Ukraine situation tests American resolve
*First appeared in the April 30 edition of the Laurel Chronicle
Over the weekend, I watched a documentary about Eva Mozes Kor, an Auschwitz death camp survivor on a one-woman mission to unconditionally forgive her Nazi captors and, in particular, the psychotic geneticist Dr. Josef Mengele who experimented on her and her twin sister.
Unbeknownst to me, this past Sunday also marked the annual Israeli memorial for the 6 million Jews killed in Nazi death camps during World War II. This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day came on the heels of an eerie hoax, which consisted of leaflets being passed out in eastern Ukraine saying Jews must register with pro-Russian separatists, pay a fee, and declare property holdings.
While the leaflets have now been declared fakes, you can imagine my shock upon reading headlines about anti-Semitic pamphlets being distributed in eastern Ukraine. It caught my attention then and keeps my attention now.
Hoax or not, the leaflets evoked strong responses from leaders across the world. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the papers, saying they were “not just intolerable” but “grotesque.” Another spokesman for the White House called these reports “chilling, outrageous, and must be universally condemned.” I agree. These actions must be condemned, the perpetrators must be found out, and they must be dealt with properly. There should be no leniency when it comes to the distribution of such pamphlets in a part of the world where tensions are already at a boiling point.
Beyond the anti-Semitic hoax, the showdown between Russia and Ukraine continues to play out on the world stage in a production that appears to cast Russian President Vladimir Putin as leading man. President Obama’s role as co-lead hasn’t yet materialized, and all signs point to a man intent on playing a supporting role.
Monday, the President and European officials announced sanctions on Russian government officials and businesses in an effort to put economic pressure on Putin so he’ll cease military activities in Ukraine. According to the Wall Street Journal, their actions were “expected more than a week ago” and “fell significantly short of the expansive sanctions of Kiev’s government and many members of Congress have been demanding.” The Moscow stock market actually jumped on Monday as investors “found the latest sanctions to be less severe than anticipated.”
The so-called sanctions didn’t target broad sectors of Russia’s economy, such as energy, banking, or military. Apparently too many members of the European Union have economies more closely linked to Russia’s than the U.S. Others feared that such drastic measures would erode efforts at achieving peace through diplomatic solutions. Because of these concerns, the U.S. didn’t take more severe actions, White House officials told multiple newspapers this week.
More than a few public voices have openly questioned whether the United States President is taking concrete actions to control the situation in Ukraine, and why the U.S. – not the E.U. – isn’t guiding strategy decisions.
In an editorial, Newt Gingrich reminded Americans this year is “the centennial of the First World War. One-hundred years ago this month, in April 1914, no one thought there would be a war. But war began, triggered by events in Easter Europe…It came as an enormous shock, in retrospect almost like the Titanic hitting an iceberg.”
Of Obama’s actions, Gingrich (he wrote the column prior to this week’s announcement) opined the Obama administration is doing too little in this very difficult situation, which presents an enormous danger. “The world will become less safe as we show weakness to our allies,” and America’s weakness is being driven by clumsy, wandering decisions on how to deal with a dispute that, in Gingrich’s words, could “land us in a war no one intends.”
“We need a national debate on what our policy is going to be,” Gingrich urges the President, and then we need to engage our European allies on what our policy is going to be.
No doubt President Obama has had similar thoughts. But he cannot operate in the vacuum of public policy; he must also take into consideration public opinion. Even Gingrich admits the American people are tired of wars. To borrow a quote from Neville Chamberlain: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.”
Without question, President Obama is in a difficult position. At best, he’s simply caught in the middle of escalating tensions between a power-hungry Putin and an American alliance that cannot defend itself against without our help. At worst, Obama’s reluctance to take stronger actions has emboldened Putin as he seeks to “reconstitute the Soviet empire.” Anti-Semitic hoaxes that remind the world of the monstrosities of an out-of-control German leader add fuel to the already blazing fire.
The President doesn’t have an easy path before him. But he must take the right steps to prevent further escalations. Mistakes at this juncture won’t easily be made right.