jackass & lavrov have both been, like, “gee whiz, this ukraine thing is getting solved,” but…

Obama Will Sign New Russia Sanctions Bill: Jackass Says Sanctions Could Be Lifted If Putin Takes ‘Steps’
Jason Ditz, AntiWar.com, Dec 16 2014

The White House has confirmed today that Obama will sign a bill into law imposing a new round of economic sanctions on Russia and authorizing military aid to Ukraine. The bill was “passed” by “Congress” earlier this week, which is to say the three Congress critturs present at the time unanimously agreed to it. The bill gives Obama the ability to waive the sanctions against individual companies if he thinks it is in national security interests, and officials said he was pleased with this “flexibility”. The sanctions are nominally punishment for supporting the rebellion in eastern Ukraine, even though Russia has brokered a ceasefire in the region that is holding. Despite Russia being the primary driving force behind the ceasefire, and Pindostan not being keen on the truce at all, Jackass Kerry says that Pindostan could lift all sanctions on Russia in a matter of days if they take the “right steps” toward resolving the crisis in eastern Ukraine. What exactly these steps are from the Pindosi perspective remain unclear.

Let’s look at the stories cited, but in reverse order, just cos I feel like it. First, Jackass does his usual hand flap thing:

Jackass says Russia sanctions could end if Putin takes right steps
Lesley Wroughton, Reuters, Dec 16 2014

LONDON – Russia has made constructive moves in recent days towards reducing tensions in Ukraine, Jackass Kerry said on Tuesday, and he raised the possibility that Washington could lift sanctions if Moscow keeps taking positive steps. Speaking in London, Jackass said that Pindostan and the EU could lift sanctions within days or weeks if Putin keeps taking steps to ease tensions and lives up to commitments under ceasefire accords to end the Ukraine conflict. Jackass told reporters:

These sanctions could be lifted in a matter of weeks or days, depending on the choices that Pres Putin takes. Their sole purpose here is to restore the international norm with respect to behavior between nations. To ensure respect for borders, sovereignty and rights.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was expected to sign legislation this week authorizing new sanctions on Russia over its activities in Ukraine and providing weapons to the Kiev government. Obama would have to decide whether to impose the new sanctions. He has said he does not want to take new steps that are not synchronized with European partners. Hollande and Merkel held a four-way telephone call with Putin and Poroshenko on Tuesday evening, Hollande’s office said. Hollande and Merkel called for a rapid resumption of contacts under the September Minsk ceasefire agreement. They “stressed the importance of moving forward without losing any more time,” the statement added. State Dept spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there was no discrepancy between Jackass’ comments and the White House announcement over possible new sanctions. She said:

Russia has a choice. There are specific steps they can make to implement the Minsk protocols. They can do that. That’s in their power. And if they do that, obviously that will have an impact on the actions we take. We see these reports of a decrease in violence in eastern Ukraine as a positive step and an opportunity for a lasting political solution. But I don’t want to overstate that. And that’s one of the reasons he (Jackass) also reiterated ongoing concerns we have.

Poroshenko on Tuesday hailed a brief period of calm in which there was no shooting in eastern Ukraine as a positive signal. The rouble plunged against the dollar on Tuesday. Asked about the rouble’s collapse, Jackass cited not only Western sanctions but also factors such as sliding oil prices and the Russian economy. He said:

There are a lot of combined factors, but the sanctions were clearly intended to invite Pres Putin to make a different set of choices.

Obama backs bill imposing new sanctions on Russia
Julie Pace, AP, Dec 16 2014

WASHINGTON — Obama will sign legislation imposing new economic sanctions on Russia, the White House said Tuesday, as Pindostan claimed some credit for sparking Moscow’s roiling currency crisis and moved to deepen the pain. Still, White House officials acknowledged there were no guarantees Russia’s economic woes and another round of sanctions would compel Putin to curtail aggressive actions in Ukraine. The Russian economy has been in a downward spiral for months, but Putin has managed to maintain political support at home. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said of the sanctions:

The aim is to sharpen the choice he faces.

He said Obama was likely to sign the bill this week. The measure cleared Congress late Saturday. Obama’s support came as the Russian ruble continued its precipitous fall. The impact of the Western sanctions has been compounded by plummeting oil prices, leading Russia’s Central Bank to announce a massive middle-of-the-night interest rate increase Tuesday in an unsuccessful bid to stabilize the currency. Obama economic adviser Jason Furman said Russia was grappling with a crisis of its own making. She said:

The combination of our sanctions, the uncertainty they’ve created for themselves with their international actions and the falling price of oil has put their economy on the brink of crisis. That gives you only bad choices.

