During the United States' recent presidential campaign, one charge levelled
against the Republican nominee Donald Trump was that he may be a sort of
''Manchurian candidate'' for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, pulling the
strings from the Kremlin. The Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton even dropped
hints that Moscow may mobilize its army of hackers to alter the election
results in Trumps' favor.
This comical version of the sinister McCarthyism of the 1950s was largely
based on a brief boast by Trump that, being a master in the art of
negotiation, he would ''get along fine with Vladimir Putin.''
We don't know how Trump might ''get along'' with Putin and on what terms. What
we know is that he has not yet offered the family silver to the master of
Kremlin. What we know is that part of Putin's recent rogue behavior may well
be due to President Barack Obama's appeasement-plus approach to the United
States' rivals, adversaries and enemies.
Obama's appeasement-plus approach encouraged the mullahs of Tehran to
intensify their quest for hegemony in the Middle East by encouraging the
revolt in Yemen, supporting a sanguinary despot in Syria, creating a parallel
army in Iraq and imposing a protégé of Hezbollah as President of Lebanon.
The same approach persuaded China that Obama's tenure provided a window of
opportunity for Beijing to flex its muscles in the South China Sea and
adjacent regions in preparation for the coming Great Game in the Pacific.
North Korea was also encouraged by Obama's appeasement-plus policy. As US
direct and indirect aid to the starving Communist nation almost doubled,
Pyongyang speeded up the building of its nuclear arsenal, convinced that Obama
would do no more than a little bit of huffing and puffing.
But it was precisely Putin who exploited Obama's appeasement-plus policy with
greater determination. When Obama entered the White House, Russia was
beginning to contemplate the cost of its invasion of Georgia in August 2008.
Though focused on the American presidential election campaign, the lame-duck
Bush administration had managed to mobilize international support against the
invasion, forcing Moscow to accept a process of consultations to restore
Georgia's territorial integrity at least in form.
One of Obama's first moves was to shut down that process as a show of goodwill
to Moscow. A further sign that Obama intended to relieve pressure on Russia
came soon afterwards with the notorious ''re-set'' gadget that symbolized the
new administration's resolve to ''de-Bushify'' American policy towards Russia.
As if those two concessions were not enough, Obama soon offered Moscow a third
gift by scrapping a US plan to install defensive missile sites in the Czech
Republic and Poland, something the Russians had vehemently opposed during the
Bush era with no success.
In her memoirs, Hilary Clinton's then Obama's Secretary of State, recalls how
the president insisted that the US show ''goodwill'' to Russia by granting
concrete concessions. Clinton claims she was opposed to ''giving something for
nothing'' but was overruled by Obama.
So, the next present to Moscow was a freezing of plans to enlarge the North
Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO) plans for enlargement. Talks with some of
Russia's ''near neighbors'', notably Ukraine, Georgia and Uzbekistan were
abruptly terminated without Moscow offering anything in return. Obama also
scrapped another NATO plan for forging ties between NATO and six Arab states
in North Africa and the Middle East in view to their associate membership in
the future.
At the same time, the US closed down its logistics bases in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan, two former Soviet republics, and threw its local political allies
overboard, enabling pro-Moscow elements to strengthen their positions in
Tashkent and Bishkek. The US also terminated the military mission it had in
Armenia and Azerbaijan, two other former Soviet republics, in the context of
preventing a revival of armed conflict in the disputed enclave of High-Gharabagh
(Nogorno Karabakh). Russia lost no time in forcing its own military presence
on Yerevan in the shape of a 20,000-man garrison assigned the task of keeping
the peace in Transcaucasia.
When Washington's European allies protested that Obama's appeasement-plus
policy was encouraging Russia's aggressiveness, Obama did all he could to
prevent the imposition of meaningful sanctions on Moscow. As if all those
gifts were not enough, towards the end of his first mandate Obama was
overheard telling Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's understudy as President, that ,
freed from problems of re-election, a second Obama administration would offer
more goodies to Russia.
With a string of political and military provocations and concrete moves, Putin
tested possible American reactions to his step-by-step plan against Ukraine
for more than a year before concluding that the way was open for his big
land-grab in the share of invading and annexing the Crimean Peninsula and
carving a Russian-controlled enclave in Donbass.
Obama's appeasement-plus policy reached a new low of cynicism when Washington
granted Moscow an equal status in monitoring the so-called nuclear deal with
the Islamic Republic in Iran. Then it went even lower when John Kerry, Obama's
Secretary of State after Clinton, spoke of the role that ''our Russian
partners'' were supposed to play in persuading Syrian despot Bashar Al-Assad
not to kill his own people with chemical weapons. As the Moscow daily
Kommersant wrote at the time, Washington was acknowledging Russia's status as
the principal foreign power in Syria.
Putin lost no time to interpret that as carte blanche for Russian military
intervention including the systematic killing of Syrian civilians in air
attacks on half a dozen cities, notably Aleppo. Obama's appeasement-plus
caused occasional concern among some of his aides, including successive
Defense Secretaries Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel who argued that
American policy might increase Putin's appetite for further adventures.
Obama's Defense Intelligence Agency chief General Michael Flynn even resigned
in protest to the president's appeasement-plus policy. Seen from the point of
view of US national interests and America's leadership role on the global
scene, Obama has already sold the family silver. It is hard to imagine what
else a President Trump could find in the family heirloom to offer as gift to
Vladimir Putin.
Amir Taheri was born in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, and educated in Tehran,
London and Paris. He was Executive Editor-in-Chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran
(1972-79). In 1980-84, he was Middle East Editor for the Sunday Times. In
1984-92, he served as member of the Executive Board of the International Press
Institute (IPI). Between 1980 and 2004, he was a contributor to the
International Herald Tribune. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the
New York Post, the New York Times, the London Times, the French magazine
Politique Internationale, and the German weekly Focus. Between 1989 and 2005,
he was editorial writer for the German daily Die Welt. Taheri has published 11
books, some of which have been translated into 20 languages. He has been a
columnist for Asharq Alawsat since 1987. Taheri's latest book "The Persian
Night" is published by Encounter Books in London and New York.
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