Office of the Independent Blogger

Mikhail Gorbachev is out of his cage again, giving the United States a piece of his mind.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said President George W. Bush should stop viewing the world “from the position of a superpower'’ and Vice President Dick Cheney should “calm down'’ and stop criticizing Russian leaders. The U.S. should understand that “leadership should be done not by domination, not by becoming a policeman in the world, but by being a partner,'’ Gorbachev said in a Bloomberg television interview to air this weekend, the 15th anniversary of a failed coup against him.

Gorbachev said Americans “should get rid of this disease which I call the winner’s complex'’ in the Cold War. “The victory complex is even worse than the inferiority complex,'’ he said. Gorbachev, 75, was Communist Party general secretary, the top Soviet power post, from 1985 to 1991 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his efforts to end the Cold War. When the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, he was supplanted in the Kremlin by Boris Yeltsin, who in turn handed over the Russian presidency to Vladimir Putin six years ago.

I’ve been a consistent critic of Gorbachev, and his latest advice is no exception. What type of advice is that, really? “Stop criticizing,” he says, and then babbles about Victor’s Complex. “Victor’s Complex” sounds like what they might call erectile disfunction in Russia, for one thing, but seriously: the United States doesn’t suffer from victor’s complex in regard to Russia. If we did, we’d have been opponents of theirs post-Cold War, too, but we didn’t. We’ve given them tons of money, even at times during which they really needed it, and we’ve supported their policies even when we shouldn’t have.

As for the rest of his advice, about listening to the World, I seem to recall that as recently as two weeks ago the United States was working hand-in-hand with the French in brokering a resolution in Lebanon. Conversely, as recently as a year ago, Russia was threatening to freeze the Ukraine. If he’s got to give advice on getting along, he ought to fly into Moscow and talk to Putin first. (Which isn’t to say Putin should listen to Mikhail Gorbachev: nobody should. Taking advice from Mikhail Gorbachev on running a nation is like taking advice from Jimmy Carter on running a nation! And it isn’t to say that George W. Bush doesn’t need to be civilized, he does, but Mikhail Gorbachev isn’t the man to do it. What Bush needs is a date with a hypnotist, and perhaps the removal of the crayon that I suspect is in his brain.)

This entry was posted on Monday, August 21st, 2006 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).