Article published October 17, 2009
Suckered by the Russians
HILLARY Clinton was in Russia last week, hoping to "reset" relations with the Russians which, she said, had been damaged by the policies of George W. Bush.
As a token of the Obama Administration's intentions, Mrs. Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a large, red "reset" button when they met in Geneva in March.
But instead of the Russian word for "reset" (perezagruzka), Mrs. Clinton used on her mock button the word "peregruzka," which means "overcharged." The Russian press had a field day.
That gaffe was a harbinger of things to come.
Mrs. Clinton had hoped last week to meet with the real power in Russian politics, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
He thought a trip to Siberia and China was more important than spending time with the American secretary of state.But Mr. Putin wasn't too busy to pull the rug out from under the sole Obama Administration foreign policy "triumph" to date.
In September, President Obama unilaterally abrograted missile defense agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic in order to appease Russia.
Conservatives - myself emphatically among them - denounced both this betrayal of our allies, and that this enormous concession had been made, apparently, without a quid pro quo.
But at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23, the New York Times reported that Mr. Obama had wrung "a concession from Russia to consider tough new sanctions against Iran."
"With a beaming Mr. Obama standing next to him, [Russian President Dmitri] Medvedev signaled for the first time that Russia would be amenable to long-standing American requests to toughen sanctions against Iran significantly if, as expected, nuclear talks scheduled for [October] failed to make progress," said reporters Helene Cooper and David Sanger.
"White House officials could barely hide their glee. Privately, several administration officials did acknowledge that missile defense might have had something to do with Moscow's newfound verbal cooperation on the Iran sanctions issue," they continued.
As expected, the Iranians offered no concessions on their nuclear program at their meeting Oct. 1 with the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany).
But in Beijing Wednesday, Mr. Putin said sanctions on Iran were "premature," and could be "counterproductive."
"There is no need to frighten the Iranians," Mr. Putin said. "We need to look for a compromise."
"Putin's supposed concern for Iranian fearfulness - a quality they have not manifested in six years of openly developing nuclear weapons - is really a veiled way of ridiculing the naivete of U.S. officials in a fashion that Putin is sure they will not understand," said David Satter, a Russian expert at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
The day before, Mr. Lavrov told Mrs. Clinton to her face that Russia was taking back its apparent pledge to support sanctions.
"At the current stage, all forces should be thrown at supporting the negotiating process," Mr. Lavrov said.
"Threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive," he added.
So the Obama people did sell out our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic for nothing. And now they look like yutzes for doing it.
"This episode captures Obama's approach to international affairs and underscores its dangers," wrote Peter Wehner, a speechwriter for former President George W. Bush.
"The President is weak and flaccid when it comes to our adversaries, and unreliable and unsteady when it comes to our allies. America's enemies don't respect us, and our allies increasingly don't trust us," he also wrote.
Mr. Wehner worked for Mr. Bush and could be expected to be critical. But New Republic Editor Martin Peretz was one of Mr. Obama's most prominent supporters.
"Mr. Obama hasn't reset the relationship with Russia," Mr. Peretz recently wrote.
"He was taken for a ride. Maybe his vanity won't let him admit it. But believe me, the Russians know they have taken him [and us] for a big ride, indeed," Mr. Peretz continued.
And finally, Mr. Satter warned that the "Unilateral concessions by Americans and the absence of criticism [of Russian duplicity] will be treated by the Russians as a sign of weakness and an invitation to new adventures at the expense of persons they do not respect."
Jack Kelly is a columnist for The Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Contact him at: jkelly@post-gazette.com
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