The United Nations has appointed Sarah Palin as a special envoy to Ukraine, hoping she can help mediate a solution to the growing geopolitical crisis in that country.
According to sources close to the situation, Palin and a team of international crisis experts will fly to Kiev tonight to meet with Ukrainian officials before moving on to Moscow to negotiate a final settlement with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin over the fate of the disputed Crimea region.
The surprising selection comes just days after Palin boasted on Facebook that she had accurately predicted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a 2008 speech.
In an exclusive interview, U.N. President Ban Ki-Moon said he chose Palin because of her impressive first-hand knowledge of the region and hopes she can facilitate a dialogue that avoids war.
“When all the experts said Putin would never invade Ukraine, only Sarah Palin had the courage to challenge conventional wisdom,” he explains. “Clearly this woman is some sort of a genius or something. We can’t let her skills go unused.
“This is a very unusual crisis, and we need to think outside the box. One of my advisers suggested this solution, and I felt it was a risk worth taking. Let’s throw Palin into the mix and see what she can do.”
Polar Opposites
Russia effectively invaded the Ukrainian region of Crimea last week after a pro-European revolution in Kiev threw out President Viktor Yanukovych, a corrupt despot many viewed as a puppet of Moscow.
The peninsula was long in Russian territory, and was only transferred to Ukraine in 1954. The majority of Crimea's population is still ethnically Russian and its warm water ports hold deep strategic significance for the Russian Navy.
Although not usually thought of as a foreign policy expert, Palin did accurately forecast these events in 2008 when at a campaign event she was quoted as saying that Obama’s weakness towards Moscow was “the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next.”
Her comments were ridiculed by many, including Foreign Policy magazine, which labeled them “strange” and “far fetched.” Not content to say I-told-you-so, Palin is now hoping to turn her new-found credibility into meaningful action.
“I’m just hoping to bring a little Wasilla main street to folks over there in Russia,” she says. “Someone needs to go over there and teach Mr. Putin that he can’t be bossing these nice Ukrainese people around.
“Russia’s invasion of Crimea is a gross violation of international law. What kind of country invades another country that hasn't attacked it first? I mean, who does that?”
Although the pick has already attracted fierce criticism and disdain around the world, Secretary Ban is confident that he’s chosen the right woman for the task.
“If it’s one thing I know about Sarah Palin, it’s that she never quits a job half-way through. I believe she can end this crisis once and for all,” he asserts.
