On Aug. 1, 1991, just four months before Ukraine declared its independence of Russia, George H.W. Bush warned Kiev's legislature: “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”

In short, Ukraine's independence was never part of America's agenda. From 1933 to 1991, it was never a U.S. vital interest.

When did this issue of whose flag flies over Donetsk or Crimea become so crucial that we would arm Ukrainians to fight Russian-backed rebels and consider giving a NATO war guarantee to Kiev, potentially bringing us to war with a nuclear-armed Russia?

From FDR on, U.S. presidents have felt that America could not remain isolated from the rulers of the world's largest nation. Ike invited Nikita Khrushchev to tour the USA after he had drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. After Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba, JFK was soon calling for a new detente at American University.

The point: Every president from FDR through George H.W. Bush, even after collisions with Moscow far more serious than this clash over Ukraine, sought to re-engage the men in the Kremlin.

Avoidance of a catastrophic war demanded engagement.

How then can we explain the clamor of today's U.S. foreign policy elite to confront, isolate and cripple Russia, and make of Vladimir Putin a moral and political leper with whom honorable statesmen can never deal?

In Ukraine, Putin responded to a U.S.-backed coup, which ousted a democratically elected political ally of Russia, with a bloodless seizure of the pro-Russian Crimea, where Moscow has berthed its Black Sea fleet since the 18th century.

And though Putin put an army on Ukraine's border, he did not order it to invade or occupy Luhansk or Donetsk. Does this really look like a drive to reassemble the Soviet Empire of Stalin that reached to the Elbe?

As for the downing of the Malaysian airliner, Putin did not order that. Intel intercepts seem to indicate that Ukrainian rebels thought they had hit an Antonov military transport plane.

Yet the leading foreign policy voice of the Republican Party, Sen. John McCain, calls President Obama's White House “cowardly” for not arming the Ukrainians to fight the Russian-backed separatists.

But suppose Putin responded to the arrival of U.S. weapons in Kiev by occupying Eastern Ukraine.

What motivates Putin seems simple and understandable. He wants the respect due a world power. He sees himself as protector of the Russians left behind in his “near abroad.” He relishes playing big power politics. History is full of such men.

He allows U.S. overflights to Afghanistan, cooperates in the P5+1 on Iran, helped us rid Syria of chemical weapons, launches our astronauts into orbit and collaborates in the war on terror.

But what motivates those on our side who seek every opportunity to restart the Cold War? Is it not a desperate desire to appear once again heroic, once again relevant, as they saw themselves in the Cold War that ended so long ago?

Who is the real problem here?

Pat Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.”

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