RUSSIA EXPERT STEPHEN COHEN BLASTS OBAMA FOR TAKING THE U.S. TO 'THE VERGE OF WAR WITH RUSSIA'
The Unhived Mind
Russia Expert Stephen Cohen Blasts Obama for Taking the U.S. to “the verge of war with Russia”
June 16, 2014 • 3:26PM
http://larouchepac.com/node/31065
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and at Princeton University, and formerly an advisor to President George H.W. Bush, was interviewed by Russia Today, where he skewered President Obama for bringing the U.S. to the edge of war with Russia.
Reflecting the views of a growing, “realist” faction among American policy-makers, Cohen said that in Ukraine the U.S. is backing a regime which has launched an “unwise, reckless, murderous, inhuman campaign that Kiev is conducting against what are admittedly rebel provinces. Lincoln never called the Confederacy terrorists. He always said, no matter how bad the civil war was, fellow citizens he wanted to come back to the union. Why is Kiev calling its own citizens terrorists?”
Cohen reserved special venom for Obama’s insane Russia policy—although he failed to note the British origins of that policy. “I am convinced that the most essential partner for the American national security in all of these areas from Iran to Syria, Afghanistan and beyond is the Kremlin, currently occupied by Putin. And the way the United States has treated Putin — I would call it a betrayal of American national interest… Obama had within his grasp at last — because it was a failed foreign policy presidency for Obama — two achievements that would have been in American national interest. And they have slipped away almost in proportion to the degree that Obama pushed Putin away. Pushed Putin away so far that, over Ukraine, we [the US] could be on the verge of war with Russia.”
Cohen continued: “This is the playing out of American policy of expanding NATO to Russia’s borders — for whatever reasons. It began with Clinton, was continued under the second George Bush, has been pushed by Obama. And that is the rooster that has come home to roost.”
Cohen told the following anecdote: “I had lunch with two men much older than me, who had served many presidents and who’ve known them personally. And they were agreed that this president more than anyone in their lifetime isolated himself on foreign policy. I have heard – whether it’s true or not I don’t know – that President Obama has declined to meet privately with Henry Kissinger, who sees Putin twice a year. Kissinger probably knows Putin better than any American statesmen alive today and who has been consulted by so many presidents. Think what we might about Kissinger’s past, but he has already declared his criticism of American policy towards Russia. And Obama wouldn’t want to spend an hour with him, asking ‘Are we doing something wrong? Are we misperceiving the situation?”’