It was the only move. The Wall Street Journal's editorial staff seems to disagree with our resident right wing whackadoos as well:
>>>>President Obama's decision to cancel his one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow next month is the right decision—politically, the only one he could make and not look like a patsy. The question is whether this is merely a symbolic rebuke or the beginning of a policy shift that recognizes the Putin regime's hostility to American interests.
The immediate catalyst was Mr. Putin's decision last week to give political asylum to admitted U.S. security leaker
Edward Snowden. The former NSA consultant has been charged with multiple violations of U.S. law, and the secrets he stole are still leaking out and damaging U.S. security.
Mr. Obama said on "The Tonight Show" Tuesday that he was "disappointed" by the Snowden asylum, adding that "it's reflective of some underlying challenges that we've had with Russia lately." While "there's still a lot of business that we can do with them," Mr. Obama said, "there have been times where they slip back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality."
White House press secretary
Jay Carney elaborated on Wednesday, citing "our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months."
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Reuters U.S. President Barack Obama meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G8 Summit at Lough Erne in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland in June.
He should have included Russia's military and diplomatic support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, which has exacerbated a civil war that is now breeding thousands of jihadists. All of this is the beginning of foreign-policy realism for Mr. Obama, who has courted Mr. Putin to a fault and ignored his every provocation.
President Obama will still attend the G-20 meeting in Mr. Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg next month, when he would have done better to send Vice President
Joe Biden in his place. John Kerry and Chuck Hagel will also sit down Friday in Washington with Russia's foreign and defense ministers. The Kremlin might take comfort from those gestures, expecting the White House to quickly get back to negotiating arms-control treaties and other business as usual.
We hope that won't be the case, and that Mr. Putin begins to understand that there are costs to his anti-American behavior. The Russian boss covets summits with U.S. Presidents and the G-8 to cultivate the domestic illusion that Russia remains a great power. Speaking with reporters Wednesday, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov pleaded that the Snowden problem was "something that was created not by us" and that the invitation to Mr. Obama remains open. The truth is that Mr. Putin knew exactly what he was doing in protecting Mr. Snowden.
To drive home the message of the canceled summit, Mr. Obama could, among other things, expand the existing U.S. sanctions against Russian human-rights offenders under the Magnitsky Act. He could also speak up about the kangaroo court treatment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. As long as Mr. Putin's Russia behaves as an adversary of the U.S., Mr. Obama should treat it accordingly.
