It looks like President Bush has few reservations about playing hardball with Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe. This morning, Bush endorsed a Ukrainian bid to join NATO as long as internal conditions met the prerequisites, a move that cannot have been welcomed by Putin:

The United States supports expanding NATO to include Ukraine, a former Soviet republic now trying to loosen historic ties to Russia, but membership in the Western alliance is not guaranteed, President Bush said Monday.

"There is a way forward in order to become a partner of the United States and other nations in NATO," Bush said during a joint press conference with Viktor Yushchenko, the populist politician whose Orange Revolution forced out Ukraine's pro-Russian government last year.

"It's not a given. In other words, there are things that the Ukrainian government must do," Bush said.

No one doubts that cleaning up Ukrainian corruption serves everyone's interests now, except for the remnants of the Kuchma regime and their allies in the Kremlin that tried to keep them in power. Putin feared that the loss of influence in Ukraine would follow that of Georgia's escape from the Kremlin's orbit and put Europeans on Russia's doorstep -- a frightening thought for a man whose increasing autocracy will be threatened by Western democracy on his borders. The prospect of just this scenario is what forced Putin into openly backing Viktor Yanukovych in his losing bid to retain power for the Kuchma faction in Ukraine.

Bush had remained noncommittal about Ukraine's position with NATO until now, and even this endorsement comes as a surprise. It shows once again that Bush does not fear bold moves, and that despite Yushchenko's retreat from Iraq, Bush holds the expansion of popular democracy as a higher goal than momentary geopolitics. As long as Putin appears to descend into strongman rule, Bush is prepared to apply counterpressure to inspire Russians to return to democratic rule.

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» Some Call It The Carnival/Bonfire Of Classiness. from WILLisms.com
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