Why did Obama hammer Russia?

By Vestnik Kavkaza

The U.S. has broken up attempts by the EU to cancel sanctions and try to come closer Russia, RIA Novosti reports, citing Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten.The German periodical believes that Barack Obama gave Angela Merkel a lecture during their recent telephone communication because of the EU initiative to steadily eliminate sanctions against Russia. They mean a document which had been developed for the meeting of foreign ministers of the EU on January 19th in Brussels. The periodical stresses that after the meeting many European leaders changed their views on eliminating the anti-Russian sanctions. According to Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, the EU decided to “reject the document” after interference from the U.S.A.

Meanwhile, Russian observers were dissatisfied by the fact that American President Barack Obama, making his annual State of the Nation address to Congress, accused Russia of “aggression” in Ukraine again and stated that, due to the U.S., Russia “was internationally isolated,” while its economy “was torn apart.”

However, according to Yuri Rogulev, the director of the Center for USA Studies n.a. F.D. Roosevelt, “we shouldn’t treat statements by President Obama too seriously. Of course he is not the most dangerous person for Russia among American politicians. But the American reality has certain conditions, which make politicians do this or that, and one such condition is the great dependence of foreign policy and rhetoric on the internal situation. And this is a fact.”

Rogulev thinks that some factors influence the foreign policy of the U.S. negatively – “it is its great ideological bias and the great dependence on the internal political situation. The President speaks to an unfriendly Congress, as the majority of both chambers are his opponents. These opponents have been criticizing him for anything for 6 years. They say that all his deeds in the internal policy are killing the economy, i.e. there is no positive progress. Speaking about foreign policy, there are too many failures – he is too soft, hesitatant, he cannot stand up for American interests. Moreover, the Republicans always blame him for losing to President Putin – Putin is hard, he is a strategist, he is decisive, while Obama cannot compete with him.

Let’s remember Syria. Obama will be criticized for Syria for a long time. The man appeared in a dead-end; I feel sorry for him, as he had to speak to Congress, the U.S. population and demonstrate that there were certain successes.”

The expert admits that positive tendencies can be observed in the American economy, but foreign policy seems to be a failure – in Afghanistan, in Iraq.

“In his speech, Obama said that he would ask Congress to let him use land troops for fighting Islamic State. It ruins all his peacemaking offers. The only thing that he tries to do permanently is to form some coalitions. Obama tries to avoid the interference of the U.S. in some conflicts alone – we can see it in Ukraine. The same thing has tried to be done with Islamic State and others. But we all remember the campaign in Libya. The Europeans could do nothing there without American support. The same goes for other conflicts. European countries have restricted capacities, speaking about Armed Forces, and the U.S. has to bear the burden,” Rogulev stated.