McCain Tweets Putin Into Tirade

by John M. Curtis
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Copyright December 16, 2011
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                Giving “Twitter” a bad name, U.S. Sen. and former GOP presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.) antagonized Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, warning the 59-year-old judo black-belt that the Arab Spring is getting closer to Moscow.  “Dear Vlad, the Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you,” tweeted McCain last week, making reference to widespread street protests across Russia about Putin’s decision to seek the Russian presidency for a third time.  McCain followed his tweet on the U.S. Senate floor warning dictators that democracy movements won’t let authoritarian rulers return to power without respecting individual rights.  When Libyan rebels finally caught up and killed the 69-year-old Gaddafi Oct. 20, McCain warned that his death should make “dictators” like Putin “nervous,” antagonizing the likely next president of the Russian Federation.

            Whether McCain likes Putin or not, he shouldn’t be using popular social media to degrade, humiliate or embarrass world leaders, especially Putin, who barely tolerates U.S. foreign policy.  Putin’s many years in the KGB left only distrust of the West, especially the U.S., whose foreign policy since the end of WW II was one of containing Soviet expansionism, the so-called Truman Doctrine.  Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union George F. Kennan set U.S. Russian foreign policy with his classic 1947 article in Foreign Affairs titled, “Sources of Soviet Conduct.”  Among other things, Kennan mapped out the U.S. strategy of countering the Soviet’s strategy of sponsoring revolution around the globe.  Generations of Americans in the post-WW II Cold War era watched as the U.S. competed with Russia for worldwide dominance, starting a dangerous nuclear arms’ race.

            Dealing with street protests, Putin mirrors the same paranoid atmosphere that led Kennan to advise former President Harry S. Truman’s Secretary of State George C. Marshall to show caution.  Kennan, who directed the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff think tank, urged the White House to keep a watchful eye on the Soviets.  Putin grew up in that paranoid atmosphere of the 1950s, leading Sen Joseph McCarthy’s (R-Wis.) House Un-American Activities Committee to look for communist subversives under every rock, questioning patriotism of every high and low-profile person in business and industry, especially Hollywood.  McCain’s recent jests at Putin strike a raw nerve, still festering from past and current Russian distrust.  “Dear, Vlad, was it something I said?” asked McCain, ramping up the incendiary rhetoric that has become so much of the American-Russian dialogue.

            Dealing with street protests, Putin blamed the West, especially the U.S. for fomenting dissent in Russia.  It’s an old KGB tactic to blame the U.S. for any legitimate protests inside Russia.  Putin’s decision to replace Russian President Dmitry Medvdev for his third term prompted street protests in Moscow and around Russia.  Instead of explaining his reasons for running again, he spent four-and-a-half hours on Russian TV ranting about U.S. and Western interference in Russian politics.  Putin blasted the U.S. for meddling in Libya, blaming the White House for orchestrating Gaddafi’s death.  Now he’s pointing fingers at the U.S. for street protests against his decision to run for another term as president.  “He has a lot of blood of peaceful civilians on his hands.  He must relish and can’t live without the disgusting, repulsive scenes of killing Gaddafi,” Putin told a TV audience about McCain.

            It doesn’t take much to get Putin going about the U.S. or whipping up anti-American propaganda.  Given the very delicate state of Russian-U.S. relations, McCain’s comments help Putin’s election bid by pitting him against the West.  Since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russian Federation hasn’t reclaimed its once dominant place on the world stage. Despite its formidable nuclear arsenal, the Russian Federation has been busy expropriating private industries liberated from state control under former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.  During Putin’s last reign, he stripped Russian oligarch Mikhail Kordokovsky of his Yukos oil company, charged him with treason and tossed him into a Siberian prison, all because he dared to run for president.  Who knows what Putin will do to Russian billionaire and NBA New Jersey Nets owner 46-year-old Mikhail Prokhorov.

              Given the volatile state of relations between Russia and the U.S., McCain’s tweet doesn’t help the shaky détente.  When Putin ordered the Russian Army to invade its former Soviet province of Georgia Aug 9, 2008, it let the U.S. know who was boss in the region.  Putin decimated U.S. ally Mikheil Saakashvili’s Georgian army, largely in retaliation for Saakashvili’s Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyahn pipeline, byassing Russia, carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe.  Putin flexed his muscles in Georgia, punishing Saakashvili’s close ties to the United States.  Putin’s nasty comments about McCain prove that he’s not above the fray and ready to rumble.  “Mr. McCain was captured in Vietnam and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years,” said Putin.  “Anyone [in his place] would go nuts,” showing the kind of immaturity that could, if provoked, start WW III.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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