Putin plays a blinder.

[Workingman]

Obama signs an executive order expelling 35 Russian diplomats over 'claims' that Russia directed the hacking of Clinton's emails and then had them posted during the election.

Putin sits back, smiles, then announces there will be no tit-for-tat retaliation and that he will wait till Trump is President in order to mend ties.

Of course once Trump is President he can overturn Obama's executive order, which he probably will, and the two of them will have put Obama firmly in his place.

[Suff]

He's also the lead country in Syria and most of the Middle East right now.

I said it a long time ago, right here. Get behind Assad, get the Rebels AND IS out then talk about peace.

Instead we did what? Funded terrorists until Russia, Iran and Syria took the initiative and basically won the war. From a position of strength Russia will negotiate the "peace", the rebels will be left with like it or lump it then everyone will go after IS.

Even Turkey is now aligned with Russia and not NATO.

Obama may have been OK with Climate Change but he's been a total disaster for US foreign policy. Only our parliament rebelling saved us from being dragged down the same avenue.

Putin is nobody's idiot and the more the west play him as some limited intelligence gangster, the worse it's going to be for us on the world stage.

[Workingman]

From the outside looking in it appears that the US expulsions were down to Obama throwing his toys because he and the US led coalition had been sidelined with regards the peace deal/ceasefire.

He was supposed to hand over to Hilary who would then carry on his good work of defeating IS and mending Syria. The two would go down in history as the Presidents who saved the world.

All that is now blown out of the water and he is having a hissy.

Russia is quickly becoming the dominant power in the M.E. and the countries within know not to mess with it. They only have to look at the Crimea and their neighbours in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to see how the Russians work.

[TheOstrich]

Epic fail by Obama, possibly the worst US President since ..... well, probably the previous one.

Putin has humiliated Obama. Even that sublime little touch of inviting all the US Embassy children to a New Year Party in Moscow whilst the Russian diplomats were packing up their bags in Washington ......

But at the same time, let us not forget that there's probably a huge amount of truth in those hacking allegations ..... and Putin has to learn that there are boundaries.

With Syria, Obama showed his weakness when he drew a red line over chemical weapons, Assad crossed it, and the USA then did nothing. Playing the recriminations game, the finger is already starting to point at the UK. I have seen it said that the failed vote in the House of Commons certainly helped propel Obama into inaction. If we had voted for military action, how different might things be now?

[cromwell]

I just don't understand Obama's massive moral outrage.

"The Russians hacked Clinton's emails!". Well, let's suppose they did (even though no evidence has been produced).

I think it's called spying, and I think ALL the major powers do it.

Like when the US was accused of hacking into Angela Merkel's phone...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news ... an-2485433

Or, if you want some real interference in the electoral process perhaps someone could remind Obama what happened to Salvador Allende in 1973, and who backed the coup...

[Suff]

Sorry Crommers, you were out when the note came round????

They're the "good guys", didn't you know???

I worked with a Ukrainian who wound up with a Russian passport by the simple fact that he was working in Moscow when the USSR came apart. I got a "very" different view of the whole Ukrainian situation by talking to him. I also remembered how the news was spun during the unrest which went on there.

I won't say Russia is blameless, but then neither is the US. But they are certainly not as black as they are painted. If anyone is to blame for the current situation in Ukraine, in my mind, it's the EU and the Merkel/Sarkozy duo.

When I read about Obama expelling the Russian diplomats I was transported right back to the 1970's, during which I spent two weeks in Berlin.

Of course in the 1970's it was the USSR expelling US diplomats for "transgressions".... The US, of course, always replied in kind.