RICE, PUTIN AND RESPONSIBILITY
Abdullah Iskandar

Dar Al-Hayat
Oct 16 2007
Lebanon

In her recent difficult dialogue with Russian officials, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice criticized the Kremlin for monopolizing too
much power and for failing to take into consideration international
standards of political transparency or human rights. This verdict came
after the failure Rice and her colleague, Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, to convince President Vladimir Putin with the American intention
to install the missile defense system in countries sharing borders
with Russia. It also probably came after the deduction that Russia
has developed the ability to resist American policy and to prevent the
US from acting as a power capable of imposing its will anyway it wants.

More importantly, the Russians have threatened to reconsider previous
conventional weapon and short-range missile agreements that were
concluded during the Cold War if the US went ahead with its missile
defense system. Rice, an expert on East European affairs, seems to
have also concluded that the Russian resistance is also related to
Russia’s retrieval of cards that were lost by the Soviet Union upon
its collapse. Accordingly, it is possible for Moscow to break the
American siege imposed upon it since the early 1990s.

This is where the American impatience with the Kremlin’s management
of Russian and international affairs comes: a monopoly over powers,
failure to observe international standards, and consequently, Russia’s
slide toward unilateralism. This, according to the US administration,
impedes attempts to solve the problems of the world.

Putin’s exercise of power during his presidential term was far from
perfect, but such a practice in the US is based on an almost absolute
presidential system. Since the neo-conservatives took over some seven
years ago, they pushed this system to the limit on the basis of the
president’s prerogative and according to a special understanding of
the world that was summed up by George W. Bush in a strategic plan.

The strategic plan rests on a simple idea, namely that the US is the
sole global power and has to use all possible means, including military
force, to secure its interests, alone if it has to absent international
support. The outcomes of this policy, culminating since the failure of
the invasion of Iraq, were clearly seen by Putin when he received Rice.

The rift in US relations with Latin American countries, America’s
backyard, after a series of economic and political conflicts, is
linked to an American desire to impose a developmental model that
suits its interests in these countries, and to interfere in their
domestic policies to carry its allies to power. Disagreements with
allies in western Europe are primarily linked to American economic
constraints and to the weak dollar policy. Conflicts also exist
with the majority of industrial nations, whether with respect to
financial policies or the conditions for development and the impact
on the media. This is not to mention the restrictions the US imposes
on developing and emerging nations such as Brazil and China to reduce
their market competitiveness. Above all, the US impedes any form of
collective action within the UN or its agencies if it is not in line
with American interests.

On the hotter and more direct political level, the US has "succeeded"
in creating a problem with Turkey, its closest ally, despite the
fact that the Bush administration is not directly responsible for
this success. Rice did not only fail in Moscow, but also in Ankara
as she failed to provide any assurances to the Turks with respect to
the Kurdish incursions in Iraq where the US has military and security
control, or with respect to the Armenian issue where domestic American
calculations take precedence. Before the crisis with Turkey, the US
policy stumbled in dealing with the Iranian nuclear file, and things
got worse with the consecutive failures in Iraq as well as with the
increasing pressure at home demanding withdrawal. At the same time,
the plan to eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan is facing similar
failures and bringing serious consequences to the other major ally,
Pakistan. If Arab allies have not abandoned Washington yet as a result
of its inability to offer acceptable compromise for the Palestinian
cause, failure to reach a solution primarily can be traced to the fact
that the US pays no heed to international references or resolutions
and insists on unilaterally innovating such a solution.

All these crises have resulted from American unilateralism that is
fundamentally driven by an ideological perception of the self and
a related defensive role. Even if Putin tries to take advantage of
the American failures to satisfy a Russian agenda, the US is no less
responsible for these failures and crises in the first place. It
seems, after all, that Washington considers that others do not even
have the right to defend their own interests.