The "We-Hate-Putin" Group Think

"It's necessary to recall the actions of the United States in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, where they acted either without any sanction from the U.N. Security Council or distorted the content of these resolutions, as it happened in Libya. There, as you know, only the right to create a no-fly zone for government aircraft was authorized, and it all ended in the bombing and participation of special forces in group operations."

There is no denying the accuracy of Putin's description of U.S. overreach in its interventions in the Twenty-first Century. Yet, Secretary of State John Kerry has ignored that history in denouncing Russia for using military force in the Crimea section of Ukraine. Kerry said on Tuesday: "It is not appropriate to invade a country and at the end of a barrel of gun dictate what you are trying to achieve. That is not Twenty-first Century, G-8, major-nation behavior."

Despite Kerry's bizarre lack of self-awareness -- as a senator he joined in voting to authorize the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- it is Putin who gets called "delusional." While virtually all mainstream U.S. news outlets join in the demonization of Putin, there have been almost no words about the truly delusional hypocrisy of U.S. officials. Ignored is the inconvenient truth that the U.S. military invaded Iraq, still occupies Afghanistan, coordinated a "regime change" war in Libya in 2011, and has engaged in cross-border attacks in several countries, including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Though we've seen other examples of the U.S. political/media elite losing its collective mind -- particularly during the crazed run-up to war in Iraq in 2002-2003 and the near stampede into another war with Syria in 2013 -- the frantic madness over Putin and Ukraine is arguably the most dangerous manifestation of this nutty Official Washington "group think."

Not only does Putin lead a powerful nation with a nuclear arsenal but his cooperation with President Obama on Syria and Iran have been important contributions toward tamping down the fires of what could become a wider regional war across the Middle East.

Yet, it is perhaps Putin's assistance in finding peaceful ways out of last year's Syrian crisis as well as getting Iran to negotiate seriously over its nuclear program -- rather than pressing for violent "regime change" in the two countries -- that earned Putin the undying enmity of the neocons who still dominate Official Washington and influence its "group think."

Maybe that enmity explains part of the mysterious why behind the Ukraine crisis and the endless demonization of Putin.

Elliott Abrams, a leading neocon who oversaw Middle East policy on President George W. Bush's National Security Council staff, was quick to pounce on the Ukraine crisis and the pummeling of Putin to urge a new push for legislation that would pile on more sanctions against Iran, a move that President Obama has warned could kill negotiations.

"This would be a very good time for Congress to pass the Menendez-Kirk legislation," Abrams wrote. "One lesson of events in Ukraine is that relying on the good will of repressive, anti-American regimes is foolish and dangerous. Another is that American strength and strength of will are weakened at the peril of the United States and our friends everywhere."

While at the NSC, Abrams was one of the neocon hardliners -- along with Vice President Dick Cheney -- who ..."were all for letting Israel do whatever it wanted" regarding attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, according to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his memoir, Duty.

That attack-Iran argument nearly carried the day during the final months of the Bush-43 administration since, according to Gates, "Bush effectively came down on Cheney's side. By not giving the Israelis a red light, he gave them a green one."

But a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, representing the views of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, concluded that Iran had stopped work on a nuclear weapon four years earlier. Bush has acknowledged that this NIE stopped him from going forward with military strikes on Iran.

The neocons, however, have never given up that dream. Now, with the "we-hate-Putin" group-think gripping Official Washington, they may feel they have another shot. [For more, see Consortiumnews.com's "What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis."]