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And then they insisted Putin issue a public apology...
Why...
Does everyone think diplomacy is like laundry... to be aired in public? The easiest way to get people to change their minds (excluding attaching parts of their anatomy to a car battery) is not to make it look like they changed it in the first place. Now I am no apologist for some of Russia’s excesses but we equally overstep the mark in what we release in public. There is no public evidence of Russia meddling in the US elections at the request of the Kremlin. I am sure a battalion of James Bonds and Jason Bournes have secret evidence... but isn’t that the point? In public you give Johnnie Foreigner the benefit of the doubt but you stick incontrovertible proof under his nose in private. Yet you still give him a way out publicly as you haven’t painted him into a corner. Note that our Kremlin buddies have been unusually quiet about the Golden Shower allegations swirling around President Trump... the only reason I give the sordid claims any credence!
...and another thing
I suspect at the upcoming Trump/KimJung Il jamboree there will be much speculation from Kim as to how good Stormy really was in the sack and questions from Trump as to how many tries does it take to blow up your Uncle with an anti aircraft gun. I hope so because if you cannot talk in private in complete confidence nothing ever gets agreed.
“OK Joseph Stalin. Sorry Greece and Austria. Hands off. But if you have to biff around some Cossacks and you really want Hungary that’s a deal.”
Now you might all recoil at that, but the alternative was a brief exchange of thermo nuclear weapons and a couple of millennia of nuclear winter.
Diplomacy really ain’t that complicated. Putin wants a warm water port in the Med. I am sure had we guaranteed him that wish three years ago in exchange for ‘regime change,’ Assad would now be sunning himself in a Dacha on the Caspian and his wife consoling herself with online deliveries from Harvey Nichols and Harrods…. and a lot of dead people would still be alive.
You want to say bye bye Kim? Offer China a deal on Taiwan. The fat guy would be gone faster than shit through a goose. Sure, you need to massage a handover along the lines of Hong-Kong. Falklands… same thing. 50 years then transfer to Argentina. And as for the feelings of the Falklanders and Taiwanese. Of course they counts but so does the rest of the world wanting to avoid nuclear meltdown.
Corrupt leaders. Smile and confiscate their money. Even Swiss banks caved to US FATCA requirements. And if you have to compensate a bank it’s cheaper than war.
Iran, best middle class in the Middle East. Let the economy grow and the likelihood is the country will simply take on more western customs as more money goes to the guy in the street. 40 odd years of aggression has not got rid of the Mullahs. Maybe economic growth will?
OK enough pontificating this week. Next week a return to humour, cynicism and observation.
Now what am I offered in exchange for all the natural resources in Burma…
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One Comment
Marker,
I enjoy your well written, incitfull stuff…keep em coming!
Did you end up letting go of that AC Cobra after all?
Kit just told me he’s in the market for a Ferrari Califona body….know of any around?
Take care.
Bill