The
DC Pro-war establishment really doesn't have their ducks in a row here... unlike Iraq, where anyone who spoke out quickly got threatened and clubbed into line (or submission), I'm starting to see conflicting opinions trickle out.
THe former ambassador to the Soviet Union
just wrote an op-ed laying the blame firmly on us:
Was this crisis predictable?
Absolutely. NATO expansion was the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. In 1997, when the question of adding more NATO members arose, I was asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In my introductory remarks, I made the following statement:
?I consider the administration?s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.? ...
The decision to expand NATO piecemeal was a reversal of American policies that produced the end of the Cold War. President George H.W. Bush had proclaimed a goal of a ?Europe whole and free.? Gorbachev had spoken of ?our common European home,? had welcomed representatives of East European governments who threw off their communist rulers and had ordered radical reductions in Soviet military forces by explaining that for one country to be secure, there must be security for all.
President Bush also assured Gorbachev during their meeting in Malta in December, 1989, that if the countries of Eastern Europe were allowed to choose their future orientation by democratic processes, the United States would not ?take advantage? of that process. (Obviously, bringing countries into NATO that were then in the Warsaw Pact would be ?taking advantage.?) The following year, Gorbachev was assured, though not in a formal treaty, that if a unified Germany was allowed to remain in NATO, there would be no movement of NATO jurisdiction to the east, ?not one inch.?
This part too:
Despite the prevalent belief held by both the DC foreign policy establishment and most of the Russian public, the United States did not support, much less cause the break-up of the Soviet Union. We supported the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and one of the last acts of the Soviet parliament was to legalize their claim to independence.
Maybe we can put that bullshit claim to rest finally?