Earnest said the president has concerns about the measure but feels it gives him “flexibility” in carrying out the Congress critturs’ stipulations. The legislation includes a waiver allowing Obama to forgo the penalties if doing so was in Pindosi national security interests. Administration officials wouldn’t say whether Obama planned to exercise the waiver. The legislation has widespread bipartisan support on Capitol Hill but has worried Europe, where leaders fear unilateral Pindosi action will undermine the West’s united front against Moscow. For months, Pindostan and the EU have sought to enact sanctions against Russia in tandem. But Europe, which has a far more extensive economic relationship with Russia than does Pindostan, has largely reached its limit for enacting broad sanctions against the Russian energy industry and other key economic sectors unless the Kremlin ramps up its actions in Ukraine. However, in an apparent attempt to maintain some Western unity as Obama signs the legislation, a Western diplomat said that Pindostan and the EU were preparing similar packages of trade and investment bans in Crimea. Those penalties could be announced in the coming days, according to the diplomat.

Ukrainian officials have been pressing Pindostan to supply its military with weapons and ammunition to fight the Russian-backed forces. Obama has resisted those requests because he fears lethal assistance would antagonize Russia and perhaps spur Moscow to launch a full-scale invasion. The legislation gives the president the authority to send Ukraine anti-tank weapons, counter-artillery radar and tactical surveillance drones. Administration officials said Obama was not expected to act on that authority. The bill does require the president to impose penalties on state-owned arms dealer Rosoboronexport and other Russian defense companies tied to unrest in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Syria, unless the president invokes his waiver authority. The sanctions would be extended to people and entities helping the companies. The White House sometimes chafes at congressionally-mandated sanctions because revoking the penalties requires legislative action. Obama has told Putin he would roll back U.S. sanctions if Russia stopped meddling in Ukraine, but keeping that promise would potentially be more cumbersome for penalties passed by Capitol Hill. Russia analysts say it’s unlikely Putin will shift his calculus on Ukraine solely because of sour economic indicators or another round of sanctions. But Matthew Rojansky of the Wilson Center, said that if the currency crisis starts hurting the Russian public’s ability to buy food or heat homes, Putin could be forced to act in order to stem a political crisis. He said:

The logic is not that Putin is going to be persuaded suddenly that he’s wrong. What is going to happen is the ground is going to shift under Putin.

Three Congress Critturs Just Reignited the Cold War While No One Was Looking
Dennis Kucinich, TruthDig, Dec 16 2014

Late Thursday night, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a far-reaching Russia sanctions bill, a hydra-headed incubator of poisonous conflict. The second provocative anti-Russian legislation in a week, it further polarizes our relations with Russia, helping to cement a Russia-China alliance against Western hegemony, and undermines long-term Pindostan’s financial and physical security by handing the national treasury over to war profiteers. Here’s how the House’s touted “unanimity” was achieved. Under a parliamentary motion termed “unanimous consent,” legislative rules can be suspended and any bill can be called up. If any member of Congress objects, the motion is blocked and the bill dies. At 10:23:54 p.m. on Thursday, a member rose to ask “unanimous consent” for four committees to be relieved of a Russia sanctions bill. At this point the motion, and the legislation, could have been blocked by a single member who would say “I object.”  No one objected, because no one was watching for last-minute bills to be slipped through. Most of the House and the media had emptied out of the chambers after passage of the $1.1 trillion government spending package. The Congressional Record will show only three of 425 members were present on the floor to consider the sanctions bill. Two of the three feigned objection, creating the legislative equivalent of a ‘time out.’ They entered a few words of support, withdrew their “objections” and the clock resumed. According to the clerk’s records, once the bill was considered under unanimous consent, it was passed, at 10:23:55 p.m., without objection, in one recorded, time-stamped second, unanimously. Then the House adjourned.

