But he does ...
Well, I think that President Kennedy gave us a pretty good idea of what we should do. He had to deal with some tough times. As a matter of fact, there [is precedence – he] had to deal with the Soviets. They had 50,000 nuclear warhead and they had tremendous power and they brought them 90 miles off our shore. And not once did we think that confrontation was a good idea. Matter of fact, we always stood strong, had a strong national defense, we worked on containment and we even negotiated.So, I would say, if we were able to accomplish that with the Soviets, and we've been able to live with the Chinese and put up with so much danger in the world, we oughta be able to handle this guy that … there's no evidence that he has these weapons and that there's no evidence of that … and he hasn’t committed an act of aggression. I would think that if we really wanted to, we could handle him the same way we handled the Soviets.
We "won the cold war".
It was perhaps wrong of me to put "won the Cold War" in quotes but I find it ironic that -- where sponsorship of terrorism and the fomenting of WMD threats by rogue nations to the United States is concerned -- we appear to blythely be relying on the "former Soviets" who were responsible for both.
Clearly, we have not "won the Cold War" if it is we who have substantively changed our profile ... Russia's embrace of the "saving graces of Western Materialism" (particularly where our IMF payments, aid to clean-up their nuclear messes, etc. etc. are concerned ... based on the conceit that a nation still supplying arms to the Chicoms and 49 million dollar contracts to nations like IRAQ is somehow in need of our economic assistance and political appeasement).
This too is Mr. Story's point as regards the CONSISTENCY of the policy we are pursuing.
No one refutes the FACT that the Soviets increased by 1000% their support of the global network of terror in 1964.
No one refutes the FACT that the Soviets were primarily responsible for the organization, funding and sustaining of the terrorist training camps formed in Cuba in the wake of the 1966 Tri-Continental Conference.
It is passing strange that -- based solely on the "apartment bombings", the last of which were proven KGB "tests" -- we managed to BOTH excuse Russia's Mozdok war games in Chechnya as well as find legitimate their alliance with us as a partner in the War against the global terror network THEY conceived, sustained and glorified in up and until the eve of their "abolishing the IMAGE of the enemy" with perestroika's collapse of the evil empire like a cheap umbrella.
I would hate to think that the United States would be operating on Appearances instead of substance and disregard the very real possibility we're being played for fools. I am one who agreed absolutely with Reagan that indeed the Soviets were an Evil Empire. I find it hard to fathom that based on an economic collapse they STILL are milking to this day, that they actually experienced some perceptible metanoia. I don't see it.
Particularly given the neat way were were played to Russia's advantage in the Balkans, I think the question merits further investigation.