prompted him to pre-empt the Times by releasing the emails first himself. The President of course released statements praising his son for transparency, ignoring the fact he had lied about the events in question and come clean only after confronted by the Times. 

Even then the lies continued. The action was held to be "OK because everybody did it." Republican Senator Lindsay Graham was one of the first to fight back against that, pointing to the law and the adversarial nature of the Russian regime and saying, "When a foreign government wants to help your campaign the answer is always 'no.'" Trump Jr.'s "transparency" was quickly discredited when, after alleging that Veselnitskaya was the only Russian in the meeting, it has now come out that a Russian lobbyist and former Russian military man was also there, but ostensibly only to serve as interpreter, if that is to be believed. Trump Jr. also states that nothing of importance was discussed at the meeting, that Veselnitskaya made little sense and wanted only to discuss American adoption of Russian orphans. Anyone who believes that would probably be interested in some Florida swampland Mr. Trump might want to sell them. Having been caught in all the lies described above in today's blog, I leave it to the reader to evaluate to what extent the Messers Trump can be trusted on this contention. At any rate, as one after another of their lies are exposed, all trends point to the conclusion that the Trump campaign colluded with an authoritarian pariah regime currently under NATO sanction for aggression and human rights violations and working against American interests at every opportunity (witness their recent U.N. veto against increased sanctions on North Korea for its latest illegal missile tests). And what is especially remarkable is that for all their vast experience with lying, the Trumps don't seem to be very good at it. The truth is either dug out by the press, ratted out by people within the administration, or blurted out by the astonishingly undisciplined president himself. One thing that becomes increasingly difficult to believe is that this dumpster fire of a presidency will survive to complete its first term in office.

Must Have a Special Prosecutor Now

Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey today has the smell of a man afraid that the investigation into Russian influence in his campaign is getting too close for comfort. Trump's next move will be to appoint a lap dog to head the FBI with marching orders to bury the Russia investigation once and for all. In his firing statement Trump referenced a recommendation by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had to recuse himself from the Russia investigation when it became public he lied under oath at his confirmation hearing about his repeated meetings with the Russian ambassador.

This is highly reminiscent of Richard Nixon firing Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973. That was the last time a president axed a prosecutor who was investigating himself. Nixon's action set off a firestorm that only ended with his resignation in disgrace the following year. Americans concerned about Trump's increasingly clear turn toward authoritarianism must focus on demanding that congress appoint a non-political Special Prosecutor so that the real facts can finally be determined.

Call for Demonstration Against Nunes

Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of the 22nd Congressional District that wends its way from Tulare through Visalia up to Clovis, has long been a local embarrassment. He is now also a national laughingstock. As Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee he is in charge of the crucially important investigation to determine the extent of Russian interference in last November's election and whether any Americans were complicit. If they were it would amount to treason against the United States. The Director of the FBI has confirmed that his bureau is also conducting its own investigation into this very subject. A number of people involved with the Trump presidential campaign are subjects of this investigation.

Rather than fulfilling this important role impartially in the interest of American national security, from the outset Nunes has engaged in a public campaign to minimize the importance of the issue and to deflect blame from President Trump and any of his associates. Once some evidence did begin to become available, Nunes went to the White House to receive it and briefed Trump, without even sharing the information with the members of his own committee. Imagine what type of "independent" congressional "investigation" Nunes has in mind when he informs the target of the investigation what is going on before he even allows the Democrats and Republicans on his committee to see and vet the intelligence themselves. The obvious partisanship was unfortunately predictable given that Nunes was a leading figure of the Trump transition team. Newspapers across the political spectrum from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post have all called on Nunes to step down, which he has up to now refused to do. His own constituents have little say; he hasn't had a town hall, debate or other open public appearance in his district in years.

The congressman will be back in the area to talk to his favorite kind of people, big money supporters, tomorrow. If you can make it to Fresno, I encourage you to go and help encourage some accountability from Rep. Nunes. I've pasted the appeal below from the Visalia Democratic Club. If you participate, remember to keep it peaceful!

