Ukraine showdown to shadow Obama in Europe

[Lite Beer]

Ukraine showdown to shadow Obama in Europe

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will begin Monday a trip ringing with historic echoes to Europe, where sudden turbulence has rocked the political and security order and reshaped his foreign policy.

The East-West showdown over Russia's annexation of Crimea, which challenged the post-Cold War compact in Europe, will dominate each stop of Obama's tour to Poland, the Group of Seven summit in Belgium and France for 70th anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings.

On the World War II battlefields in France, there will be several potentially awkward personal encounters between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has spent months trying to isolate over Ukraine. Washington insists there will be no formal summit between the two leaders.

Obama will also meet leaders still coming to terms with European Union elections that saw voters in several member states lash out at the bloc's political establishment by backing radical euro-skeptic parties.

The political earthquake could threaten one of Obama's top foreign policy priorities, the negotiation of a massive Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP).

Obama also wants a strong, unified Europe to maintain the threat of tougher sanctions if necessary on Moscow over Ukraine and to reduce its dependence on Russian energy.

The Ukraine crisis and Putin's trashing of a "reset" relationship with Washington -- one of the diplomatic prizes of Obama's presidency -- has emboldened the president's critics at home and disrupted a foreign policy based on ending US wars and rebalancing power to the Asia Pacific region.

Obama will use the trip to renew US security assurances to eastern European NATO members and seek to reinvigorate NATO -- an organization suddenly newly relevant after years searching for a role after the demise of the Soviet Union.

In Warsaw, Obama will take part in the 25th anniversary celebrations of Poland's first post-communist elections, which have taken on extra poignancy amid the worst showdown between the Kremlin and the West since the end of the Cold War.

"It's a very powerful moment to... look back at the history of how Polish democracy was won," said Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

The president will also "look at the current moment and the need for the United States and Europe to stand together on behalf of the security of Eastern Europe, and to stand in support of democratic values and all of those who would reach for democratic values as we've seen so powerfully in Ukraine these last several months," Rhodes said.

In Warsaw, Obama will have his first meeting with Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko, days before his inauguration, and underline US support for his effort to lead out of a political and economic crisis which saw the overthrow of president Viktor Yanukovych in February.

The former leader was toppled amid during protests sparked when he declined to sign an association agreement with the European Union, under pressure from Moscow.

Obama says Ukrainians must have the chance to decide their country's own future -- even as their nation's unity is torn by worsening clashes between pro-Moscow separatists and Kiev government forces in eastern regions.

"We don't know how the situation will play out and there will remain grave challenges ahead," Obama said in a major foreign policy address on Wednesday.

"But standing with our allies on behalf of international order working with international institutions, has given a chance for the Ukrainian people to choose their future without us firing a shot."

Poland's ambassador to Washington Ryszard Schnepf said that his own country's journey from the gray uniformity of decades behind the Soviet Iron Curtain into an era of pluralism and economic vitality should give Ukraine hope.

"At the beginning of the 1990s, Poland was in the same situation economically as Ukraine is now," he said.

"The Polish path is not only a perfect example for surrounding countries -- but first of all for Ukraine."

Obama will lead talks with former Warsaw Pact nations now in NATO, including Bulgaria, Croatia (part of the old Yugoslavia), the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

He arrives in Warsaw on Tuesday to hold talks with President Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He will move on to the G7 summit in Brussels on Wednesday, and have a one-on-one meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The US leader will dine with French President Francois Hollande in Paris on Thursday, before heading the next day to Normandy for ceremonies on Omaha and Sword beaches and a lunch with foreign leaders -- including Putin.

Source: http://www.thephuketnews.com/ukraine-showdown-to-shadow-obama-in-europe-46582.php

-- Phuket News 2014-06-01

[Ulysses G.]

Another one of Obama's great foreign policy successes.

[Credo]

As long as he keeps us out of a war with Russia over the Ukraine, it will be a success.

[fvw53]

Obama is still trying to figure out what foreign policy is. Do us a favour Obama, stay in America you cant stuff it up any more than it is now.

Of course his predecessor G W Bush knew what foreign policy was...after Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told him how lucrative for the subcontractors to the defense industry ..... a regime change in Iraq would be.

It is not yet sure if G W has at present already understood the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims (according to Bob Woodward he did not know the difference during discussions a few weeks before he ordered to attack Iraq)

[Ulysses G.]

The usual attempt to divert the topic. This thread is about Obama's foreign policy. He has already been in office for going on 6 years.

[chuckd]

The usual attempt to divert the topic. This thread is about Obama's foreign policy. He has already been in office for going on 6 years.

Very well said. The walls are falling in on this administration and they still insist it is the fault of Bush and Cheney.

[fvw53]

The usual attempt to divert the topic. This thread is about Obama's foreign policy. He has already been in office for going on 6 years.

Very well said. The walls are falling in on this administration and they still insist it is the fault of Bush and Cheney.

This US administration has limited powers to take new initiatives because it has no majority in the House and needs most of the time a 60+ majority on the Senate.

As we are talking here about US foreign policy I think that ending useless and costly (money and lives) conflicts in the Middle East and refusing to get caught in new ones ....is already a performance.

About Ukraine the US administration can pay only lip service with the usual demand for fair elections....because geography dictates here that Russia will dominate (the same way as the USA dominates its own close neighbours, including the Caribbean islands)

[chuckd]

The usual attempt to divert the topic. This thread is about Obama's foreign policy. He has already been in office for going on 6 years.

Very well said. The walls are falling in on this administration and they still insist it is the fault of Bush and Cheney.

This US administration has limited powers to take new initiatives because it has no majority in the House and needs most of the time a 60+ majority on the Senate.

As we are talking here about US foreign policy I think that ending useless and costly (money and lives) conflicts in the Middle East and refusing to get caught in new ones ....is already a performance.

About Ukraine the US administration can pay only lip service with the usual demand for fair elections....because geography dictates here that Russia will dominate (the same way as the USA dominates its own close neighbours, including the Caribbean islands)

This administration had control of both Houses of Congress for the first two years and look what that got us...Dodd/Frank and Obamacare.

You also might try to keep up a little better. Harry Reid (D-NV) invoked the nuclear option in 2013. He changed the rule on cloture from 60 votes being required to a simple majority.

This President lost all semblance of respect he ever had with his "Red Line" on Syria's use of chemical weapons. After Putin took him to the cleaners on that his influence has been greatly diminished. Lip service is all he ever had and it will certainly not have any impact on Putin's desires in the Ukraine.