Excerpt:
From the evidence Talbott presents, President Clinton seems to have
had greater intuitive understanding of Russia than his ‘Russia Hand.’
Here is another very revealing quote that Talbott has served up, this
time from Bill Clinton:
“We haven’t played everything brilliantly
with these people; we haven’t figured out how to say yes to them in a
way that balances off how much and how often we want them to say yes to
us. We keep telling Ol’ Boris, ‘Okay, now here’s what you’ve got to do
next – here’s some more shit for your face.’ And that makes it real hard
for him, given what he’s up against and who he’s dealing with…We’ve got
to remember that Yeltsin can’t do more with us than his own traffic
will bear.”
Indeed, unlike Talbott and the rest of his staff,
Clinton, the politician, knew the dangers of overplaying his hand. In a
citation relating to American treatment of Jacques Chirac, we find
Clinton remarking what was equally applicable to his Russia policy:
“I’m just saying that you shouldn’t kick a wounded dog because it will get well and bite you.”
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