US PROBLEMS WITH PUTIN
By Dimitri Sidorov And Bill Thomas
UPI Outside View Commentators

United Press International
March 9 2006

WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) — The recent visit to Moscow by leaders
of Hamas should not be viewed as just another attempt by the Kremlin
to create confusion in Washington.

The Hamas meeting, coupled with Russia’s agreement to sell arms
to the terrorist group now in charge of the Palestinian Authority,
indicates something much more problematic in U.S.-Russia relations,
namely Moscow’s desire to return to the Middle East with a well-planned
campaign to unite all parties dissatisfied with American policy in
the region.

In fact, the Kremlin’s latest moves suggest that Russian President
Vladimir Putin may be reviving the cold war-era Primakov Doctrine.

Originated by former Soviet hard-liner and current Putin adviser
Yevgeny Primakov, the strategy was designed to challenge the United
States and its NATO allies on every major political and strategic
front.

Some Kremlin experts in Washington believe Russia has only a reactive
foreign policy, responding to events as they occur without any specific
long-term agenda. But an arms sale to Syria, a missile deal with Iran
and the get together with Hamas hardly fit that pattern.

All of this indicates a growing political struggle between Washington
and Moscow. “U.S.-Russia relations are clearly headed in the
wrong direction,” concluded a new report by the Council on Foreign
Relations. The Kremlin wants to be a player again in the old Soviet
sphere of influence, and its ambitions have gone largely unchecked
by a White House preoccupied with Iraq.

Moscow has insinuated itself into the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict;
become an obstacle in territorial disputes going on in independent
Moldova and Georgia; increased political pressure in Ukraine, trying
to reverse its failure in last year’s presidential election; and
formed an alliance with Uzbekistan after a popular revolt and the
expulsion of the U.S. military from that country.

Following a trial run in the ex-Soviet republics, the Kremlin has
turned its full attention to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.

Unlike the Soviet policy of backing rogue terrorist groups, Putin
and his Kremlin colleagues have set out to create a support network
of rogue nations dedicated to frustrating the United States and
its allies.

Helped by the war in Iraq, Moscow has strengthened ties with several
neighboring countries unhappy about Washington’s policies, particularly
Iran where American and European resolve faces a crucial test.

For more than a decade the White House tried unsuccessfully to persuade
Russia to end its nuclear cooperation with Iran. American suspicions
about “peaceful, financially based” relations between Moscow and Tehran
grew stronger when Russians began work on an Iranian nuclear facility.

Moscow has not only continued to assist with Iran’s potentially
threatening nuclear program, the Russian government has some in the
West convinced it can be trusted to enrich Iran’s uranium, though
talks on the matter between Russian and Iranian negotiators have so
far gone nowhere.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration seems uncertain about what its next
move should be. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice still insists the
United States “has very good relations with Russia, perhaps the best
we’ve had in the long time.” The report issued by Council of Foreign
Relations sharply disagrees with that assessment.

So does a former CIA official, citing the administration’s lack of
leverage with Moscow as one reason for escalating tensions over Iran.

At this point the Russians are pretending to cooperate, he added. The
moment of truth will come when Kremlin strategy shifts to outright
opposition, in other words when the Primakov Doctrine gives way to the
approach perfected by longtime Soviet Foreign Ministry Andrei Gromyko,
whose penchant for defying the United States earned him the nickname
“Mr. Nyet.”

And that’s when Washington’s real problems begin.

—

(Dmitry Sidorov is the Washington correspondent for Kommersant Daily.

Bill Thomas is the author of “Red Tape: Adventure Capitalism in the
New Russia” and other books. They are writing a book on US-Russia
relations.)

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress