Theresa May has taken the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter and blown it up out of all proportion. She has turned it into an incident with worldwide implications. She’s stirred up NATO. She’s stirred up many countries in the EU. She’s not letting go, either. This is all based upon a highly exaggerated sense of what this incident means. She paints it as an attack, an aggression, against Great Britain by Russia.
Theresa May is a troublemaker. No matter how this poisoning came about, May’s response is vastly overdone. One can think of a hundred different quiet and effective ways to have handled this event, while conforming to just methods and rule of law. Instead, May loudly chose to pile on accusations along with instant judgments and arbitrary punishments via steps that cannot easily be reversed. She chose to organize the West against Putin and Russia. Sadly, Trump has gone along with her agenda. His support of May is not an America First move. Why let Great Britain set the relationship with Putin and Russia? Why let May’s parochial political agenda determine that of our country?
Furthermore, the expelling of diplomats is not enough for her. Now she wants further anti-Russian moves, in what she calls a “long-term response”. She’s out for blood, one might say. She’s building a new Iron Curtain. She fancies herself another Churchill, but this time around, Russia cannot be blamed for the new wall of mistrust and sanctions. Theresa May is to blame.
There already is a long-term effect, and it’s very negative. In this atmosphere of hostility, being friendly or even pragmatically neutral toward Russia and Putin is made exceedingly difficult. Any country or leader that does so is going to be accused by anti-Russian elements within the West-NATO-EU bloc as appeasers, moral misfits, enemies of democracy and worse.
May has made this move because it gains her political advantage. CNN says it’s “a remarkable diplomatic coup for Britain.” Whether that’s true or not, Theresa May’s self-serving calculations of political gain by demonizing Russia ignore the negative fallout for the rest of us in the world. Her behavior is totally inexcusable.
6:04 pm on March 27, 2018
