Obama’s ‘mission accomplished’ moment

“We’re upholding the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small,” the president said last Tuesday, “by opposing Russian aggression, and supporting Ukraine’s democracy, and reassuring our NATO allies.” Thanks to American and European sanctions, “Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters,” The Wall Street Journal reported. But on Friday, The New York Times headline read that “War is Exploding Anew in Ukraine,” which had “put to rest the notion that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, would be so staggered by the twin blows of Western sanctions and a collapse in oil prices that he would forsake the separatists in order to foster better relations with the West.”

{mosads}Then it was off to India to begin the world again. I’m all for better relations with the East, but the much-touted “pivot to Asia” of our erstwhile bodhisattvas in Washington and the Pentagon suggests that imaginary friend who tells us “if you build it, they will come.” That is, if we stage a war involving Korea, Japan, India, Australia and others in the Pacific, those generals and policy people who could think of little other than war with Russia these many decades will suddenly forget. We can forge history by starting a war in Asia, and make another go away in Russia.

Democrats seem to favor big war in Asia. Conservatives definitely favor big war in Russia. Both inexplicably favor big war.

We have been modelling war with Asia probably as long as Mike Mansfield’s phrase “the Pacific Century” came into being and the economic rise of China, still unpredictable, appeared on the horizon. Four-star generals spoke openly about it at least 10 years ago. Japan today eggs them on, but we see no war actually starting unless we start one.

But we do see an actual ominousness rising in Europe. Why did the Swiss suddenly pull out of the Western world last week?

“On Thursday the Swiss suddenly gave up,” said Paul Krugman in The New York Times. “We don’t know exactly why; nobody I know believes the official explanation, that it’s a response to a weakening euro.”

It came from nowhere, bringing a disturbance to the force. But nothing comes from nowhere.

My guess is that the massive rallies and marches against the terror attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices have for France turned the tide on the EU. Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front has since been profiled in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and many other places, including this column. The thinking is that she and her anti-euro force and anti-EU friends could come to power now, possibly in 2017, and pull France out of the EU altogether. Similar tensions rise in England, Greece and credible cases have been made that the “European dream is dying.”

And there is more to it than that. If Le Pen pulls France out of Europe, she will not go gentle into that good night. She will turn to a much older friend and ally, Russia, and has plainly made that suggestion.

A Franco-Russian alliance would reformulate Europe to something similar to that which existed before 1917. Certain Reagan-era conservatives and the God, Guns and Sarah Palin faction, who still ruminate on big war with Russia, could suddenly be facing our oldest ally, France, as well as Russia. Say goodbye to that lofty ambiguity which we call “the West.”

And pivoting to Asia will not make it go away.

Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.