Your letter that appeared in the New York Times was an affront to the American people. It sounded like you were scolding a child for bad behavior rather than offering an honest attempt to broker peace. You may have fooled President Obama, but most Americans were not amused.
Your henchman in Syria, president Bashar Assad, is a despot who poisoned his own people with a deadly gas. Yet your letter blamed opposition forces for the attack, despite no evidence. That claim alone undermines the credibility of your plea for caution and diplomacy.
Your offer to mediate the Syrian crisis is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to buy time for Assad. He has enjoyed your nation's loyal support during his reign of terror. This dictator has trampled democracy and embraced thuggish behavior to save his tyrannical regime from crumbling.
You may take credit for stalling an American missile attack, but it is a rather hollow victory. Not many Americans support our president's feeble handling of the crisis and even Congress was prepared to deliver a death knell to his plans for unleashing our military's might.
Americans are not buying your offer of an olive branch in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry may have jumped at the overture, but that is because he was desperate to cover up his own diplomatic ineptness. Americans know Russia has never been on the side of freedom at home or abroad.
That's why it was startling to read your lecture on democracy. To quote your letter: "Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy, but as relying solely on brute force..." The residents of Chechnya must have got a chuckle out of that line.
But the worse offense was thumbing your nose at the notion of "American exceptionalism." I know President Obama used that phrase in his address to the nation, but he doesn't really believe in the concept. It was a throwaway line recited from a teleprompter, not some expression of personal belief.
However, I can tell you Americans do not believe they are exceptional. But they hold dear the idea that our democratic system of government, born out of a devotion to individual liberty, is something that makes the United States unique among all nations.
In fact, they believe it is an idea worth fighting for. It is the reason Americans fought and died in World War II to save the world from Nazi Germany. You may remember it because the world, including Russia, could not have stopped Hitler and his hordes from overrunning Europe without the United States military.
Mr. Putin, my advice is for you not to mistake America's current weakness as a sign things will be this way forever. Leaders change in our country, unlike in Syria. But the American people are not like their present government. They cherish freedom and detest tyranny.
You have built an authoritarian wall to suppress freedom in your own country. It says more about your idea of democracy than a letter ghost-written by some public relations firm. Mr. Putin, tear down that wall before you lecture the world about the United States.
Thank you and God bless America!
Ronald Reagan
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