NATO: You Can Stop the Bum Rush
No sooner do I dash off my sternly-worded warning to the President (not to be an ass and insist on NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia) then Bush wakes up, gets out of bed, and:
The president, in a speech he plans to give Wednesday at a NATO summit, will say that beginning that process by giving Ukraine and Georgia a membership action plan would encourage both to stay on the path of democracy. Also, it would let them know they will be welcomed into the institutions of Europe.
Bush is saying, “It would send a signal throughout the region that these two nations are, and will remain, sovereign and independent states.”
This is the final fatal mistake in an administration that seems to delight in needless blunders. I am so irate about this that all I can say is:
Russians, Europeans, Americans, in the words of fomer President Clinton, chill out. This man is almost out of office. This course of action can be reversed. The EU, not NATO, is the organization best suited to spreading democracy. The EU, not NATO, has an interest in and a responsibility to extend a unified Europe out to its natural borders. The natural borders of Europe and the natural borders of a US-led military alliance are NOT identical, nor will they ever be. The best way to promote the freedom of the Ukrainian and Georgian people is not by tying them to a military alliance which will not go to war with the only power (besides the US) with a vested interest in ending their sovereignty. Putting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO is an exercise in silliness made deadly serious by the profundity of its imprudence. And if the President of the United States does not know this, others do. And very soon they will have their turn at the wheel.
