President Reagan’s famous dictum, which he often quoted to
Mikhail Gorbachev in Russian, was Trust But Verify. (In Russian, it
rhymes: Doverai, no proverai.) President Obama has
recognized that Reagan was a “transformational” president. He says
he gave the old man credit, though he never gave him his vote.
Now, Barack Obama is determined also to be a
transformational president. And he is succeeding in this. More’s
the pity. His Russian policy is one of “Trust, Don’t
Verify.”
First, he cancelled missile defense for our new allies —
Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic. This was done with the hope
and expectation that it would make the Russians more cooperative on
Iran.
Russia has responded by pulling the teeth of any sanctions
resolution at the UN that threatened to really bite the Iranian
mullahs. The Washington Post tells us — in a
front-page story, no less — the absorbing
tale of Vyacheslav Danilenko, Russian nuclear scientist, who is
said to be aiding Iran in development of a nuclear
weapon.
The UN’s own International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA said
that Danilenko is at the heart of “Iran’s efforts to gain expertise
in disciplines essential to building a nuclear
warhead”).
So much for trusting the Russians. In The Hunt for Red
October, the gruff U.S. admiral played by the redoubtable Fred
Thompson says: “The Russians don’t take a c—p without order from
Moscow.” Fred got that part right. To think that Danilenko could
travel to and from Tehran on “business” without the Kremlin knowing
and approving is ludicrous.
But we trust the Russians, don’t we? Before President
Obama’s famous “hamburger summit” with puppet president Medvedev,
the FBI collared ten Russian spies. Surely, we would never subject
these Kremlin agents to enhanced interrogation. In fact, they were
quickly issued exit visas and put on a direct flight to Moscow.
They did not pass GO, they didn’t even get a TSA pat
down.
Nothing could stand in the way of the Obama
administration’s fast track for the START Treaty with Russia,
ratified by the lame ducks of the 111th Congress. Vice President
Joe Biden was their point man in hurrying this treaty through last
December. Biden has a long history of trusting the Russians. He
went to Moscow in 1979, when Barack Obama was just old enough to
vote.
Biden told the KGB in 1979 that we were most interested in
arms control. Human rights was a matter of lesser interest. As a
result, we got no arms control agreement that could be ratified —
even by a Democratic Senate. And thousands more Russians were
thrown into the Gulag.
Biden’s Russian expertise: trust, don’t verify.
The Wall Street Journal reports, in a front-page
story, that American astronaut Dan Burbank is “hitching a ride to
the International Space Station.” Thanks to Mr. Obama’s re-ordering
of priorities for NASA, we no longer have the capacity to send up
astronauts ourselves. Instead, we can trust the Russians to take us
for a ride.
President Obama recently met with outgoing President
Medvedev in Honolulu. They conferred on ways to prevent Iran from
getting a nuclear weapon. Forgetting for the moment that Dmitri
Medvedev faithfully plays the monkey to Vladimir Putin’s organ
grinder, what possible common interest could we have with Russia in
framing a policy on Iran?
Reuters reports the two men discussed Syria during their
meeting. Does our president know that Russia has been a backer of
Syria for decades? And that Syria is a virtual client state of
Iran?
Can we trust the Russians? Should “Trust, Don’t Verify” be
our new policy toward Moscow? I can agree with this much of
Astronaut Dan Burbank’s merriment: you can always trust the
Russians to take Americans for a ride.
