I know at least one TW reader who’ll love (_not_) this line from “a recent essay”:http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/e78a48070f128a7b43256999005bcbb3/bc2150e49dad6a04c325752e0036e93f?OpenDocument by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
bq. The United States is an integral part of European civilization. And now the time has probably come to return to Europe, that is, accept the soft European attitude to the world, shaped, inter alia, during the Cold War period not without the participation of America itself.
(And, yes, in this essay Lavrov too notes that the “Sochi Declaration”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1807/remember-sochi rulez.)
Anya, may I suggest my interpretation to Lavrov’s words?
The “return to Europe” may be a call to the US to adopt the “soft” European world view, instead of of the American hard line. The premise “The United States is an integral part of European civilization” may be a friendly gesture to make the following critic easier to swallow.
Lavrov is talking to a country ruthlessly following its interests under a thick cloak of self righteousness and hypocrisy. As a good diplomat he tries to pierce this armor with soft words before saying the US must change its ways and become “part of the whole”, the human family.
Will the US listen to a world power that had learned the value of friendship and of being humane? Maybe if the economic crisis will hit it hard enough.