hypocritexposer
Well-known member
5. Ukraine can have a 'Hollywood' ending
Are there good guys and bad guys in the Ukraine-Russian drama? Sure there are. We have courageous Ukrainian patriots who died in the Maidan for the dignity and freedom they believed in; corrupt and ruthless government officials who were willing to use force against their own citizens; Russian provocateurs eager to stir up trouble; extremist Ukrainian nationalists who are hardly democrats; and a Russian strongman who hosted the Olympics one week and invaded the territory of a sovereign country the next.
I suspect that the Ukrainian Spring -- if that's what it is -- may turn out better than its Arab counterpart. But we have to be real. Ukraine may be fractious and troubled for some time to come.
Below the morality play there is intense factionalism; regional differences; scores to settle; Russian manipulation; and a tendency to avoid the kind of compromise that would lead to real power sharing and good governance.
We like Hollywood endings. But real democratization depends less on a friendly U.S. or EU hand than on the emergence of genuine leaders who are prepared to rise above factional affinities and see a vision for the country as a whole. It also depends on institutions that reflect popular will and some mechanism for accommodating differences peacefully without resorting to violence.
There are no easy or happy endings here. And we can only make matters worse, as Henry Kissinger suggested recently, by trying to turn the Ukraine crisis into a Russia vs. the West (or worse, the U.S.) tug-of-war.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/opinion/miller-five-myths-about-ukraine-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_t4