Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

At White House, harder line with Putin considered


A debate is brewing at the highest levels of the Bush administration over whether to adopt a tougher stance toward Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, who has systematically rolled back democratic freedoms and tried to snuff out democracy in weak neighboring states with little American opposition, according to US officials and policy analysts.

The recent standoff in Ukraine over a disputed election between a Soviet-style strongman, whom Putin has aggressively backed, and a reform-style candidate backed by a sea of protesters, has brought renewed calls for an overhaul of the US friendship with Putin.



Until now, US policy has been to largely forgive Russia's attack on democracy, even as Putin moved to consolidate authoritarian rule not only in Russia but also in a federation of former Soviet states he is cobbling together, largely by force, according to regional specialists. But officials in the National Security Council and the State Department have begun discussing whether to recalibrate their approach to Putin.



''There's a real debate among very senior people in the administration. It hasn't resolved itself," said Michael McFaul, associate professor of political science at Stanford University. A major uncertainty is how Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, a Soviet expert who has helped shape US policy, sees the problem, said McFaul, a former colleague of Rice's at Stanford.



Rice ''has not made democracy in Russia a priority. She has other priorities," McFaul said. But he added that the embarrassing erosion of democracy under Putin and the current crisis in Kiev could change that. ''Those of us who think this should be a higher priority see what is happening in Ukraine, and say, 'Maybe we need to reevaluate what we are doing here."'



This week, in a rare display of tension between the two former Cold War rivals, Secretary of State Colin Powell sparred over Ukraine with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Lavrov accused the United States and Western Europe of using election monitoring as an ''instrument of political manipulation," and Powell responded by chiding Moscow for keeping troops in Moldova and Georgia and for developments that are impeding ''freedom of the press and the rule of law" in Russia.



Publicly, US officials insist that they do not see Ukraine as a United States vs. Russia issue and have worked hard to show Moscow that they are not trying to steal Ukraine -- which many Russians still see as a historic piece of their homeland. But privately, US officials say a showdown has been a year in the making.



The United States poured million into election monitoring, exit polling, and civil society groups that now form the backbone of massive support for opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, according to the estimate of a senior Washington-based official involved in Ukraine. The Associated Press reported that the United States has spent million over the past two years. Meanwhile, Putin funneled what US officials believe to be between 0 and 0 million directly to the campaign of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. Putin also sent election monitors of his own. A second runoff between the two candidates is scheduled for Dec. 26.



''We've been working at this for well over a year to be able to do an effective monitoring to see that the process was fair, and we have spent lots of time and effort talking to the Ukrainian leaders not to defraud the people," said the senior official. ''In addition to being concerned about democracy in Russia, we have always been concerned about a more assertive Russian policy in the neighboring countries."



This week, democratic activists in Ukraine, many of whom consider Putin an enemy, were the toast of Washington, as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Republican Senator Richard Lugar praised their efforts at a gala celebrating the 20th anniversary of the National Democratic Institute.



Friday, Yushchenko's chief of staff, Oleh Rybachuk, met with deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage in Washington and gave a luncheon keynote speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-of-center think tank.



Putin's moves against democratic impulses in Chechnya, Moldova, and Belarus have not threatened US relations with Russia. But Ukraine -- a nation of 50 million nation nestled among three NATO countries and Russia -- represents what some specialists have called a ''line in the sand" and a true test of US policy.



''Deciding the fate of Ukraine is deciding where the border is of the west and the east, and it has an impact on democratization in Russia itself," said Andrew Bennett, an associate professor at Georgetown University who specializes in US-Russia relations. ''This is signaling the boundaries of [US] policy."



Since the fall of the Soviet Union, every US president has had to balance US support for democracy in the former Soviet states with the goal of better relations with Russia, a nation that is crucial to cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation and terrorism.



During President Bush's first campaign for the presidency, he criticized Bill Clinton for exaggerating the successes of democracy in the former Soviet Union and for turning a blind eye to the problems there. But once in office, Bush's major goal was to befriend Putin and persuade him to agree to US withdrawal from the Cold War-era Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the most formidable obstacle to Bush's coveted missile defense system.



Bush persuaded Putin and forged a friendship, but at a price: reduced leverage to complain about Putin's autocratic and imperial ambitions. After Sept. 11, 2001, the relationship grew even closer, when Putin took the unpopular stance of giving his OK for the United States to station troops in former Soviet states during the war in Afghanistan. As the two former Cold War rivals cooperated on antiterrorism, the United States softened its calls for for Moscow to respect human rights in Chechnya, a separatist region that has used terrorism as a tactic in its guerrilla war for independence.



Relations with Russia suffered when Putin joined with Germany and France to oppose the war in Iraq, but that episode ended as Rice famously declared that the US would forgive Russia, ignore Germany, and punish France.



''It hasn't been a complete blank check on either side," said Bennett. ''Putin was critical of Bush in Iraq, and the administration has from time to time been critical of Putin. But by and large the implicit deal has been, we don't criticize them and they don't criticize us."



Some US officials and regional specialists said that US prodemocracy efforts in Ukraine might lead to changes in the US relationship with Russia. A small but increasingly concerned group within the administration is pushing for a harder line toward Putin, but it is too early to tell whether its views will prevail, according to specialists on the region.



Critics say the Bush administration has done remarkably little to counteract Putin as he moved to set up a ''post-Soviet" space, using the massive economic power of Russia and the dependence of smaller states to frustrate democratic movements at home and abroad.



In Belarus, for instance, Putin's backing has helped president Aleksander Lukashenko, known as the last European dictator, to stay in power.



''The US trumpets freedom and democracy around the world, but has done nothing to stop the erosion of democracy in Russia and in fact actively supported Putin as he closed down independent TV stations and falsified the 2003 parliamentary elections," said Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian television pundit and democracy activist now living in Washington.



But Bush administration officials say they have stepped up pressure on Putin and are continuing to discuss ways to quietly foster democracy in Russia, where some US officials feel political freedoms might be positively influenced by the democratic watershed in Ukraine.



Bush spent about 15 minutes of a roughly hourlong meeting at a recent summit in Chile asking about the state of democracy in Russia, according to the senior official.



''From my observations being in the government, my understanding is that the president, Dr. Rice, and [Powell] all understand very clearly what is at stake here," he said. ''There's a lot of tough issues. I don't think they have illusions about where Putin is coming from."



Globe correspondent Alan Wirzbicki contributed to this report. Farah Stockman can be reached at [e-mail]
The Boston Globe

2004-12-13 00:39:00

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