WaPo Columnist: Obama Not Working With Putin Because Stakes 'Too Low'

On Thursday, Washington Post columnist Max Fisher attempted to find the photo that could “perfectly sum[] up Obama’s relationship with Putin.” He settled on a picture of President Obama walking with British Prime Minister David Cameron, with Putin peeking over Cameron’s shoulder in the background. Fisher’s point: Russia is not even important to Obama anymore. “The Obama administration’s “reset” with Russia has been falling apart over, among other things, NSA leaker Edward Snowden winning temporary asylum in Russia. But this may be less a product of conflicting interests or divergent ideologies – two things far more endemic to the U.S.-China relationship – than the simple fact that the stakes in the U.S.-Russia relationship are too low.” He continues, “Obama would rather chat with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron than try to coax a friendly moment out of Putin, because what’s the point?”

The states in working with Russia apparently become “too low” as soon as Obama is unable to reach any sort of working relationship with Russia. The fact remains that Russia and the United States own a combined 94% of all the world’s nuclear weapons, that Russia’s strategic interference in the Middle East is a major headache for the United States in both Syria and Iran, and that Russia’s oil dominance plays a major role in global oil supply. Yet now, suddenly, “what’s the point?”

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).