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Romania Libera , Romania
Aug 16 2012
How We Have Become Anti-Americans: Orthodoxy and Flee to East
by Sabina Fati
[Caretaker Romanian President] Crin Antonescu has already divided the
Romanians into two camps: the allegedly 900,000 pro-US ones who
support [suspended Romanian President] Traian Basescu alongside the
Washington ambassador on the one side, and the 7.5 million who have
allegedly aligned behind the interim president on the other.
Antonescu's arithmetic is risky because it is ambivalent and because
the 7.5 million who voted for Traian Basescu's dismissal may not have
been convinced by the Liberal leader's ideas. Moreover, the attempt to
demonize the Americans by associating the US envoy with Basescu is
equally risky mainly because this analogy might be detrimental to the
caretaker president for the majority of the Romanians. Antonescu has
taken a major risk of offending the Washington officials because,
after receiving Barack Obama's envoy, he rushed to Antena 3 [TV
station indirectly controlled by Conservative leader Dan Voiculescu]
to declare that the US official is "biased" and has joined the side of
Traian Basescu, the man who "is keeping the rule of law under siege"
in Romania.
In fact, immediately after having received Hillary Clinton's deputy,
the caretaker president met Moscow's envoy Karekin II, Supreme
Patriarch of All Armenians. The Presidency's website carries more
pictures with the religious leader than with Philip Gordon. Karekin II
is, after Moscow Patriarch Kirill, the most influential cleric in the
ex-Soviet space, used by Moscow more than once in its foreign policy,
including in the conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave. Karekin II, received with more attention than Gordon by Prime
Minister Ponta and President Antonescu, spent his youth in Austria and
Germany, before the Soviet Union's dismantlement. He has had special
relations with Moscow's authorities since the seventies. He has the
same age as Vladimir Putin, with whom he has come to have rather close
relations as Putin awarded him the Friendship Order for "developing
and strengthening the Russian-Armenian relations" in 2006. Russia is
trying to attract on its side all the church leaders with whom it
prepares to set up an orthodox axis. The pro-Moscow lobby in this
direction has turned increasingly obvious in the Balkans, as opposed
to the pro-West orientations.
Victor Ponta and Crin Antonescu ignoring all the recent signals and
warnings from Romania's allies in NATO and the EU suggests that the
two leaders are interested in their own agenda alone and that they are
prone to anything in order to oust Traian Basescu. Colonel Mircea
Dogaru, leader of the reserve military retirees, has already urged
civil insubordination if the Constitutional Court fails to dismiss
Traian Basescu. Moreover, Dan Sova, the young minister accused of
anti-Semitism, has anticipated a new attempt to suspend the president
after his return. Before the chaos to be allegedly unleashed by their
colonel friend, Ponta and Antonescu are getting ready to replace
General Prosecutor Codruta Kovesi before Traian Basescu returns to
Cotroceni [presidential palace]. After all these experiments have been
carried out, the country will naturally get out of the allied axis
because the Western officials will decide to isolate Romania. At the
same time, the specialists trained to discretely, but
enthusiastically, rebuild the relations with the East will come out of
hibernation.
Romania's strategic options are changing while Crin Antonescu and
Victor Ponta are turning more comfortable in their chairs of great
leaders. Their initial nationalism has progressively turned into
anti-West attitudes and their stances have become similar to those
adopted by Ion Iliescu at the beginning of the nineties, when he
defended the country from the West's expansionist sympathy with the
help of the miners and Ceausescu's Securitate employees.
[Translated from Romanian]
Aug 16 2012
How We Have Become Anti-Americans: Orthodoxy and Flee to East
by Sabina Fati
[Caretaker Romanian President] Crin Antonescu has already divided the
Romanians into two camps: the allegedly 900,000 pro-US ones who
support [suspended Romanian President] Traian Basescu alongside the
Washington ambassador on the one side, and the 7.5 million who have
allegedly aligned behind the interim president on the other.
Antonescu's arithmetic is risky because it is ambivalent and because
the 7.5 million who voted for Traian Basescu's dismissal may not have
been convinced by the Liberal leader's ideas. Moreover, the attempt to
demonize the Americans by associating the US envoy with Basescu is
equally risky mainly because this analogy might be detrimental to the
caretaker president for the majority of the Romanians. Antonescu has
taken a major risk of offending the Washington officials because,
after receiving Barack Obama's envoy, he rushed to Antena 3 [TV
station indirectly controlled by Conservative leader Dan Voiculescu]
to declare that the US official is "biased" and has joined the side of
Traian Basescu, the man who "is keeping the rule of law under siege"
in Romania.
In fact, immediately after having received Hillary Clinton's deputy,
the caretaker president met Moscow's envoy Karekin II, Supreme
Patriarch of All Armenians. The Presidency's website carries more
pictures with the religious leader than with Philip Gordon. Karekin II
is, after Moscow Patriarch Kirill, the most influential cleric in the
ex-Soviet space, used by Moscow more than once in its foreign policy,
including in the conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave. Karekin II, received with more attention than Gordon by Prime
Minister Ponta and President Antonescu, spent his youth in Austria and
Germany, before the Soviet Union's dismantlement. He has had special
relations with Moscow's authorities since the seventies. He has the
same age as Vladimir Putin, with whom he has come to have rather close
relations as Putin awarded him the Friendship Order for "developing
and strengthening the Russian-Armenian relations" in 2006. Russia is
trying to attract on its side all the church leaders with whom it
prepares to set up an orthodox axis. The pro-Moscow lobby in this
direction has turned increasingly obvious in the Balkans, as opposed
to the pro-West orientations.
Victor Ponta and Crin Antonescu ignoring all the recent signals and
warnings from Romania's allies in NATO and the EU suggests that the
two leaders are interested in their own agenda alone and that they are
prone to anything in order to oust Traian Basescu. Colonel Mircea
Dogaru, leader of the reserve military retirees, has already urged
civil insubordination if the Constitutional Court fails to dismiss
Traian Basescu. Moreover, Dan Sova, the young minister accused of
anti-Semitism, has anticipated a new attempt to suspend the president
after his return. Before the chaos to be allegedly unleashed by their
colonel friend, Ponta and Antonescu are getting ready to replace
General Prosecutor Codruta Kovesi before Traian Basescu returns to
Cotroceni [presidential palace]. After all these experiments have been
carried out, the country will naturally get out of the allied axis
because the Western officials will decide to isolate Romania. At the
same time, the specialists trained to discretely, but
enthusiastically, rebuild the relations with the East will come out of
hibernation.
Romania's strategic options are changing while Crin Antonescu and
Victor Ponta are turning more comfortable in their chairs of great
leaders. Their initial nationalism has progressively turned into
anti-West attitudes and their stances have become similar to those
adopted by Ion Iliescu at the beginning of the nineties, when he
defended the country from the West's expansionist sympathy with the
help of the miners and Ceausescu's Securitate employees.
[Translated from Romanian]