As he promised, U.S. President Barack Obama has been to Russia and pressed the “reset” button. He left the country for the G8 summit in Italy — and he left with a string of signed agreements, ranging from further bilateral nuclear arms reduction to a deal allowing U.S. troops and munitions to pass through Russian airspace en route to Afghanistan.There is, however, something significant about what was not agreed on the Obama trip. Publicly at least Obama did not budge on the U.S.-European missile shield which Moscow views with some justice as being directed against it rather than some putative threat of missile attack from a nuclear armed Iran or North Korea. Nor was the U.S. president prepared to concede Georgia and Ukraine as being exclusively within the Russian sphere of influence. He also had pointed comments to make about the importance of pluralist democracy in a Russia that has become increasingly authoritarian under president and now Premier Putin.
Any one of these issues could have been used by the Kremlin to sabotage the summit. Instead, the Russians rolled out the formula that both sides agreed to differ on some issues and refused to allow these differences to cloud the sunny protestations of mutual goodwill. What was said in private is of course another matter. The key talks will have been the breakfast meeting with Vladimir Putin who remains Russia’s highly popular strongman and top man in all but name.
Both Putin and Obama have built reputations for straight talking, though the U.S. president always appears to choose his words with care. It is likely that, albeit within the bounds of politeness, neither man held back from expressing his concerns with some force. That each now probably understands the other better is all to the good. It is also interesting that after the meeting, there were none of the Bush-Blair era platitudes about “looking into the whites of a man’s eyes and knowing that this was someone with whom you could do business.”
Indeed the summit was marked by being so business-like. This was a reflection of the immense amount of background work that has been taking place between Moscow and Washington virtually from the day that Obama moved into the Oval Office.
Perhaps the most important effect Obama and his entourage had upon their hosts was the extent to which the Americans treated them as equals. Obama at no time talked down to the Russians. The fundamental flaws of the country’s lopsided oil-dependent economy may have been exposed by the global financial meltdown, its soldiers embarrassed by tactical failures during the Georgian conflict and its nuclear arms in a state of serious decay, but Obama left these unmentioned.
Instead, both sides talked of partnership and abandoning residual Cold War attitudes. The meeting looks to have laid solid foundations for U.S.-Russian relations over the next four Obama years. Though unspecified in post-summit communiqués, the world hopes that the meeting will also have a profound impact on the way Moscow and Washington now work together as members of the Middle East Quartet.
June was a busy month for two of Washington’s real “axis of evil.” Venezuela’s Chavez completed his nationalization of oil and Iran’s Ahmadinejad stemmed a Western-backed color revolution, leaving both in place. What drives U.S. foreign policy? Is it primarily the domestic economy, as it logically
should be, or, as many argue, the powerful Israel lobby, or as others argue, the need to secure energy sources? Of course, the answer is all three, in varying degrees depending on the geopolitical importance of the country in question. And woe to any country that threatens any of the above.
Russia is perhaps a special case, as U.S. politics was dependent for so long on the anti-communist Cold War that ideologues found it impossible to dispense with this useful bugaboo even after the collapse of communism. But it was not only Sovietologists like Condoleezza Rice that perversely prospered from this obsession, but the U.S. domestic economy itself, which was transformed into what is best described as the military-industrial complex (MIC). It would take very little to placate today’s Russia — pull in NATO’s horns and stop pandering to the Russophobes in Eastern Europe — but that would hurt the MIC and would hamper the US plans for empire and oil. So it remains an enemy of choice, though not part of the Axis of Evil. This crude characterization by Bush/Cheney lumped North Korea, Iraq and Iran together as the worst of the worst. With the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the current score is one down, two to go. But North Korea is a red herring. It is merely a very useful Cold War foil, beloved of the MIC, justifying its many useless, lethal weapons programs. A popular whipping boy, a bit of innocent ideological entertainment.
Having knocked out Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and ignoring Korea, we are left with Iran. But Bush could easily have added Venezuela to his list, as it is these two countries that pose the greatest real threat to the U.S. empire. Both have charismatic leaders who not openly denounce US and Israeli empire but do something about it. And both have large, nationalized oil sectors. Chavez’s successful defiance of the U.S. has directly inspired Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay to elect socialist leaders and given Cuba a new lease on life. Ahmadinejad has defied the many Israel-imposed bans on supporting the Palestinian resistance and even publicly questioned the legitimacy of Israel itself. These bold and principled men are thereby pariahs, albeit useful ones for the MIC, along with their Cold War ghost Kim Jong Il. That is the catch. While the empire officially frets, the U.S. military-based economy thrives on its official enemies. It would collapse without them. This is the supreme irony to be noted by observers of what can only be described as the bizarre and contradictory world of U.S. foreign policy.
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন