Posts Tagged ‘reset’
Time to Abandon ‘Reset’? : Obama’s hope that Russia would change under Medvedev has not worked out
When pressed to name the foreign-policy successes achieved under President Obama’s watch, administration officials routinely cite the president’s “reset” of relations with Russia as one of the most important. With Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s announcement on September 24 that he will run next year for the Russian presidency, this may soon change.
Putin’s announcement should not have come as a shock to anyone. Skeptics of the Obama administration’s efforts to “reset” relations have seen this coming since the policy was announced to much fanfare in March 2009.
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Give the next Russian ambassador a powerful tool to guard human rights
Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Michael McFaul as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia highlights one of three steps that Congress should take this fall related to Russia and U.S.-Russian relations.
The Senate should confirm McFaul, who has served as President Obama’s top adviser on Russia at the National Security Council. Second, both the House and Senate should waive the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which deals with emigration of Soviet Jews as it applies to Russia, and third, they should replace it with an up-to-date bill that would sanction Russian officials responsible for gross human rights abuses. These moves would strengthen McFaul’s hand as he heads to Moscow.
Notwithstanding some serious concerns we have had with Obama’s “reset” policy — we think the administration has oversold its successes, essentially ignored Russia’s neighbors and done too little on human rights concerns — McFaul is a renowned Russia expert, a strong proponent of democracy promotion (he recently wrote a book on the subject) and deserves the Senate’s support.
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Helping Russia avoid Putin kleptocracy
Revolutions often ignite over pervasive corruption – or rather when enough people demand integrity in government. Arabs had that aha moment this year. In Russia, the moment may be soon with news that Vladimir Putin plans to take back the presidency.
Mr. Putin does not appear the greedy sort, but his harsh consolidation of power has created a political system ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt – worse than Haiti’s or Nigeria’s. Other nations might want to start planning for another Russian revolution in coming years, given what the US Embassy in Moscow has called a “virtual mafia state” centered on the Kremlin.
Polls show a declining popularity among Russians for the once highly admired Putin. And the widespread corruption – estimated at $300 billion a year in kickbacks and bribes – will only hinder necessary reforms to prevent economic troubles as Russia’s oil production declines.
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Barack Obama’s UN speech goes from cutting to confused
Here’s a quick take on President Obama’s just-concluded address before the UN General Assembly:
1. There’s a reasonable chance he’ll have to give another speech reaffirming – sorry, “clarifying” – his commitment to a free and independent Palestine. In short, Barack barracked Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO’s heedless effort to unilaterally attain statehood via plebiscite. Obama, incensed that the Palestinians would go around him in this way after all the work he put into the “peace process,” stuck mainly to a US election-year script on the issue. GOP front-runner Rick Perry has accused this administration of selling-out Israel. So Obama tilted back: America has got an “unshakable” attachment to Israeli security (an old line); men, women and children in southern Israeli are being bombarded with thousands of rockets and mortars from terrorists in Gaza (true); Israeli adolescents grow up knowing that their counterparts in Arab countries are being taught to hate them (long true); and – in a nice little double-barreled blast aimed right between the narrowly spaced eyes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad- the Jewish state faces an existential threat to be “wiped off the map” and the Holocaust is a fact that cannot be denied.
One PLO representative in the audience was shown shaking his head “no” during some of this (contrast to Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s blinkless, Aztec-faced stare throughout.). The full statehood bid at the UN Security Council may be averted anyway in a last-minute compromise, as Adrian Blomfeld just reported.
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For U.S. And Russia, Distrust Still Runs High
NPR
President Obama’s policy of engagement with Russia has paid off in several concrete achievements, including a nuclear arms control agreement and greater cooperation on Iran and Afghanistan.
But both supporters and critics of the so-called reset policy worry that further victories will be harder to win. Both nations are distracted by presidential politics, preventing policymakers from talking seriously about matters such as missile defense.
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Kremlin Sees No Reset in Historic Cameron Visit
A top Kremlin aide cautioned on Sunday that no “reset” looms in long-troubled relations with Britain, hours before Prime Minister David Cameron was to arrive in Moscow for the first visit by a British leader in six years.
Cameron is leading a delegation including Foreign Secretary William Hague and BP chief executive Bob Dudley to talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that he hopes will boost economic ties and perhaps mend some fences.
Relations have been strained since the polonium poisoning death of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006 and the Russian government refused to extradite Britain’s prime suspect, State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi.
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Russia Squanders Its Chance at Democracy
In late August, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev appointed Georgy Poltavchenko governor of St. Petersburg. Poltavchenko has served as presidential envoy to Russia’s central-administrative district since 2000. More importantly, he is a loyalist to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and a KGB veteran. He replaces Valentina Matviyenko, another Putin confidante, who has moved on to chair the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament. Sergey Mironov, the former speaker of the Federation Council, is out. All this game of musical chairs has little to do with either President Medvedev or significant democratic developments. Rather, it demonstrates how Putin is rearranging his insiders.
Planned in secret as early as July, Poltavchenko’s appointment highlights the deep gap between democratic rhetoric and practice in today’s Russia. Analyzing the move, Nikolay Petrov, the Moscow Carnegie Endowment regional-politics expert, sounded baffled:
If United Russia were suffering from low ratings in St. Petersburg and the unpopular Matviyenko was dragging the party even further down, why replace her with a gray, low-profile presidential envoy who has about as much charisma as State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov? For all of her shortcomings—and there were many of them—Matviyenko at least was a colorful and charismatic politician.
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Moscow Martyr
When David Cameron arrives in Moscow this month for the first visit by a British prime minister since the Litvinenko murder five years ago, both sides will be keen to downplay the issue of human rights. In his talks with President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, there will doubtless be echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s remark when she first met Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984: “We can do business together.”
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Don’t Let Russia Use Iran as a Bargaining Chip
Several events in recent days indicate deepening ties between Iran and Russia. Last Monday, Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev paid an official two-day visit to Iran. Patrushev predictably held talks with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council head Saeed Jalili. In an effort to highlight warming relations between the two countries, he also met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. The next day Salehi traveled to Moscow at the invitation of his Russian counterpart.
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