When Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, Republicans, still bitter over the election loss of Mitt Romney, had a party with “I told you so” moments.

In a debate during the 2012 presidential campaign, President Barack Obama mocked Romney for labeling Russia as our nation’s biggest geopolitical foe, telling Romney that the ‘80s were calling and wanting their foreign policy back. Now that Crimea is unofficially officially part of Russia, there have been days, if not weeks, of GOP sore losers gloating that Obama was wrong.

The previous phrase was written that way intentionally. I did not vote for Obama — either time — but even from my independent point of view, this is ridiculous.

Republicans have, for the last five years or so, opposed policy issues simply because Obama supported them, and they now are celebrating the fact that he was wrong as though it means anything at all.

They seem to forget that Russia invaded the nation of Georgia and President George W. Bush did nothing at all. Moreover, Russian troops were still there during the Olympics.

There is a plausible argument that the reason we are in this situation is the adversarial stance post-Cold War Republicans took against Russia.

When Nazi Germany fell we helped rebuild it; when the Soviet Union fell, not only did we allow Russia to struggle through poverty until oil prices boosted their economy, but rather than disband NATO — the organization responsible for combating Russia — or allow Russia to join as an ally, we added countries to NATO, sending the message that winning the Cold War was not enough. We wanted to wipe our feet on Russia. Is it any wonder they don’t respect us?

The only difference is that now Republicans have turned their adversarial tone toward our own country.

Obama is weak on Russia, they say. Obama should have known this was going to happen, we are told. Obama needs to do more. It’s time to call their bluff.

The sanctions put in place are the only options world leaders have had. If we sent weapons or armed our missile defense systems in eastern Europe right now, we would just send the message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that we are looking a fight — something not even Republicans want.

In fact, when Romney was asked what he would do if he had won the election, his answer said more about the Republican party than about his leadership. He said he would have simply had the sanctions ready to go the second Putin invaded Crimea. Plain English translation: I would have done exactly what Obama did but I would have read Putin’s mind and done it sooner.

Let’s remember that no Republicans knew this would happen either until the ousted leader of Ukraine turned up in Russia. Freezing a Swiss bank account three days earlier does nothing to deter a man willing to invade a country unprovoked, and Romney is not stupid enough to seriously think so. If Republicans actually cared about Ukraine even half as much as they care about trying to make Obama look bad, we might not be in this situation in the first place.

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