Stephen Cohen: Will Russia Hoax Questions Be Answered?

Commenter Forbes has brought to my attention a brief article by the well known Russia expert--and man of the left, even the far left--Stephen Cohen. Cohen, of course, is also well known--and notorious on the left--for his acid critique of the American Left's attempts to frame President Trump as a lackey of Vladimir Putin. I've addressed Cohen's view several times in the past. In his current blog, Cohen poses, without answering, what he views as key remaining questions regarding the Russia Hoax: What We Still Do Not Know About Russiagate: Vital questions about perhaps the worst alleged presidential scandal in US history remain unanswered.

Cohen concludes by pointing out a central fact of the Russia Hoax, and it is his insistence on raising this central fact that has caused him to be so excoriated by the Left:

First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.)

Which is to say, in effect: The emperor has no clothes.

Thus, Cohen begins by pointing out, once again, how inherently implausible the whole hoax is. The allegations against Trump are ridiculous enough, but in Cohen's view the core absurdity is this:

Was it plausible ... that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election?

Cohen goes on to present other implausibilities inherent in the Russia Hoax, support for most of which

What The Russia Hoax Reveals About America's Elites

I've finished Stephen Cohen's War With Russia? It's impressive, in that Cohen repeatedly beat other observers to very pointed conclusions. Two examples:

As early as August, 2016, Cohen was dismissing any notion of Paul Manafort "colluding" with Russia and very pointedly questioning the reliability of the Ukrainianian "anti-corruption" sources who provided the information about Manafort. We're seeing Cohen's questions coming to the fore, nearly three years later.

On May 10, 2017, a week before Mueller was appointed Special Counsel, Cohen wrote:

... on May 8 and 9 in Washington, today's Russia was being portrayed at Senate hearings as an existential threat, as having committed an "act of war against America" by "hijacking" the 2016 presidential election on behalf of President Trump." ... 

After nearly a year, no actual facts have yet been presented to support the allegation. On the other hand, evidence has appeared that for more than a year elements of the US Intelligence Community--almost certainly the CIA and FBI--have been engaged in shadowy operations designed to link Trump to Putin's Kremlin. I've called this "Intelgate" and urged it be investigated first and foremost. Intel leaks and "reports," in evident "collusion" with the failed Clinton campaign, have driven the Russiagate narrative from the outset, amplified almost daily by a mainstream media that shows no interest at all in Intelgate.

That's about as clearsighted as anyone at the time could have claimed to be--far more so than most.

Since Bill Barr's DoJ is short on leaks, I decided that it might be worthwhile to present Cohen's essay from February 21, 2018. My title modifies his slightly. Cohen's perspective is always that of the all pervasive "Russia hysteria" the Dems and their media allies have plunged us into, so he prefers "Russiagate". Be that as it may, in his essay Cohen identifies "six ... barely concealed truths", "profoundly disturbing characteristics of people who play a very large role in governing our country." Admittedly, none of this should come as a surprise to anyone, but Cohen's six point indictment of America's elite is persuasively presented.

UPDATED: The War Party, The Russia Hoax, And The Deep State War On Trump

Trump never ceases to amaze. With the War Party almost openly gloating that Iran (at who's prodding?) had boxed Trump into a foolish war, with his supporters near despair ... Trump proceeds to pull the plug (for now) and schools the post-Christian world on classical Just War Theory, invoking "proportionality." As if to say, Here's for you voters out there who want a balanced, grounded, America First president. This guy is simply deeper than most people will grant.

Look, I can't tell you what's really behind this. Was the tanker attack a false flag, or was Iran responsible? Did Iran down the drone in international airspace in an attempt to box Trump into war with the long term in view? On balance, I suspect that's what it's about. Perhaps just as important is the big picture, extending back many decades. There definitely appears to be a deja vu element to this and, as it happens, I have at hand some materials to offer a bit of perspective on the War Party's total war against Trump--in the overall context of the Russia Hoax.

One feature of the Russia Hoax struggle, drawn out over the past three years or so, has been that prominent liberals have found themselves, seemingly against all odds, defending Trump. Think of the likes of Alan Dershowitz, Stephen Cohen, Jonathan Turley, Mark Penn, and others. I've cited their views on a semi-regular basis, because they happen to be authorities in their fields with informed opinions to offer. In common with one another, these public intellectuals share a commitment to constitutional order and the distressing perception that this commitment--once common to liberals as well as conservatives--has been abandoned by the ascendant "progressive" movement within the Democrat party and its low information followers.

Another common feature is that, while these intellectuals have been associated with liberalism and even leftism, they usually have niche concerns that have been central to their public and academic lives. For example, Dershowitz is known first and foremost as a "civil libertarian". Stephen Cohen, who has for decades been associated with the far left The Nation magazine, is a Russia expert who is particularly known for his lifelong advocacy of detente with Russia. Both men see these core concerns being trampled underfoot by "progressives."

Stephen Cohen: The Most Dangerous Moment in U.S.-Russian Relations

For those of you not really familiar with Stephen F. Cohen, he was a big name back in the Cold War days. He was part of the dueling Russia narratives then current, and still current in changed form. Cohen, a professor (now emeritus) of Russian studies at Princeton and New York University, was considered on the right to be an outright apologist for the then Soviet Union. His opposite Neocon number was the late Richard Pipes, a professor of history at Harvard for nearly four decades and an influential adviser to President Reagan.

Cohen's wife is revered by Progressives and notorious (reviled?) among conservatives--Katrina vanden Heuvel, New York heiress and editor, publisher, and part-owner of the progressive magazine The Nation. Cohen himself has long written regularly for The Nation. But times change and roles have changed to some degree. Cohen has taken up the cudgels against the Russia Hoax and appears regularly with the likes of Tucker Carlson--to the sputtering dismay of the Left in much the same way Alan Dershowitz has been denounced. Cohen's particular angle is the danger that the reckless--and false--Leftist collusion narrative raises for US-Russian relations. He has come out with a book which expresses his fears: War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate. Here's the blurb from Amazon, to give you a flavor for Cohen's angle:

America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union is gone, but the two nuclear superpowers are again locked in political and military confrontations, now from Ukraine to Syria. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations. US mainstream media accounts are highly selective and seriously misleading. American “disinformation,” not only Russian, is a growing peril. 

In War With Russia?, Stephen F. Cohen—the widely acclaimed historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia—gives readers a very different, dissenting narrative of this more dangerous new Cold War from its origins in the 1990s, the actual role of Vladimir Putin, and the 2014 Ukrainian crisis to Donald Trump’s election and today’s unprecedented Russiagate allegations. 

Cohen’s views have made him, it is said, “America’s most controversial Russia expert.” Some say this to denounce him, others to laud him as a bold, highly informed critic of US policies and the dangers they have helped to create.

With that introduction, back in April, 2017, Cohen gave an interview to Democracy Now--an interview which, in my view, has stood the test of time, or at least of the succeeding two years, quite well. Note that to Cohen's credit he came out against the Russia Hoax in the very early days of the Trump administration, before Team Mueller came into being, and his views have remained consistent. He's saying the same things to Democracy Now that he says to Tucker Carlson. The whole interview can be found here, Stephen Cohen: This is Most Dangerous Moment in U.S.-Russian Relations Since Cuban Missile Crisis, but I've excerpted a large portion of Cohen's comments, which appear to be particularly relevant in light of the recent provocative NYT article and my own recent comments with regard to Trump's national security team (to include Pompeo). So, ...