Russia's Reset Button

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, March 2009

Remember when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red plastic reset button in the Obama administration's lame photo opp to symbolize their hopes for a new era in relations between the Cold War adversaries? You know, those heady days when a series of pontificating speeches led to a Nobel Peace Prize? Well, Russia never bought it. Nor did Iran, Syria, Libya, Egypt, North Korea, China, Cuba, Nicaragua or Venezuela.

Worse, last week President Obama led from behind once again with his usual flaccid rhetoric:

"The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine." 

Current Secretary of State John Kerry fulminated on NBC's Meet the Press this Sunday that Russia is "inviting opprobrium" for its "act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of the pretext. It's really 19th century behavior in the 21th century, and there is no way, to start with, that if Russia persists in this, that the G8 countries are going to assemble in Sochi. That's a starter."

Russia invaded Ukraine and Kerry says they're inviting opprobrium? And, his first salvo in response . . . we won't attend the June G8 meeting.

Is this what Obama meant when he asked Medvedev to tell Putin he would be "more flexible" in a second term?

Is it any surprise the reality on the ground now looks like this?