US Foreign Policy 101: Always Blame Putin for Your Mistakes in Ukraine

US policymakers pursue "foolish policies" that often get the country in trouble, John Mearsheimer, an American professor of political science at the University of Chicago, told radio Sputnik. However, they never admit that they were wrong and always find someone else to blame, he added. Therefore, Vladimir Putin was made a fall guy for the crisis in Ukraine.

"What caused the crisis in Ukraine was mainly NATO expansion and, to a lesser extent, the EU expansion and democracy promotion in Ukraine. And those individuals in the West, especially in the US, who’ve been pushing hard for NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia, were told that this was going to blow up in their face," Mearsheimer explained.

And when it did blow up in their faces, Western policymakers did not want to take the responsibility. "They don’t want to admit that they are wrong. This is why they are blaming Putin," the political analyst said.

Those who pushed NATO expansion, the EU expansion and were in favor of bringing Ukraine into the Western orbit and peeling it away from Russia "have a vested interest in portraying themselves as the good guys and the Russians as the bad guys," Mearsheimer said. "So many people have a vested interest in winning this war, because they helped to cause it," he added.

Instead of trying to solve the Ukrainian crisis, they want to double down by arming the Kiev-led forces. The US is "upping the ante, because we are desperate to find a solution so that we can prove that we were right all along, and it is the Russians who are responsible for this mess," Mearsheimer pointed out.

For that exact reason Barack Obama is under tremendous pressure from within the US to arm the Ukrainians, according to the political analyst. And there is a scenario we cannot rule out.

Mearsheimer believes that all parties involved need to tone down the rhetoric. "The West needs to stop portraying the Russians as evil and as aggressors. And the idea of arming the Ukrainians has to be completely taken off the table," he said, adding that NATO and the EU expansion should not be an option as well.

Sadly, Western leaders have no idea how to end the civil war in Ukraine, according to Mearsheimer. "Nobody has a plan or a strategy for ending the conflict. So, what that means is that this conflict is likely to go on," he said.

"The idea that this war is going to go on and on for years, either at a low level or at a high level, is really bad news for Russia, the Western Europe, the US and it is especially bad news for the Ukrainian people. This is a disastrous situation," Mearsheimer said.