I discovered, in my 16 years in Congress, that many members seldom read the legislation on which they vote. On Oct 24 2001, House committees spent long hours debating the Patriot Act. At the last minute, the old bill was swapped out for a version with draconian provisions. I voted against that version of the Patriot Act, because I read it. The legislative process requires attention. Legislation brought before Congress under “unanimous consent” is not read by most members, simply because copies of the bill are generally not available. During the closing sessions of Congress I would often camp out in the House chamber, near the clerk’s desk, prepared to say “I object” when something of consequence appeared out of the blue. Dec 11 2014, is one of the few times I regret not being in Congress to have the ability to oversee the process. The Russia Sanctions bill that passed “unanimously,” with no scheduled debate, at 10:23:55 p.m. on Dec 11 2014, includes:

1. Sanctions of Russia’s energy industry, including Rosoboronexport and Gazprom.
2. Sanctions of Russia’s defense industry, with respect to arms sales to Syria.
3. Broad sanctions on Russians’ banking and investments.
4. Provisions for privatization of Ukrainian infrastructure, electricity, oil, gas and renewables, with the help of the World Bank and USAID.
5. $50m to assist in a corporate takeover of Ukraine’s oil and gas sectors.
6. $350m for military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-tank, anti-armor, optical, and guidance and control equipment, as well as drones.
7. $30m for an intensive radio, television and Internet propaganda campaign throughout the countries of the former Soviet Union.
8. $20m for “democratic organizing” in Ukraine.
9. £60m, spent through groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, “to improve democratic governance, and transparency, accountability, rule of law” in Russia. What brilliant hyperbole to pass such a provision the same week the Senate’s CIA torture report was released.
10. An unverified declaration that Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, is a nuclear “threat to the United States” and should be held “accountable.”
11. A path for Pindosi withdrawal from the INF Treaty, which went into force in 1988. The implications of this are immense. An entire series of arms agreements are at risk of unravelling. It may not be long before NATO pushes its newest client state, Ukraine, to abrogate the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Ukraine signed when it gave up its nuclear weapons, and establish a renewed nuclear missile capability, 300 miles from Moscow.
12. A demand that Russia verifiably dismantle “any ground-launched cruise missiles or ballistic missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 km,” (300 and 3,300 miles).

Read the legislation, which Congress apparently didn’t. As reported on GlobalSecurity.org, earlier that same day in Kiev, the Ukrainian parliament approved a security plan that will:

1. Declare that Ukraine should become a “military state.”
2. Reallocate more of its approved 2014 budget for military purposes.
3. Put all military operating units on alert.
4. Mobilize military and national guard units.
5. Increase military spending in Ukraine from 1% of GDP to 5%, increasing military spending by $3b over the next few years.
6. Join NATO and switch to NATO military standards.

Under the guise of democratizing, the West stripped Ukraine of its sovereignty with a Pindosi.-backed coup, employed it as a foil to advance NATO to the Russian border, and reignited the Cold War, complete with another nuclear showdown. The people of Ukraine will be less free, as their country becomes a “military state,” goes into hock to international banks, faces structural readjustments, privatization of its public assets, decline of social services, higher prices and an even more severe decline in its standard of living. In its dealings with the EU, Ukraine could not even get concessions for its citizens to find work throughout Europe. The West does not care about Ukraine, or its people, except for using them to seize a strategic advantage against Russia in the geopolitical game of nations. Once, with the help of the West, Ukraine fully weighs in as a “military state” and joins the NATO gun club, its annual defense budget will be around $3b, compared with the current defense budget of Russia, which is over $70b. Each Western incitement creates a Russian response, which is then given as further proof that the West must prepare for the very conflict it has created, war as a self-fulfilling prophecy. That the recent Russia sanctions bill was advanced, “unanimously,” without debate in the House, portends that our nation is sleepwalking through the graveyards of history, toward an abyss where controlling factors reside in the realm of chance, what Thomas Hardy termed “crass casualty.” Such are the perils of unanimity.

Obama Signals Support for New Pindosi Sanctions to Pressure Russian Economy
Peter Baker, NYT, Dec 16 2014

WASHINGTON — With Russia already staggering under the weight of one of its worst financial crises in years, Pindostan signaled on Tuesday that it would further increase the economic pressure with a new raft of sanctions targeting the Russian defense, energy and banking industries. Obama said through a spokesman that he would sign newly passed legislation expanding measures intended to cordon off large Russian state firms from Western financing and technology while also providing $350m in arms and military equipment to Ukraine as it battles a pro-Russian insurgency in its eastern regions. The legislation had concerned the president, who has tried not to get too far out in front of EU allies vassals on sanctions and resisted sending lethal aid to Ukraine. But Congress passed the bipartisan measure without opposition, making a veto politically untenable, and administration officials said they were satisfied that enough discretion was incorporated into the bill to give the president room to maneuver. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said:

The president does intend to sign the piece of legislation that was passed by Congress, but we do have some concerns about that legislation, because while it preserves flexibility, it does send a confusing message to our allies, because it includes some sanctions language that does not reflect the consultations that are ongoing.

