[A-List] US Imperialism: Russia

["annewilliamson" <annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

Join the team, Boys. -A.

My message to Putin: Call President Bush (Dick Morris)
The Hill ^ | 4/23/03 | Dick Morris

MOSCOW.

A week in the Russian capital meeting with the staff of former President
Boris Yeltsin and the Russian experts on America makes clear how far
President Vladimir Putin has strayed from Moscow's real interests in his
misguided policy on Iraq.

In Moscow for the Russian-language publication of my book, The New Prince, I
gave a lengthy interview to Izvestya, the leading Russian daily newspaper,
which ran on the front page. I used the opportunity to underscore the error
the Russian president had made in siding with the likes of France and
Germany, rather than deepening and broadening the budding relations between
himself and President Bush.

With the end of the economic determinalism of foreign policy under President
Clinton and the return to the more traditional military and diplomatic
motivations for our international relations brought on by the war on terror,
Russia has a new role to play. But Putin doesn't get it.

A minor economic power, Yeltsin's and Putin's Russia had to sit on the
sidelines as Japan and the European Union took center stage alongside the
United States in a new world order founded on neoliberal economic and trade
policies. But now that global economic trade and shared free markets have
been increasingly achieved and the threats of terrorism have taken their
place as our key concerns, Russia need no longer wait in the wings.

With its huge land mass, borders with many trouble spots, its traditional
relations with such problem states as Iran, North Korea and Syria, its role
in the arms trade and its remaining military and intelligence powers, Moscow
has a future that dwarfs that of either France or Germany. Indeed, in the
ruins of the United Nations, one can easily see a return to the Big Three of
World War II vintage in which the roles of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill
are played by their more prosaic successors: Bush, Putin and Blair.

It is no longer time for Russia to play for small stakes by cooperating with
France in the hopes that some oil contracts will fall from the table.
Instead, Putin should seize the opportunity to reassert a role for Russia by
taking his seat at a more important table - not the round one of the U.N.
Security Council where irrelevant nations such as France, Angola and Chile
presume to dictate world affairs but a triangular table where the Big Three
lead the world.

Nor should Putin be overly concerned about opposition by the Russian people
to cooperation with the United States in the war on terror. If Russia can
re-emerge on the global stage as a major power, rather than a supplicant
seeking aid or a scavenger looking for contracts, the Russian people will be
thrilled and will reward Putin with even higher ratings than the 60 percent
of which he now boasts.

Unfortunately, Putin doesn't seem to realize that the world has changed and
that the Russian policy of looking to the United Nations and relying on its
Security Council seat as its base of power in a world dominated by the big
economies undervalues the potential of Russian power. Bush likely would and
certainly should welcome Putin into the Big Three as an ally and partner in
the eradication of global terrorism, a goal as important to Russia with its
Muslim neighbors as it is to the United States and Britain.

Compare the power of Tony Blair and Putin. The British leader, who accepted
a seat at the Big Three table, has enormous influence over U.S. policy. Bush
would have gone to war nearly a year ago but for Blair's insistence on
pursuing U.N. approval.

Both because of his nation's contribution and his personal persuasiveness as
he sits at Bush's side, Blair is a power on the world stage. By contrast,
Putin can get invited only to the losers club with France, Germany and U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan. There they can raise alternate toasts of
vodka, champagne and beer to their lost era of world power.

It's time for Putin to realize that he can get back in the game and to give
Bush a call. Anyway, that's what I said in Izvestya. I hope Vladimir
Vladimirovich reads it and The Hill.

Dick Morris is a former consultant to President Clinton, Sen. Trent Lott
(R-Miss.) and other political figures.