Ambassador to Russia resigns as 're-set' continues to work out swimmingly

Michael McFaul was supposed to be the quintessential Obama-style diplomat, heading to Russia with gobs of academic credentials and using all his smarts to woo the Russians into love for Barack Obama and America, just like Obama's charm was supposed to work on all the rest of us. Less than two years later, the Russians can hardly contain their glee at McFaul's exit. And another one of Hillary Clinton's grand achievements as Secretary of State continues to reveal itself as the utter disaster it is. NBC News, really, reports:

Despite high hopes for a “re-set” of U.S.-Russia relations under U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, the Russia expert and scholar is leaving his diplomatic post after a little more than two years, with those relations in what some would argue is a deep freeze. McFaul’s tenure in government has been marked by a slew of challenges – whether Putin’s return to power with his anti-Western stance, or Russia’s granting of asylum to U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. Add to those the diplomatic differences over Syria, controversial anti-gay laws and a ban on the adoption of Russian children by Americans – it’s not been an easy ride by any standards. But it’s drawing to a close: After attending the Sochi Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony as part of the official U.S. delegation on Sunday, McFaul will be heading back to the U.S. next week.

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Some analysts would argue that he’s leaving with his tail between his legs, but the Stanford professor insists his decision is a personal one and that he’s going home to Palo Alto, California to spend more time with his wife and two boys. McFaul’s cartoon caricature makes frequent appearances on the op-ed pages of Russian and foreign editions. He’s even been the target of street protesters, overheard, early in his stint here, chanting “Rossiya Bez McFaula” or “Russia Without McFaul!” It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After three years of fine-tuning a “re-set” of U.S.-Russian relations in his advisory role for the White House in D.C., McFaul’s departure for Moscow was meant to solidify warming relations.

That image of Hillary standing there with that goofy re-set button is the most often-cited image of the foolishness of U.S. policy toward Russia, but I'll tell you when it was locked in that the Russians would walk all over us during the Obama presidency. It was right at the beginning, when Obama welched on George W. Bush's commitment to install missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Obama's decision was surely influenced to some degree by general left-wing distaste for missile defenses, leftover from the Reagan era when they derided the Strategic Defense Initiative as "Star Wars," but the real reason Obama cancelled the deal was his desire not to upset Vladimir Putin. Despite the defensive nature of missile defenses, Putin has always opposed them and portrayed them as a threat to Russia. He apparently believes Russia is less secure strategically when it can't fire missiles at Europe. Instead of protecting our allies, Obama chose instead to pursue "arms control" deals as if this was still the 1980s and everyone was all worked up about how many times over we and the Soviets could all destroy the planet with nukes. Right there, Putin could see that he could roll Obama. The rest of us should also have seen it when an open microphone caught Obama whispering to Dmitri Medvedev that he could exercise "more flexibility" in dealing with the Russians once he was safely re-elected. Had Putin faced a strong American president determined to counter Russia's aggressiveness, Putin may have concluded it was more in his interests to develop stronger economic and strategic ties with the west. But he faced Obama, who was far too busy introducing socialism to America to spend time providing a counterforce to Putin. So hey. Why not threaten Europe with missiles? Why not meddle in the affairs of Ukraine? Why not prop up America's enemies in Iran and Syria? Overall, why not try to re-assert Russia's strategic influence across the globe at America's expense? Who was going to do anything about it? Certainly not Barack Obama. And certainly not Hillary Clinton - who could pose for goofy pictures but had no real credentials as a diplomat - and certainly not John Kerry, who doesn't believe in America's role in the world any more than Obama does. McFaul's failure and resignation were inevitable given the nature of Obama's foreign policy. There is no way to turn relations with Russia in a direction favoring America when our leaders instill no fear in Vladimir Putin or in those who do his bidding.