International Relations Today

                After fervent consultations, it was good news when our honorable President Trump made only minor changes to the new Cuba policy we in the Obama administration worked on, largely leaving intact the new commerce and liberalized relations.  In the same vein, it was affirming for The White House to officially re-certify Iran as compliant regarding the nuclear treaty...  a peace process which if it continues to succeed can be a model by which we can re-direct nation states who are developing nuclear weapons- preventing future North Koreas.  

           Credit should be given not only to former President Obama, but also to Pope Francis for taking on the controversy and traveling to Iran to seek peace and nuclear non-proliferation.

               Russia is a much more difficult quagmire- a strong and determined nuclear power with which we have traditionally have an ambivalent relationship, currently being portrayed as a bogey-man by politicos and media-types who have not given these matters the grave and open-minded consideration they require- who have not thought enough of our history and just how much struggle our past leaders have had to go through to keep us out of a nuclear war with Russia-  a horrific possibility that returned during the Obama administration, and despite the improvement of relations between our national leadership teams- still looms over our fair and precious nation, due to the recklesness of T.V. networks and other agencies that just seem incapable of seeing these controversial matters from the perspective of both nations- to consider that Russia's unacceptable interference in our democratic elections may have been a response to wrongs our nation inflicted upon Russia(from their perspective.)  

            As Jimmy Carter and others have publicly affirmed, the official press line about the Crimea and the punitive actions taken against Russia because of re-joining with Crimea, doesn't make much sense.  Crimea is historically part of Russia, the heartland of her literature and liberal arts in fact, and the Crimeans mostly wanted to be part of Russia.  This doesn't give Russia license for further expansion, but it is the truth.

             America has truly awesome power overseas, and too many in state and media power do not realize that A.) Our power yet has limits, and B.) It is rational and imperative that we arbitrate international differences to the ends of justice and security, and not just to our temporary advantage.

              We should not be subjecting the negotiations of our President and the Kremlin, of two nuclear powers only emerging from the iciest and diciest of relations, to this simplistic tabloid coverage...  in which our President having a conversation with Putin at an international luncheon is treated like a married man having a tryst with a courtesan.  These are serious matters of state: of war and peace!...  The White House must be able to communicate with their foreign counterparts.

               The real issue here is not Russian influence in America: it is keeping us out of a tragically misguided war.  The Syrian conflict, with all its horror and complexity, has had the aspect of a proxy war between we two nuclear powers.  In the enmity that existed between the Obama administration and the Kremlin, in the nuclear games of chicken that were played with jets and aircraft carriers, it was all too possible that this proxy war could have given way to something much more hellish, and that possibility is only prevented now by a White House and a cadre of statesmen who put our national interests above the fickle fashions of press and politics.  We must let them work through these difficulties in honor and dignity.