“…if in Washington people throwing Molotov cocktails are marching on Congress—and these people are headed for the Ukrainian Congress—if these people have barricaded the entrance to the White House and are throwing rocks at the White House security guard, would President Obama withdraw his security forces?”
— New York University Professor Emeritus Stephen Cohen
US, Russia war looms large over Ukraine
7 March, 2014 – PressTV
The prospect of armed conflict between the United States and Russia has once again become a worrisome possibility, reminiscent of the tense times during the Cold War. But instead of Soviet missiles in Cuba provoking the impassioned rhetoric from the US president, this time it is Moscow’s alleged meddling in the internal affairs of Ukraine that has brought Washington’s assurances of political support from the international community and offers of IMF loans to stabilize Ukraine’s economy.
“There is the ability for Ukraine to be a friend of the West’s and a friend of Russia’s as long as none of us are inside of Ukraine trying to meddle and intervene, certainly not militarily, with decisions that properly belong to the Ukrainian people,” declared US President Obama on March 4, 2014.
Incredibly, at the very moment Obama made this declaration, his secretary of state John Kerry was in fact meddling inside Ukraine in Kyiv talking to the leaders of the “new” Ukrainian government. While conceding that Russia had “legitimate interests” in what happens in Ukraine and neighboring Crimea, Obama nevertheless insisted “that does not give it the right to use force as a means of exerting influence inside of that state.”
Strange how similar concerns voiced by autocratic ally Saudi Arabia seem to have been accepted by Washington as justification to invade neighboring Bahrain, where the US just happens to maintain headquarters for its 5th naval fleet. The Russians, with their Black Sea Fleet stationed in Sevastopol, have had national interests in Crimea dating back to 1783, not long after the US war of independence from Britain, so it should be no surprise that Moscow would respond to any potential threat to its naval installation there.
“As to the Russian military who are in the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained, “They always strictly follow the agreements on the basis of which the Russian fleet is present on this territory and the positions and requests made by the legitimate administration of Ukraine, and in this case also the legitimate administration of the Republic of Crimea.” …more