You can’t excuse the hypocrisy of the western powers, led by the United States. They growl “international law” when stuff don’t go their way. Yet, they are hardly apostles of international rule of law.
Global politics is still pretty much realpolitik powered by might, hardly by law or by what is right. Might — not law — is right.
Still, you hardly can fault their hysteria over the disastrous impact blatant outlawry of rogue states could have on the fragile and delicate global peace.
The West goes berserk at the mere thought of the nuclear bomb falling into the hands of North Korea (the West’s favourite pariah state); or perhaps Iran — ethnic Persians that just wouldn’t allow the West to bowl them over, though Iran won’t mind doing business with Russia, the West’s Euro-cousin to the East!
My enemy’s enemy is my friend? Perhaps!
Still, the worst dreams from North Korea and Iran are coming from Euro Coz Russia, with its recklessness in Ukraine. It’s not even sure if Russia’s brutality is not the beginning of the end for the United Nations, as Hitler’s outlawry led to the crash of the League of Nations, thus provoking World War 2 (1939-1945).
As Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland sparkling that infamous quip: “Warsaw saw war” — a brilliant lexical gerrymandering, if ever there was one, to hallmark that avoidable tragedy — Putin’s Russia has invaded Ukraine, and nobody knows when and where the madness will stop.
But to further underscore its arrant outlawry, Russia just bombed the Odesa port, just a day after signing a grain-passage agreement! Ukraine signed the agreement, not with Russia but with the UN, the guarantor. Russia signed with UN too, but not before a rogue wriggle out of some limited Western-powered economic sanctions. Turkey was host and conciliator.
At the signing ceremony, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, scoffed that Russia wasn’t worthy of signing any agreement with. He insisted Ukraine had a deal with the UN, not with Russia.
Less than 24 hours later, Russia proved him right by firing missiles at Odesa port, the epicentre of Ukraine’s grain exports by sea! Besides, Russia from reports bombs civilian areas at will, and kills helpless women and kids to make up for its troops’ tardiness on the front lines. The annoying thing is that Russia feels it could spin its bad conduct, as it tries to rationalize the Odesa bombing.
Russia is exhibiting every crazy conduct of a rogue bully: from purportedly granting “independence” to people of another country just because most of them are ethnic Russians; to unashamedly ogling a large chunk of Ukraine, even if it doesn’t quite lack a vast expanse of land itself.
Putin is proving another Hitler-incarnate. The international community had better devise a way to checkmate him before he throws the globe into another conflagration.