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Glenn Garvin: How to strike at Putin where it hurts | Opinion | McClatchy DC
Neither the United States nor anyone else is going to get into a war over who controls Crimea. And if Obama proposes economic sanctions, he'll find himself pretty much going it alone.
Russia, as the world's third-largest producer of both oil and natural gas, is just too important for most countries to play economic hardball with. The Western European nations who are most dismayed by Putin's adventuring in Ukraine are also the least able to do anything about it: More than a third of their natural gas is supplied by Russia.
Fortunately, Obama has some options that won't require him to ask Congress for a supplemental appropriation for red-paint thinner. Without risking a life or spending a penny, he can bring crushing pressure to bear on Putin. All he's got to do is borrow a page from Ronald Reagan's foreign-policy playbook.
Snip...
Reagan's military confrontations with Putin's Soviet predecessors - the contras, the mujahedeen, Star Wars - are well-known. But his most effective policy is less remembered: Reagan relentlessly jawboned Saudi Arabia to boost its oil production.
That increased supply and decreased prices, ripping the heart out of Moscow's oil-export business, sent its already shaky economy into a tailspin. Less than a decade later, the Soviet Union collapsed.
Obama can do the same thing to Putin, without even asking for help from Saudi Arabia. All he has to do is stop interfering with the U.S. production of natural gas through fracking, and stop blocking construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Glenn Garvin: How to strike at Putin where it hurts | Opinion | McClatchy DC