It was five years ago when President Bush made his famous declaration about looking into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, getting a “sense of his soul” and coming away convinced that the Russian president was a “straightforward and trustworthy leader.”
With the world in an uproar of violence and Vice President Dick Cheney recently expressing a rather more realistic view of Russia, it is a dramatic time for Bush and six other world leaders to be convening in Putin’s home of St. Petersburg.
Presidents Bush and Putin are scheduled to meet face-to-face today ahead of the G8 Summit of world leaders, which starts Saturday. Russia is chairing the summit for the first time, though its economy and its democracy are both still maturing in comparison to the so-called G7 industrialized giants (the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan).
Energy security is a top agenda item, sharing center stage with several current crises.Violence in the Middle East and nuclear showdowns with Iran and North Korea will loom large in the three days of summitry.
The president is seeking unified diplomacy to address North Korea’s recent missile tests and to block Iran’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. The United States, Great Britain and Japan have been pressing for a United Nations Security Council resolution that slaps sanctions on North Korea for the missile firings and on Iran for stalling six-party talks over its nuclear ambitions. Russia has opposed sanctions on either country. If Putin persists in obstructing a unified G8 approach, we’ll have to wonder if the G7 wasn’t quite enough, thank you.
Bush plans to use personal diplomacy to win Putin’s support. The two men have forged a personal bond over the years, even as administration officials and congressional lawmakers have grown increasingly wary as Putin has cracked down on news media and business leaders, recentralized political power and used Russia’s energy wealth to bully neighbors like Ukraine.
The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations in a March report concluded that Putin had reversed democratic advances in favor of authoritarianism. These ingredients prompted Cheney to take a tough line toward Russia in a widely publicized speech just last May.
Putin needs to be approached with caution – after all, if he can be persuaded on key issues, it will be a powerful benefit to all the other nations represented in St. Petersburg.
A constructive relationship with Russia is vital to dealing with a range of strategic and resource issues facing the United States.
