Dave Schuler at Outside The Beltway:
... like us, Russia is quite paranoid. Or, as Woody Allen once quipped, what’s a three syllable word beginning with ‘P’ that means you think that everybody’s against you? Answer: perceptive.
Dave argues that the Bush administration simply went along "fat, dumb, and happy" with the Clinton Administration's policy of making clear to Russia that there had only been one winner of the Cold War and I think there's a lot of truth in that, although the Bush hawks have taken it to a whole new level. But as Clinton-era hawks commenting on the Georgia crisis have reminded us, they don't really believe in compromise and diplomacy. While in domestic politics "It's Clinton's Fault" doesn't hold water 8 years later, in foreign policy, where other nations see "America under successive leaders" while Americans see "the Clinton and Bush administrations", 8 years is just enough time to put a good hoppy head on the home-brew of resentment.
The real problem, however, is that we're in danger of turning that perception into one of "three successive American leaders".