The new sanctions come as Russia’s economy is reeling from the collapse of the rouble, the increasing flight of capital investment and the spectre of recession. Past rounds of sanctions imposed by Obama and the EU in response to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine have contributed to a broader economic and political instability that has been exacerbated recently by the plunge in the price of oil, on which Russia is deeply dependent. Earnest said the turmoil was the result of Putin’s own actions. He said:

It’s a sign of the failure of Vladimir Putin’s strategy to try to buck up his country. Right now, he and his country are isolated from the broader international community.

Russian officials have lashed out (pathologising term – RB) in recent days at the prospect of new sanctions. Lavrov told France 24 TV (not very lashing out, actually – RB):

Russia will not only survive, but will come out much stronger. We have been in much worse situations in our history, and every time we have got out of our fix much stronger.

He said there were “very serious reasons to believe” that Pindostan was pursuing a strategy of regime change, designed to topple Putin’s government, and he disparaged Pindosi lawmakers, saying:

If you look at the Pindosi Congress, 80% of them have never left Pindostan, so I’m not surprised about Russophobia in Congress.

Even without Congress, Obama has already authorized several rounds of sanctions that have largely cut off major Russian banks from Pindosi credit markets, blocked the transfer of technology for long-term energy exploration, and frozen the assets of a number of Putin’s allies and barred them from traveling to Pindostan. Obama has been careful to coordinate the measures with European allies vassals, who have been reluctant to escalate the confrontation with Russia because of closer economic ties. The administration reached out (psychobabble – RB) to European officials in recent days to assure them that Obama would implement the new legislation as part of their joint efforts to keep Putin from driving a wedge among the Western nations. European officials are talking about imposing new sanctions in the coming days specifically related to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, but they almost certainly would not go as far as the new Pindosi legislation contemplates. Some analysts said Obama had little choice but to sign the legislation since Russia has continued to violate the terms of a cease-fire negotiated months ago in Minsk. Nicholas Burns, a former diplomat and Under-Sec State under Bush 43, said:

Given Russian military resupply of the separatists in Ukraine during the last month, Pindostan had to raise the economic costs to Putin for his outright aggression. Combined with the collapse of the rouble, sanctions will hit Putin’s government where it is most vulnerable: its very shaky economy.

But it is not clear how much of the authority granted under the legislation Obama will invoke. The bill requires the president to impose at least three sanctions from a menu of nine options on Rosoboronexport, the main Russian state arms exporter, and other military companies accused of fostering instability in Ukraine, as well as in Moldova, Georgia and Syria. But it includes a provision allowing him to waive the requirement if he concludes that doing so would be in the nation’s security interest. The legislation also authorizes the president, but does not require him, to impose sanctions on international companies that invest in certain types of unconventional Russian crude-oil energy projects and to further restrict the export of equipment for use in Russia’s energy sector. And it authorizes the president to bar investment or credit to Gazprom, the Russian state energy giant. In addition, the legislation authorizes the provision of lethal arms to the Ukraine government, including antitank weapons, tactical surveillance drones and counter-artillery radar. Obama has resisted sending weaponry to Kiev on the theory that it would only escalate the fighting in eastern Ukraine, so it is not clear whether he will follow through on the authorization.

The measure went beyond only penalties to authorize $10m in each of the next three fiscal years to counter Russian propaganda in the former Soviet Union and prioritize Russian-language broadcasting in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. And it authorized $20m in each of the next three years to promote ‘democracy’, ‘independent’ news media, ‘uncensored’ Internet access and anti-‘corruption’ efforts in Russia (my sneer quotes throughout that sentence – RB). But under pressure from the Obama administration, Congress critturs removed elements that would have tied the president’s hands, including a provision that would have barred lifting sanctions until Russia was not only out of Ukraine but Moldova and Georgia, too, where lingering conflicts are not likely to be resolved soon. Robert Menendez, the Democrat chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who pushed for the sanctions along with the panel’s senior Republican, Bob Corker, said:

President Putin bears responsibility for any outcomes that flow from his actions and breach of the international order. The Pindosi Congress stands with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.