APPEAL TO FORMER RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER IGOR IVANOV, by Jiri and Leni Friedman Valenta, 8/5/2014

Minister Ivanov, agreeing with your view that Russia and the U.S. “need each other,”  we are appealing to you to speak out on behalf of a negotiated solution for the Ukraine.   We know from former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright´s memoirs how you strove for better relations with America in the past.  Please be daring now in internal Kremlin debates.

Much as Kremlin propaganda now presents America as an implacable enemy, history shows that our sleepy country has generally viewed war as a last resort, although it is very good at it once aroused.  While our political cultures are different our people are much the same. They want good jobs, good food and good sex, and “Please don´t bother us with war.”

The problem, as historian Barbara Tuchman has shown, is that wars happen precisely because they have a logistics of their own, and are fraught with unintended consequences. At this hundredth anniversary of WWI, let us recall how two major hot wars and one cold war began in Eastern Europe. As Tuchman demonstrated the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian terrorist set in motion nationalistic orgies and the massing of troops on adversaries’ borders.  Within several weeks, the escalated conflict led to the outbreak of WWI.

In 1939, war came again with a resurgence of nationalism and virulent anti-Semitism in Germany´s Weimar republic.  Defeated, and geopolitically amputated by the 1919 Versailles Treaty, Germany embarked on expansion in Eastern Europe, claiming to protect  Germans in those countries.  Fourteen million people died in Timothy Snyder´s “blood lands” of Eastern Europe, 25-30 million in Russia. 

Illustrating the dangers of unforeseen consequences, there is now the barbaric downing of MH17.  President Putin surely did not order the shooting of the plane, yet he created the environment in which an inhuman crime was committed.  Sentient people worldwide are aghast that the scattered remains of many passengers are still in the killing fields of the Ukraine despite the efforts of the international units led by the Dutch.  The U.S. is now seriously considering  military arms to the Ukraine.

I´m sure you recognize the shooting of the plane was a game-changer, evoking thoughts of yet another slippery slope to catastrophe.  In the history of Russia, past wars have encouraged disintegrative forces and revolutionary sentiment.  Right now, the East Ukrainians emigrating to Russia are being sent to ethnically vulnerable regions, causing growing opposition to the Kremlin.  There are even calls for your president´s resignation or the creation of an independent republic of Siberia.  And of course there are the terrorists from Chechnya and Dagestan who, like ISIS, desire to create a Muslim caliphate.

It is simply essential that the continuous military intervention of the Ukraine by Russia be halted.  We understand the great power pride your people had in its former empire.  But the age of empires is over, having given way to the age of nation states.  Survival of the planet depends on respect for sovereign boundaries.  Survival of our economies depends on allocating resources to infra-structure and not to the hegemons of the military-industrial Moloch.

An honorable peace in the Ukraine can be found, one that would include recognition that the Ukraine should not become part of NATO, but should be permitted to join the EU.

Mainly, however, our joint struggle against Nazi-like Islamists in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria is too important for our two nations to be divided.  The growing power and nature of ISIS can only be comprehended if you view the horrific, mass execution video they have produced. We have enclosed this url with the video to demonstrate the point.  It is not for the squeamish. http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/07/islamic-state-creates-river-of-blood-butchers-1500-innocent-people/#vWlVjh67isFQ6e3z.99

Yes, the U.S. and Russia need each other, Minister Ivanov.  Your brilliant president must realize that the world, in Madeleine Albright´s words, “is a mess,” and we have to stop the nuclear clock.  Please speak out with your powerful voice for the reign of reason instead of the reign of terror. Too much is at stake.