ROMNEY AND PUTIN: WHAT CENTURY IS THIS?

I was amused to read this story earlier today:

For months now, Western policy makers have been racking their brains to figure out what strategic interests have made Russia so intent on supporting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad -- a leader who, facing a popular uprising, seemed to be on his way out anyway.

It is an understandable question, but perhaps the wrong one. Decisions are flowing from President Vladimir V. Putin, whose career has left him overwhelmingly wary both of revolutions and of Western intervention.

This is a man who, during the death throes of the Communist system, personally defended the K.G.B.'s headquarters in Dresden against an angry crowd of Germans. And Mr. Putin's already suspicious view of street politics only deepened with the "colored revolutions" of the mid-2000s, in which pro-Western protests, some supported by the United States, ousted a series of Moscow-friendly leaders....

The old KGB guy still seems as if he's defending the Soviet Union in an ongoing Cold War. Can you imagine if Mitt Romney is elected with Putin in power? We'll have two guys trying to turn back the clock and relive that bygone era. Check out the list of countries Romney intends to visit, according to Politico, on a forthcoming foreign trip -- apart from the inevitable Israel, he's definitely reliving the old days:

The presumptive GOP nominee ... is slated to travel to London for the start of the Olympics and to give a speech in Great Britain on U.S. foreign policy.

Romney next would fly to Israel for a series of meetings and appearances with key Israeli and Palestinian officials. Then, under the plan being considered, he would return to Europe for a stop in Germany and a public address in Poland, a steadfast American ally during the Bush years and a country that shares Romney's wariness toward Russia. Romney officials had considered a stop in Afghanistan on the journey, but that's now unlikely.

Seriously? Nowhere in the Middle East besides Israel? Nowhere in Asia or Latin America or Africa? He's going to Poland?

As Politico notes,

Romney has taken a hard-line stance toward Moscow, saying ... that Russia is America's "No. 1 geopolitical foe."

Moreover, both he and a foriegn policy adviser have warned of a "Soviet" threat, while the adviser lamented the abandonment of a U.S. missile site in "Czechoslovakia," a country that hasn't existed for years. And is it coincidence that the reported star of the show at a recent Romney retreat was Condi Rice, the old Russia hand?

Romney seems to want there to be a Soviet threat. He seems to want the Cold War back. I shudder at the thought of Putin and Romney endeavoring to revive that conflict.