#7
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
May 22, 2003
A JACKAL BESIDE THE AMERICAN LION
An interview with Nixon Center President Dimitri K. Simes
Author: Yevgeny Verlin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

THE POSITION OF THE ANTI-IRAQ COALITION IS NOW MUCH STRONGER, SINCE IT WON THE WAR. OTHER NATIONS THAT OPPOSED IT IN THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL, RUSSIA AMONG THEM, ARE SEEKING TO RESTORE GOOD RELATIONS WITH THE US. YET IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR THEM IF THEY HAD SUPPORTED THE COALITION FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.

Dimitri K. Simes, president of the influential Nixon Center in the United States, has visite Moscow. His visits always precede talks between the Russian and American presidents. Simes met with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumiantsev, and head of the Duma international affairs committee Dmitry Rogozin. At the end of his visit, Dimitri K. Simes gave us an interview.

Question: President Putin has repeatedly claimed that Russia's priority in the Iraq matter is to protect the principles of international law first, and then Russia's own economic interests. They also talked in Moscow about it being "unacceptable to legitimize the outcome of a war and an occupation regime through the UN." How do you think the "principles and interests" are being combined?

Dimitri Simes: Sure, it is a good business, principles. But states interpret them differently. The US believe it represents international community principles and reflect the will of the UN Security Council (SC) that manifested itself in the combination of many resolutions on Iraq, although in the event this did not materialize in the form of the SC being prepared to act consistently, in accordance with its previous decisions. Russia also thinks it is following principles, but it interpreted the same resolutions in a different way. I don't think this an unambiguous situation when it is possible to say that the other side is knowingly and cynically distorting international law and breaking its principles.

I believe this is not a case of strictly defined arithmetic, where two times two is necessarily four. Much depends on the perspective and, if you like, on the interpretation of one's own interests. As the only remaining superpower, with armed forces of an unprecedented scale, the US does not want the Security Council to become a strait-jacket for America's foreign policy. Meanwhile, Russia, having no similar opportunities currently, its role as a power being linked first with its nuclear arsenals and secondly with its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, naturally wanted to raise the role of the Council and the significance of mandatory compliance with its resolutions. There is nothing reprehensible in either this or that.

Question: Maybe all issues should be settled "quietly", within the G8, for example, rather than at the UN?

Dimitri Simes: I would not like to belittle the G8, but the existence of a new format to make decisions does not make it unnecessary to be objective about positions of the sides and to understand that the sides may not agree on account that their interests do not coincide, because they have different perspectives. But this, first, should be treated calmly, and second, everyone should understand that on key issues sovereign states will take positions that are natural to them. This does not mean that it is impossible sometimes to smooth some things to please an important partner. But this again is a matter of determining a nation's interests, but not the result of using some format to make decisions.

Question: Only recently, Russia, France, and Germany on the one hand and the US and Britain on the other were not able to reach mutual understanding; but now some points of compromise are being outlined. Why?

Dimitri Simes: Let's speak frankly. The situation has changed drastically: the US and Britain have won the war.

Question: However, didn't "the opposition" take this scenario into account?

Dimitri Simes: I believe this is something that one not only ought to have computed, but ought to have proceeded from... What is new about the situation presently is that the Americans no longer can be "stopped" - they are already there. The US and Britain are capable of determining Iraq's future in the present phase. Everyone understands that new realities have sprung up after the war, and that these new realities have reinforced positions of the US and Britain and weakened positions of the UN SC. Look: Washington and London got by without the Security Council, but the latter did nothing in this respect, it did not try to stop the US and Britain in any way, or adopt any resolutions with a view to that. And the states that opposed the coalition in the UN SC are currently seeking to rebuild bridges with Washington and London.

Question: But what about Moscow's former major statements that we would not permit "the legitimization of the outcome of war and an occupation regime by America's scenario?"

Dimitri Simes: Russia is not going to veto the present resolution on Iraq. And if Russia votes for it, this will make the resolution absolutely legitimate, including from Moscow's standpoint. As for Iraq's debts, this issue has been transferred to the Paris Club of creditor nations, where most debts will be rescheduled or written off. I can see why Moscow does not want to make this unilaterally - it would lead to anarchy in international financial relations. I am sure that this problem is in "the right" channel and there is not clash of Russia and American interests here.

Question: In recent years, Russia supplied goods to the value of 40% of earnings from Iraq's oil exports. Let alone oil contracts. What will happen to that now?

Dimitri Simes: The matter concerns substantial economic interests of your nation. Sure, if Russia had joined the coalition from the very beginning and participated in formulating tasks of the coalition from the very beginning, including approaches to economic interests, then, as often happens when one "orders the music", it would have more opportunities to dance those exact "dances" it would like... Look in how many issues (including the working out of joint draft resolutions) Bush came to meet Blair! Because Blair at the earliest stage had made a decision to join the coalition against Saddam, but at the same time he had decided he would influence the situation from within this coalition through dialogue with the Bush administration. As for Russia, it adopted a different pattern - not the "internal," but an "external" one. And this stripped the US of support in the UN SC and made it more difficult for the US to wage this war in respect of legitimacy and in the purely military respect. But, in turn, it made it more difficult both for Russia and the rest of "the opposition" to protect their interests. This does not mean that Russia's interests would not be taken into account though.

Question: I have just recollected the statement of a Russian political expert that it is not appropriate for Russia to become "a jackal at the side of the American lion"...

Dimitri Simes: You know, Russia and the US are in an asymmetrical situation presently. It was not the US that created this situation, but in many respects the Russians themselves. When George H. W. Bush went to Kiev in 1991 and spoke of the danger of extreme nationalism, at that time Boris Yeltsin was actively destroying the USSR suggesting everyone "taking as much sovereignty as possible..." The Soviet Union was destroyed by those who decided that Russia was the basis for it and that it no longer wished to be that basis. Sure, the economic processes that led to this had not started under Gorbachev though. However, they were sped up under him and continued in the 1990s. So as a result of these processes Russia ceased to play that role the USSR had played in the past. Some people think there is nothing bad in this and that in the future Russia will be able to make up for this, that the rejection of the totalitarian system was worth such breaking. But here is something these people cannot say presently: that now when the second superpower has been destroyed, the whole world should treat it as before. It is impossible.

Accordingly, the dynamics of Russian-American relations have changed. Russia is not an equal partner to America now. Just as no other country is America's principal partner in the global sense. If anyone feels nostalgia for the imperial majesty of days gone by, I cannot deny this to anyone. But only until the nostalgia has led to night-blindness, so that people cease to see what is happening in the real world and where a nation's real interests lie. Alas, they cannot be isolated from a nation's real capacities.

(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky)

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