{"id":17119,"date":"2014-05-11T21:56:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T01:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=17119"},"modified":"2014-05-11T21:56:39","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T01:56:39","slug":"who-makes-us-foreign-policy-lawrence-wilkerson-on-reality-asserts-itself-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2014\/05\/11\/who-makes-us-foreign-policy-lawrence-wilkerson-on-reality-asserts-itself-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Makes US Foreign Policy? – Lawrence Wilkerson On Reality Asserts Itself (1\/3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Real News Network<\/em> has published two of the three segments so far. The first segment is Who Makes US Foreign Policy? – Lawrence Wilkerson On Reality Asserts Itself (1\/3)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WILKERSON: Well, here’s the real–this sometimes drives me, you know, to drink. When Jim Baker and George H. W. Bush really accomplished what I think was one of the real diplomatic feats of the end of the 20th century, the reunification of Germany, whether we agree with that or not, they did it, and they did it without a shot being fired. It was wonderful to watch H. W. Bush do that and Jim Baker. But one of the reasons they could do it was because they assured Gorbachev, and later Yeltsin, that NATO would be quiescent, it wouldn’t move, it wouldn’t threaten Russia. In fact, I was there when we told the Russians that we were going to make them a member, we were–observer first and then a member and so forth. Well, that fell apart on the fact that they perceive right quickly that we weren’t really serious. And then we start, under pressure from Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and others, to sell weapons to Poland and weapons to Georgia and weapons to Romania and everybody else we could bring into the fold. Under those pressures and others we started to expand NATO and stuck both our fingers in the Russian eye, so to speak, immediately.<\/p>\n

It’s clear to me why Putin responded in Georgia and why he’s now responding to Crimea in Ukraine. This is what great powers do when they get concerned about their so-called near abroad. So we have as much fault here as anybody else in this situation, and I don’t think President Obama–I think he bought it when he came in. He did not realize–why should he? He didn’t have the experience in this regard. He didn’t realize what we we’re doing and what might come about from what we were doing, and he just went along with it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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