WaPo editorial board unimpressed with MEC's latest sanctions on Russia

Once in a while, that paper has a moment of clarity.  Such is the case today:

 New U.S. sanctions announced Monday fall well short of the steps that senior officials threatened when the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine began three weeks ago.

No wonder that, even as he announced them, Mr. Obama expressed skepticism that they would work. “We don’t expect there to be an immediate change in Russia’s policy,” a top aide told reporters. This official acknowledged that the United States could take steps that would impose “severe damage on the Russian economy” but was holding them back. The obvious question is: Why would the United States not aim to bring about an immediate change in Russian behavior that includes sponsorship of murder, torture and hostage-taking?

It looks to the editorial board like

 . . . the U.S. sanctions policy is “calibrated” less toward rescuing Ukraine than toward avoiding steps that would ruffle feathers in Brussels or set back U.S. economic growth in an election year.

Those are understandable motives, but they ought to be trumped by the imperative of standing unambiguously against the first forcible change of borders in Europe since World War II. By choosing not to use the economic weapons at his disposal and broadcasting that restraint to the world, Mr. Obama is telling Mr. Putin as well as other potential aggressors that they continue to have little to fear from the United States. 

But, according to the Most Equal Comrade, post-America doesn't deserve to assume a leadership role on the world stage, because imperfections  dot its history.

And so the world moves past its civilizational peak and into a more brutish age.