Salami Tactics

NBC News reports what we were already 99% sure of:

Crimea’s Deputy Prime Minister said Sunday that the weekend referendum there may mark the beginning of similar events in mainland Ukraine, calling the vote in Crimea a “first step.”

“I think second step will be east Ukraine,” the Deputy Prime Minister, Rustam Temirgaliev, said during an interview with NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel.

I’ll say it again: There’s no reason for us to go to war over Ukraine, a horribly mismanaged mishmash of a country. The question is whether we:

• Sit this one out.

• Help manage Ukraine’s partition in a way which increases the West’s unity.

• Complain and moan and make futile gestures while Vladimir Putin steps on everybody’s d****.

The second is what we should have done, the first would have been the least bad option under the Wiggleroom Administration, and the third of course is what we’ve got.

I believe this is still what we call Smart Diplomacy™.