Pat Buchanan on Russia

Talking quite a lot of sense actually. Piece here.

He argues that this so-called Second Cold War between the Russia-West/US is partly the responsibility of Clinton and Bush II. I think 2nd Cold War is too much but Buchanan is right that NATO since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been an anti-Russian alliance and it is not clear why.

Key quote:

Yet, on the eve of the G-8 summit, Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia would re-target missiles on NATO. We must, he said, counter Bush's decision to put anti-missile missiles in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic. Why are we doing this? The United States says the ABM system in Europe is to defend against an Iranian attack. But Tehran has no atom bomb and no ICBM.

Why has this happened? Some examples from Buchanan:

-- When the Red Army went home from Eastern Europe, the United States, in violation of an understanding with Moscow, began to move NATO east. We have since brought into our military alliance six former members of the Warsaw Pact and three former provinces of the Soviet Union: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
--After Moscow gave us a green light to use the former Soviet republics of Central Asia to base U.S. forces for the Afghan war, the United States has sought permanent bases there. Russia and China have now united to throw us out of their back yard.

Why the hell is this anti-missile shield actually being pursued? Can someone answer why in the world when the enemy is Salafi jihadism, pissing off Russia (a traditional enemy of jihadi Islam) is a good idea?

I'm with the paleocons on this one.