OK Russia,

12 June 2013

 

now that our love affair is truly over, you’ve got us singing the blues:

You never compromise anymore when we reach the limit

And there’s no commitment like before when you ratified the KP

You’re trying hard to provoke us,

But comrade, comrade, I know it,

You've lost, that lovin' feelin',
Whoa, that lovin' feelin',
You've lost, that lovin' feelin',
Now it's gone…gone…gone…wooooooh.

We could go on, but ECO really is not in the mode for singing anymore. You send your Top Gun here and let him strut and fret his hour upon the stage, waste two weeks of negotiating time, and for what? We understand you gave him the option to step off the stage, and he decided to continue to obstruct, just because he could. Is it just for the sake of his ego, or to try to elevate his prestige in Moscow, or just pure stubbornness?

If your excellent diplomat really has any good ideas for improving COP decision making processes, we haven’t heard them yet. So are we going to leave Bonn with a cloud the size of Siberia hanging over the negotiations? How dark will the storm clouds be over Warsaw when we arrive? Would we be better off not going?