Global anti-Russia campaign is taking us dangerously close to disaster
To start with, this current episode is not comparable to the 55 Soviets expelled by Ronald Reagan in 1986 or the 50 or so thrown out by George W. Bush in 2001. Those actions were directly related to spying activities – which all governments engage in, directed against their friends as well as enemies. The Russians do it, the Americans do it, everybody does it. There’s nothing remarkable about cutting the numbers down now and then, particularly after a major embarrassment like the 2001 Robert Hanssen scandal.
But these latest expulsions have nothing to do with how many of the Russians might be actual spies. Nor with the nonsensical accusations of Russian election interference to “sow discord” and “discredit democracy.”
In fact, they have almost nothing to do with the US State Department’s unsupported claim that “Russia used a military-grade nerve agent to attempt to murder a British citizen and his daughter in Salisbury.” The absence of evidence that the Russians were behind the attack is no more relevant than repeated, equally evidence-free accusations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government. Whatever happened to the Skripals and whoever is behind it, Salisbury is a mere pretext.
No, the real purpose is much simpler. Decrying the American action, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov stated that he had told his US interlocutors that “the United States took a very bad step by cutting what very little still remains in terms of Russian-American relations.”
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