Event: Rally Against Nunes

Date: Friday, March 31st
Time: Noon to 2 PM, Sign-ups start at 10:30 AM
Place: Tornino's Banquet Hall in Fresno
          5080 N. Blackstone Ave. (Just north of Shaw and Blackstone)

Representative Devin Nunes will be giving a speech at the Ag Lenders Society of California. Our group will be rallying outside Tornino's, where he will be speaking. Since he is getting so much national coverage, various organizations have contacted the Rachel Maddow show to drum up attention to help get support for the UnseatNunes Crowdpac. Therefore, this rally needs to be BIG!!!! It's also critical that the rally be nonviolent and does not interfere with the Lenders' meeting that will be going on inside Tornino's. The goal is to send a message to the country, with lots of signs and attendance that we are not happy with Nunes.

We need your help to spread the word so we can get lots of people at this rally!

Sherry Timmons (559)334-7531

Liar in Chief Exposed in Congressional Hearing

The House Intelligence Committee met today to investigate President Trump's recent charges that President Obama ordered phone taps of Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers were clear with the results of their investigations: Trump's tweets containing these allegations are complete fabrications without a shred of evidence behind them. In other words, the President of the United States is a brazen, bald-faced liar.

"I have no information that supports those tweets," Comey told the committee, adding that the Justice Department, along with the FBI, had no information to support the allegations. Comey said that no president could order a wiretapping operation against a specific American citizen.

Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump would not apologize to Obama for the accusations against him, adding that there were questions still remaining about surveillance that may or may not have taken place during the campaign.

A Fox News report had also intimated that British intelligence might have done the job for Obama, a charge that Trump and his Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, have repeated. CNN reports: Rogers said under questioning from the top Democrat on the committee that there was no information that the Obama administration requested the British surveillance agency GCHQ to conduct eavesdropping on Trump, as stated in a Fox News report that has been cited by the White House. He also said that he had not personally done so."No, sir, and nor would I, that would be expressly against the construct of the Five Eyes agreement that has been in place for decades."

Comey and Rogers were also questioned about Russian involvement in trying to sway the 2016 election to Trump. The FBI investigation is still proceeding on this, and based on the research so far Comey directly corroborated these suspicions. "They wanted to hurt our democracy, hurt her, help him. I think all three we were confident in at least as early as December," Comey said.

Oil Prices Plunge at the Intersection of Economics and Politics

There has been a rather amazing decline in the price of oil lately.  Crude was as high as $115 a barrel in June, but is now going for $80.  That's an amazing 30% drop in four months.  This has resulted in big drops in the price of gas at the pump.  The nationwide average was as high as $4.11 a gallon in 2008, stood at $3.94 in April of 2012, was at $3.69 this year in June, and now is down to $3.12.  Source US Energy Information Service.   That reduction amounts to 57 cents a gallon in four months, a 15 percent savings so far, with likely more to come as the full drop in the price of crude works its way through the chain.

The first thing to comment on is that this is having a positive economic effect.  Despite price wars over fares, for instance, airlines turned in strong profits in the past six months.  The nine largest U.S. carriers saw their net earnings increase to $3.8 billion compared to $1.6 billion over the same period last year.  The main reason?  Lower fuel costs.  It could spur increased consumer spending too, perhaps for Christmas.  Research shows that every one cent drop in the price of gasoline puts $1 billion into the pockets of the American people.

There are some domestic factors driving the price drop.  Part of it is increased efficiency in gas mileage in the U.S. auto fleet, and the beginnings of a real expansion in renewables, both jump-started by Obama administration policies initiated in 2009.  America uses 1.8 million barrels a day less than it did in 2007.  American production is up too, growing from 5.00 million barrels a day in 2008 to 7.44 million a day at present.  Combine these factors together and the U.S. is importing 4 million fewer barrels of foreign oil a day than it did seven years ago.  That's a foreign exchange improvement of about $12 billion a month, or $144 billion a year--a significant chunk of change, about .8% of GDP, to add to the U.S. economy. 

