Nikolai Zlobin is the Director for Russian and Asian Studies at the Center for Defense Information and editor-in-chief of the Washington Profile News Agency. nzlobin@cdi.org

On June 1st George Bush will embrace Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg and congratulate him on the anniversary of his native city. Speeches will be made about the need for strengthening Russian-American relations, and revelations will be made that the recent sparring over Iraq did not hurt the fundamental partnership of the two countries. There has already been a dress rehearsal for this ceremony, in the form of Colin Powell's short trip to Moscow. But that recent visit, just like Putin's speech in the Federal Council, went virtually unnoticed by the American mass media and political elite. The disagreement over Iraq and the unprecedented storm of anti-American hysteria that squalled over Russia have severely downgraded it on Washington's current list of countries that the American establishment considers important as potential partners.

The bitter reality is that relations between the two countries are their lowest point in the last ten years. Differences over Iraq have forced us to see what we had previously ignored - there are sharp, fundamental, perhaps even intractable differences between Russia and the US, in their approach to building a new world order and a system of global security, in their understanding of contemporary threats as well as how the threats must be met, and in their attitude toward international law. A moment of mutual honesty is upon us. The conflict over Iraq has concluded an entire epoch in our relations.

After the end of the Cold War we stopped seeing each other as enemies. Today, Washington has stopped looking at Russia as an ally and a partner. As a result, the American elite's interest in the country has dropped to zero, and if you ask a member of the Bush administration a question about Russia, you are likely to get a perplexed pause, followed by hollow words about how yes, it would be nice to be friends, but, you know…

Russian-American relations remind one of a train that long stopped in its tracks, and which has used its engine to sound the horn, while the wheels are frozen in its tracks. The train has become immobile. Russia's loss of prestige and importance in the eyes of Washington is a result of many factors, but Iraq catalyzed the process. Many in America are re-examining Russia as a country that's relatively well-armed, but useless as a partner (recall Thatcher's "Upper Volta with nuclear weapons",) a country that is, moreover, in the midst of a prolonged economic and demographic crisis.

Despite all the harsh critique lobbied at the Bush Administration for the way it conducts foreign policy, we have to face facts: Russia took a deeply mistaken stance on Iraq, and lost more than could afford. Moscow's position was removed from simple pragmatism; it did not correspond to the country's economic or national interests. It was, therefore, in direct contradiction with Russia's main foreign policy principles, as defined repeatedly by Vladimir Putin. Russia's position on Iraq caught Washington off guard.

It now seems that the famous "strategic choice," supposedly made by Putin on Sep.11, was not so strategic after all. Perhaps it was tactical; perhaps emotions played their role that day, but for the past twenty months, the Kremlin has not bothered to explain what this choice means in reality, nor to justify the choice to the Russian society and political elites, nor even take any steps toward realizing that choice. Both sides of the ocean saw the publication of many articles, and even books, about the "revolution in Russian foreign policy". Everyone, it seems, wanted to believe that the choice had really been made, that Vladimir Putin has jettisoned small ideas for grand ones. That's why the disappointment is even more painful.

This cannot all be blamed on the unilateral approach to international affairs displayed by the US, or their egotism, or the series of steps that could hardly be called friendly toward Moscow - from protectionism for the steel industry, to Jackson-Vanick, to forcing Russia out of Afghanistan. The responsibility for failures in Russia's foreign policy lies entirely with Moscow.

The situation with Iraq demonstrated that Russia not only lacks an understanding of today's global processes, but doesn't even have a strategically focused foreign policy. I wouldn't just blame the President. Even if he had made a strategic choice, the outcome would have probably been the same. One of the major lessons of Iraq is that Russia has neither the infrastructure nor the intellectual potential to create an adequate analysis of global events, provide realistic forecasts, or develop an optimal behavior model for the country on the international arena. The individuals and institutions assigned to these tasks were unable to handle them. Moscow betrayed an unacceptable amount of improvisation. Taking into account Russia's nuclear status, an improvisational foreign policy is more than a sovereign policy, but also one that could detrimentally affect other global developments.

In attempting to prevent the march to war, Russia only speeded it up. Moscow's stance facilitated the split in Europe and weakened the European Union, which is in direct contradiction to Russia's interests. Moreover, it amplified the contradictions within NATO and brought about an increased participation of Central and Eastern Europe within that alliance, which will create difficulties for the European line of Russian foreign policy. By attempting to keep the UN's status quo, Moscow facilitated both the organization's downfall and a deep, perhaps irreversible crisis in the Security Council, which is Russia's last bastion of exerting influence upon the world. President Putin has repeatedly emphasized that Russia's geopolitical opportunities are tied to her economic might. But from that point of view, was it not careless to quarrel with the largest economy in the world? Since Russia was unable to become friendly with Japan, the world's second-largest economy, its economic future is more bleak than a few months ago. Russia has already lost the battle for American and Japanese investments, first to China and Southeastern Asia, then to Latin America. If it's not careful, it may lose to Africa next.

I'll repeat: Washington cannot be held blameless for the crisis in Russian-American relations, but that is a different issue. After the end of the Cold War I protested against the thesis of "the necessity for improving Russian-American relations", trying to show that one cannot improve something that was created for different political and international realities. We should not try to improve relations that are not, by definition, improvable, but form new bilateral relations on a fundamentally different conceptual basis, which has yet to take shape. Both sides spent over a decade on "improvement", and are now reposing, seething with mutual irritation, next to the proverbial broken pot of their relations, lacking both meaning and content in their behavior toward each other.

As important as the Bush-Putin friendship is, it's not what Russia needs. It needs not only a well-thought-out, solid foreign policy, not only a fresh elite that can develop one, but also a properly institutionalized structure for its effective implementation. Presidential calls and kisses are not sufficient. Otherwise, when a strategic decision is made, sometime in the future, its realization will not extend beyond a friendly embrace.