Today’s Washington Post reports on a bipartisan report released by The Council on Foreign Relations on U.S.-Russia relations. The report makes some good points.
The Bush administration should stop pretending Russia is a genuine strategic partner and adopt a new policy of “selective cooperation” and “selective opposition” to the authoritarian government of President Vladimir Putin, a bipartisan task force has concluded…. The report crystallizes a growing reassessment of Russia in Washington five years after Bush first met Putin and looked into his soul, as the president put it at the time. Rather than champion democracy and Western values, the former KGB colonel has moved to reassert control over Russian society and eliminate opposition. Administration officials have been disturbed by other actions in recent months, including Russian maneuvering to force U.S. troops out of Central Asia, Moscow’s use of energy exports as a weapon against smaller neighbors, and Putin’s outreach to Hamas, the radical Palestinian group that just won parliamentary elections. At the same time, Moscow has moved closer to Washington in the effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Once considered a virtual accessory to Tehran’s alleged nuclear arms program, Russia lately has turned around and collaborated with the Bush administration to pressure the Islamic state to renounce any such ambitions, although the Kremlin still resists sanctions.
China’s leaders haven’t acted much better. They have refused, so far, to put the screws on North Korea; they have cut energy deals with Khartoum and Tehran; and they have opposed any real action in the UN Security Council to end the atrocities in Darfur or pressure Iran to come clean on its nuclear program. UN Ambassador John Bolton isn’t a threat to an effective Security Council. His critics should spend a little more time spotlighting the obstructionism of Moscow and Beijing.
