Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Obama’s misguided wooing of an uninterested Putin

Washington Post

Putin’s response was to claim that he needed to skip Camp David in order to put together a new government cabinet — even though he is now the president, not the prime minister. Some Russian analysts dismissed that explanation; they posited that Putin was offended by the State Department’s mild criticism of the beatings of demonstrators during his inauguration last week. Others speculated that he was managing serious behind-the-scenes power struggles.

Either way, Putin appears lukewarm at best about the main cause of Obama’s focus on him: his ambition to conclude a groundbreaking nuclear weapons accord in 2013. The deal would go well beyond the New START treaty of 2010 and aim at a radical, long-term reduction of the U.S. and Russian arsenals. It would be Obama’s legacy achievement on the foreign-policy issue that most engages him, and the retroactive justification for his Nobel Peace Prize.

Putin, however, doesn’t seem terribly interested. A seven-point directive on relations with the United States he issued last week listed “further reduction of strategic offensive arms” sixth, and said they “are possible only within the context of taking into account any and all factors influencing global strategic stability.” That means missile defense: Point seven reiterates Moscow’s demand for “firm guarantees” about U.S. anti-ballistic missile systems.

Obama’s fixation on a nuclear deal has prompted a major turnaround in his treatment of Putin, whom he shunned for three years in the hope of promoting the supposedly more “reformist” Dmitry Medvedev. Though he might have waited several days to call, Obama nevertheless congratulated Putin on an election that international observers said was neither free nor fair. He has made repeal of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which limits U.S. trade with Russia, a priority in Congress this spring.