#3
Moscow Times
February 27, 2003
Editorial
Walking a Fine Line to Drive a Hard Bargain

There is something slightly alarming in Russia's new, more hard-line stance toward the United States over Iraq.

President Vladimir Putin changed the tone last weekend when he warned of the dangers of U.S. and British warmongering and called on the military to be ready to defend Russia's interests. Then this week Russia, which had been straddling both sides, jumped firmly into the French and German camp.

This is not to say the problem of Iraq should not be solved peacefully if possible or that the UN Security Council should be allowed to be a U.S. rubber stamp.

But the worry is that Russia will ruin its new relationship with the United States and get nothing in return.

Most likely we are seeing the hand of the old guard in the military and foreign policy establishment at work. They are still smoldering from Putin's turn toward the United States after Sept. 11 and want revenge.

They may be tantalizing him with the prospect of a Franco-German-Russian alliance that could act as a counterweight to the United States. But does anyone really think the French and Germans will risk a permanent split with Washington? And does Putin really have that much to gain by courting aging generals and foreign policy wonks?

A reassuring sign that Putin may know what he is doing after all is the presence in Washington this week of presidential chief of staff Alexander Voloshin, as odd as that may sound. Voloshin may not have the nicest reputation in Moscow, but he is said to have been an architect of the post-Sept. 11, pro-U.S. line, and if anyone in the Kremlin knows how to drive a bargain it is Voloshin.

So what does Russia want?

As one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, it wants the institution to continue to be taken seriously. It wants the UN Security Council, not the United States, to be the one to authorize the use of force.

Of more immediate importance, Russia wants to maintain its economic presence in Iraq if Saddam Hussein's regime is ousted. It should ask for and receive guarantees from Washington that its oil contracts will be honored. Considering the billions of dollars that Turkey got for going along with U.S. war plans, this does not seem like too much to ask.

Putin may be playing a smart game by joining the French and Germans in posing a threat to the passage of the U.S.-British resolution for now. In this way he can try to extract as much as possible from the United States.

But he should not let his head be turned by unrealistic thoughts of an alliance with the French and Germans being a real global counterweight and risk doing irreparable damage to relations with the United States, where Russia's real interests lie.

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