If he had manipulated America's elections, in whose favor would Putin have manipulated them? Trump? Hillary? Bernie Sanders? Let's agree to eliminate Sanders. He may have gotten more votes than expected, but Bernie was always a long shot. That left Putin with Trump and Hillary. Of the two, Hillary was clearly the more venal. Trump, on the other hand, was less experienced.
Neither Hillary nor Trump was out and out stupid. Not like Obama with his red lines. In foreign affairs, Obama seemed like a rank amateur. Look at that agreement he arrived at with Iran. Look at all that cash he released to Iran. Look how he stuck it to America's ally, the Saudis. Putin would have liked Obama to have had a third term but that, of course, was not possible with America's term limits. One didn't need spies in America to know that Obama hated Israel's Netanyahu. For Putin that was a very good thing. Netanyahu knew the game. It therefore wasn't in Putin's interest to get behind someone who was smart and might become close to Netanyahu.
Venal Hillary or stupid Trump? In the end, Putin chose to do what he could to help Trump. Anyway, if Hillary had gotten elected, Putin had enough on her to have her toe his line. But Trump struck him as callow and without any experience in the game of international chess.
In the end, backing Trump had it's good points and bad points. The Americans are a moralistic people. If they think they've caught someone in a compromising position, they love waggling their finger at the culprit. The ramifications of finger waggling generally escape them. When Bashar Assad once again used poison gas on his people, Trump, having told him not to do this, unleashed a number of rockets at Syrian airfields. Trump had set forth no red lines. There was no finger waggling. Trump had given warning and now the Syrians got their retribution. Suddenly, Putin realized that he may have misjudged Trump. But it was too late. Trump had become president.
But his efforts to help Trump get elected did have some positive aspects for Putin. The Americans could only suggest that he, Putin, had made an effort to get Trump elected. However, it was impossible to know whether Trump's victory stemmed from Putin's efforts to help him. And now that Trump was proving smarter than Putin had anticipated, it was fun seeing the American political system tear away at Trump because the Russians, had allegedly tried to help him through various dirty tricks.
Indeed, the Americans had launched an endless investigation of Trump and his friends as to how the Russians had enabled Trump to win the election. Putin couldn't help but admire Trump's resilience in standing up to the American political system in its efforts to tear him down.
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