Obama, Putin caught by surprise as Ukraine & Neocons drive wedge

[flamingdem]

Recommended xpost from GR

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101686693

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/

March 2, 2014

Special Report: The Ukrainian crisis – partly fomented by U.S. neocons including holdovers at the State Department – has soured U.S-Russian relations and disrupted President Obama’s secretive cooperation with Russian President Putin to resolve crises in the Mideast, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

President Barack Obama has been trying, mostly in secret, to craft a new foreign policy that relies heavily on cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tamp down confrontations in hotspots such as Iran and Syria. But Obama’s timidity about publicly explaining this strategy has left it open to attack from powerful elements of Official Washington, including well-placed neocons and people in his own administration.

The gravest threat to this Obama-Putin collaboration has now emerged in Ukraine, where a coalition of U.S. neocon operatives and neocon holdovers within the State Department fanned the flames of unrest in Ukraine, contributing to the violent overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych and now to a military intervention by Russian troops in the Crimea, a region in southern Ukraine that historically was part of Russia.

Though I’m told the Ukraine crisis caught Obama and Putin by surprise, the neocon determination to drive a wedge between the two leaders has been apparent for months, especially after Putin brokered a deal to head off U.S. military strikes against Syria last summer and helped get Iran to negotiate concessions on its nuclear program, both moves upsetting the neocons who had favored heightened confrontations.

Putin also is reported to have verbally dressed down Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan over what Putin considered their provocative actions regarding the Syrian civil war. So, by disrupting neocon plans and offending Netanyahu and Bandar, the Russian president found himself squarely in the crosshairs of some very powerful people.

[Whisp]

1. Pierre Omidyar co-funded Ukraine revolution groups

Pierre Omidyar co-funded Ukraine revolution groups with US government, documents show
http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/29127

Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed “coup,” but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.

But that’s not the shocking part.

What’s shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the “dark deep force” acting on behalf of “Pax Americana”).

Step out of the shadows…. Wheeler’s boss, Pierre Omidyar.

Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwald’s government-bashing blog,“The Intercept,” co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine.

[msanthrope]

2. Curiouser and curiouser. Of course Greenwald has claimed that journalistic integrity will be

maintained...and perhaps it will.

I mean, I am sure that if anyone can resist the allure of cash, it is Greenwald. (Book release on March 25th, BTW.)

[frazzled]

3. Um, no

I think rather Putin has been driving the wedge. Sending military forces into an independent country will usually do the trick. The Putin-Obama relationship has been icy and difficult from the very start, long before Ukraine entered the picture.

Look, everyone has an agenda here, including the neo-Cons. But they're (a) not in power here and (b) not related to internal Ukrainian issues.

Robert Parry is totally whack here: US "neo-Con holdovers" within the State Department were NOT the flame that lit the protests in Kiev. Just, no. A Muslim journalist, joined by gays, Jews, and yes, some right-wing groups who had grown dissatisfied with a power-hungry oligarch who had stolen billions of dollars from the Ukrainian people, and who was aligning himself with Russia instead of Europe, were the flame. Conspiracy theories really don't help this already difficult situation.

[randr]

4. Neocons powerful people?

I know they drive media analysis hear in America but to think operate with any equal footing with either Putin or Obama is ludicrous.
The events of the world evolving on their own and every leader is subject to the winds of change.
The Ukrainian situation will test both Obama and Putin. We all need to take a deep breath and hope the next few weeks brings us a better future.