Just as intriguing are the global forces at work.  In the past, when a global oil glut threatened to erode prices, Saudi Arabia would cut back on its production, making oil scarce and thereby bolstering the price.  This time, however, the Saudis have maintained production and discounted prices to their Asian customers in order to retain market share.  It's very likely there's a geopolitical motive operating here, perhaps even in coordination with the United States.  Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia is in a real contest for dominance in the Middle East with Shi'ite Muslim Iran.  The major flash point is the Syrian Civil War, in which autocratic President Bashar Assad is being supported by Iran and Russia.  Iran is under international sanctions due to its nuclear program, as Russia is for its recent imperialistic moves in Ukraine.  The Saudis and other Sunni oil states have been supporting the opposition.  But another way to cripple Iran's and Russia's efforts would be to strike a heavy blow against the price of oil.  Russia gets 50% of its budget revenue from oil exports, and Iran gets 60% of its from the same source.

The seriousness of Russia's problem is underscored in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, which reports, "Russian inflation is at a three year-high, the ruble is trading at new lows, and capital outflows are expected to exceed $100 billion this year. The ruble is under downward pressure both from higher demand for dollars, as companies find it hard to borrow abroad, and from lower oil prices. It has already weakened by more than 20% since the start of the year."  Finance Minister Anton Siluanov publicly warned the Russian Duma (Parliament) that the budget may become untenable.  Expect to see more on this soon.  The economic squeeze on Iran and Russia is not coincidental, and may result in some interesting diplomatic musical chairs in the next few months.  Stay tuned.            

Ukrainian Situation: What Next?

The situation in Ukraine has preoccupied the world's attention for the past several weeks,  First there was the popular uprising against President Yanukovich for his decision to spurn the European Union in favor of closer ties to Russia.  When his police forces turned on the people with deadly force he lost all credibility and support.  He fled the country and surfaced later in--where else--Russia.

Next the Ukrainian Parliament declared him to have abandoned his post and selected a successor.  This was quickly followed by the intervention of thinly-disguised Russian troops into the southern province of Crimea, where Russia still maintains a major naval base, leased from Ukraine.  The Crimean regional parliament was "dismissed" by Russian troops and replaced by pro-Moscow politicians who have now called for elections in 10 days to allow the people to decide whether Crimea should remain part of Ukraine or become part of Russia.

The US and EU have responded with calls for support for Ukraine.  Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted to support President Obama's offer of $1 billion in aid for Ukraine's government.  He said that economic sanctions on Russia will not be far behind.  The EU is considering aid and economic sanctions on Russia as well.  For their part, Russia has countered by withdrawing offers to support Ukraine with $15 billion in aid and provide them hefty discounts on natural gas.  What's next?

Well, in truth, Crimea should probably have been part of Russia all along.  The people who live there are not Ukrainian.  It's about 60% ethnic Russian and was added to Ukraine by Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev in 1954 simply as part of an administrative reorganization.  That doesn't make Russia's thuggish tactics, clearly orchestrated under the direction of its President, Vladimir Putin, right.  But with a majority Russian population and as the home base of the Russian Black Sea fleet it is clearly considered a vital interest to the Kremlin.  And the majority of its people probably actually do want to be part of Russia.  

Putin and Obama had a 90-minute phone conversation last week reportedly had another 60-minute talk today.  That augurs well for a diplomatic solution.  The West can do a great deal of harm to the Russian economy if push comes to shove.  There will not be a Russian-American war over this.  Look for some form of arrangement whereby the Ukrainian Parliament agrees to allow the sovereignty election, which would make it legal.  In exchange, Russia will agree to lay off the Eastern part of Ukraine, such as the city of Kharkiv, where Russians are also numerous, and let Ukraine cozy up to the EU.