Western powers’ dissident pro-democracy hero 44-year-old Alexi Navalny was transferred to a penal colony 100 kilometers [62 miles] from Moscow to serve out his Feb. 2 sentence for violating probation on an embezzlement charge, Navalny claims is phony. Whatever the circumstances, 68 –year-old President Vladimir Putin flexed his muscle on a domestic affair, punishing Navalny calling for the overthrow of Putin’s 20-year-old reign of power. Despite sold as a pro-Democracy angel by the U.S. and European Union [EU], Amnesty International revoked Navalny’s “prisoner of conssience” status for past comments, referring to Chechens as “cockroaches” saying they can only be dealt with by a “pistol.” No, to 78-year-old U.S. President Joe Biden and 62-uear-old European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Navalny hold the hope of democracy in Russia.
Biden and von der Leyen are about to find out the hard way what happens when you sanction Putin for utter nonsense, an internal affair that U.S. and EU officials should mind their own business. Both have made a big deal out of Navalny, because it plays well to the domestic audience. Democrats and U.S. media have sanction fever, looking to push the world to brink by sanctioning Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Biden has shown, since taking office Jan. 20, that he’s weak leader, pushed around by the media and progressives within his party. Biden’s early foreign policy decisions upend the Democrat narrative that they’re party of peace, threatening to sanction and Bin Salman for internal matters that have nothing to do with bilateral relations with Russia and Saudi Arabia. Biden told King Salman that there’s a new sheriff in town.
Watching Navalny transferred to a notorious Russian penal colony should remind Biden and von der Leyen that there are consequences to messing with foreign powers like Russia and Saudi Arabia. Russia supplies 40% of the EU’s natural gas and 30% of its petroleum and refined products, including gasoline and jet fuel. Navalny’s out-of-the-picture for at least two-years-eight-months, nothing short of war could change that. Biden stepped into the presidency thinking that the U.S. commands enough clout all over the globe to start threatening power U.S. adversaries. His foreign policy team led by 58-year-old Tony Blinken have a sketchy track record, wasting billions of U.S. tax dollars on a eight-year proxy war in Syria that ended in failure. Blinken, though a junior adviser, was all in when Obama, Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decided to topple Col Muammar Gaddafi.Oct. 20, 2011.
Biden’s foreign policy team are making every mistake in the book, especially challenging world leaders for utter nonsense. Can you imagine if Putin commented about the impeachment trial of 74-year-old former President Donald Trump. Democrats and the press treated Trump worse that Putin treated Navalny, a known dissident that’s been working for years to overthrow the Russian government. House Democrats led by 81-year-old Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Trump of “incitement of insurrection.” Can you image that? Biden’s willing to send U.S.-Russian relations to 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Cold War days over a Trotskyite dissident like Navalny. Yet Biden and House Democrats would have gladly sent Trump to a penal colony had they had the power. Navalny’s been put away where he belongs, after having the temerity to return to Moscow Jan. 23 expecting a parade.
Instead of meddling in the affairs of Russia and Saudi Arabia, Biden should be improving diplomatic relations because he’s in no position to defend any NATO country that Putin decides to invade, including Poland or the Baltic States. Biden was recently rebuked by Europe for thinking that he’s leading a Western alliance. EU officials don’t consider the U.S. the leader of the “free world” any longer, letting Biden know that they don’t have much confidence in NATO. Biden and his foreign policy team wants to turn U.S. foreign policy into a Democrat political issue. Someone should remind Democrats that the 2020 campaign is over. They won the presidency but they’re close to losing the peace. EU officials have watched the U.S. make one foreign policy blunder after another, especially since the Iraq War. EU officials know NATO did nothing to stop Putin from seizing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula .
Threatening Putin and now Saudi Arabia with sanctions does nothing other thatn create a new Cold War atmosphere, pushing Putin to take desperate measures. When he invaded Crimea March 1, 2014, it was after he watched the Feb. 22 CIA-backed coup oust Kremlin-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yahukovych form Kiev, Putin acted. It didn’t take long for Putin to answer Western powers and all the threats from NATO about saving Ukraine. All that happened on Obama and Biden’s watch. Now the EU doesn’t trust Biden when he says “America is back,” meaning that he wants to lead the Western alliance, something that seems preposterous. Biden’s in no place to guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of any European or Mideast country. Threatening to sanction the Russian Federation or Saudi Arabia is exactly the wrong approach to advance U.S. foreign policy.
