When it comes to the handling of the Ukraine crisis, Cold War leader of the trade union Solidarity, former Poland President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa has some choice words for President Obama, NATO, and the West – and for Poland’s new batch of leaders. Mr. Walesa recently gave this interview with the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, in which he explains what he would do in the face-off against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The interview, conducted by Rzeczpospolita’s Jacek Nizinkiewicz, starts off this way:
Rzeczpospolita: On Wednesday Rzeczpospolita wrote that a new Iron Curtain will divide Europe, and that this time, Poland is on the good side of it, Ukraine on the bad …
Lech Walesa, former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate: There won’t be a safe and free Poland without a free Ukraine. Politicians, especially Americans, don’t learn from their mistakes, and go on making new ones. The West’s first mistake cost Poland 50 years of Communism [allusion to Yalta]. Western Europe and the U.S. are now making the same kind of error with Ukraine. If the missile shield had been deployed in Poland, the situation would be quite different. We need to speak aloud of the mistakes of Barack Obama. The United States failed to organize the world and the result is that we continue to lose. Well, U.S. politicians are what they are. I’m not satisfied with them.
Global solidarity isn’t working. We cannot go along with this new Iron Curtain. We mustn’t let Putin have Ukraine, nor can we allow Ukraine’s division. But we should not allow this to lead to war. Western countries should jointly resist Putin. We need to better organize in Europe so there is more solidarity. We cannot count on the United States or we’ll continue to lose.
Rzeczpospolita: Ukraine will soon choose a president …
Lech Walesa: Yulia Tymoshenko should not be running. She has no chance at becoming president. Ukraine today lacks a leader who would be a symbol of change and on whose authority a new order can be built. The chaos in Ukraine may end in Maidan [Square] if depicted a provocation of Putin.
Rzeczpospolita: So should Ukraine be quickly admitted into NATO?
Lech Walesa: If NATO gives Ukraine away to Putin, what good is NATO? Let’s see what NATO is made of. It seems fine as long as things are going well, but the moment something goes wrong, we are left alone in the hour of confrontation. If NATO forces are to be stationed in Poland, let’s sign an agreement that they cannot turn tail when danger comes.
Rzeczpospolita: It looks like the world has come to terms with Crimea’s annexation into Russia.
Lech Walesa: I am waiting for the world to issue Putin a manly response. For now, everyone is trying to wriggle out of it.
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