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Russia Covered with Insulating Tape
// Condoleezza Rice freezing from a cold war
U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice expressed unprecedented criticism of Russia accusing Moscow of “the paranoid, aggressive impulse” in its policy, namely its recent actions in Georgia. The Secretary of State presumed that Russia’s current line could put it “on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance”. Kommersant special correspondent Dmitry Sidorov reports from Washington.
Condoleezza Rice’s speech at the George C. Marshall Foundation was announced in advance to draw a maximum of attention to it. Since the notorious Vilnius address of U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney of May, 2006, Russia hasn’t been subjected to that strong criticism. “The attack on Georgia has crystallized the course that Russia’s leaders are now taking,” Ms Rice stated. In her opinion, the conflict in Caucasus was provoked by Moscow, not Tbilisi. “Russia’s leaders used this as a pretext to launch what, by all appearances, was a premeditated invasion of its independent neighbor. We warned our Georgian friends that Russia was baiting them, and that taking this bait would only play into Moscow’s hands,” Condoleezza Rice said.
Then the Secretary of State passed on to generalizations. “What is more disturbing about Russia’s actions is that they fit into a worsening pattern of behavior over several years now. I’m referring, among other things, to Russia’s intimidation of its sovereign neighbors, its use of oil and gas as a political weapon, its unilateral suspension of the CFE Treaty, its threat to target peaceful nations with nuclear weapons, its arms sales to states and groups that threaten international security, and its persecution – and worse – of Russian journalists, and dissidents, and others,” the State Secretary continued to condemn Moscow explaining the developments with “the paranoid, aggressive impulse, which has manifested itself before in Russian history”.
Speaking about Russian authoritarianism, Ms Rice urged to abstain from representing Russia as the epitome of evil, which was typical of the cold war period.
At the same time she expressed her dissatisfaction with Moscow’s stance on Kosovo, Iran and the U.S. AMD system deployment in Europe, “When our interests have diverged, the United States has consulted Russia’s leaders. We’ve searched for common ground. And we have, sought as best we could, to take Russia’s interests and ideas into account. Increasingly, Russia’s leaders have simply not reciprocated. And their recent actions are leading some to ask whether we are now engaged in a new Cold War. No, we are not.”
The State Secretary tried to answer the question “how the Russia of the 1990s became the Russia of today”. To this end, she referred to the history of the first years of Russia’s independence. It was “a period of real hope and promise for Russia; the totalitarian state was dismantled; the scope of liberty for most Russians expanded significantly”. But not all people were satisfied with what they saw, which is the root of the present changes in Russia, from Ms Rice’s viewpoint. She concluded, “This does not excuse Russia’s behavior, but it helps to set a context for it. It helps to explain why many ordinary Russians felt relieved and proud when new leaders emerged at the end of the last decade, who sought to reconstitute the Russian state and reassert its power abroad. An imperfect authority was seen as better than no authority at all. What has become clear is that the legitimate goal of rebuilding the Russian state has taken a dark turn - with the rollback of personal freedoms, the arbitrary enforcement of the law, the pervasive corruption at various levels of Russian society.” All these factors fomented “Russia’s invasion of Georgia”, U.S. State Secretary believes.
“Russia’s invasion of Georgia has achieved – and will achieve – no enduring strategic objective. And our strategic goal now is to make clear to Russia’s leaders that their choices could put Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance,” the Chief of American diplomacy formulated her key conclusion.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Council International Affairs Committee Vassily Likhachev told Kommersant that Moscow should not respond with strong criticism following Condoleezza Rice. According to him, “the State Secretary’s address shows that Washington hasn’t managed to abandon its Russophobic philosophy, which is inherent in the U.S. foreign policy”. “Apparently, the present administration is not going to hand over to the next U.S. President the big positive potential we have accumulated in our relations,” Mr Likhachev summed it up. For its part, Russia’s Foreign Ministry stated yesterday that “it is not the first time that U.S. leaders pervert” the recent developments in the Caucasus. Expressing its wish that the U.S. should relinquish the prejudices of the past as soon as possible, the MFA assured it “is not going to yield to rhetoric and get engaged in confrontation.”
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Russian Foreign Office asked State Secretary Rice not to speak on behalf of the whole world
In its official remarks on U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s speech on the recent developments in the Caucasus and the U.S.-Russian relations, Russia’s Foreign Ministry asked Ms Rice not to speak on behalf of the whole world.
“We believe that international relations are at breaking point, which is also true of the U.S.-Russian relations. We do not err on the side of determinism and would not like the American party to speak on behalf of the whole world. No one has endowed Washington with that right, as far as we know,” the MFA’s official press release says.
The U.S. attempts to make Russia’s joining the WTO and the OECD politically loaded were called counterproductive. According to the press release, everything is all right in Russia’s relations with the majority of states.
The Russian party reproached the Secretary of State for distorting the situation in the Caucasus of August, 2008. It need be reminded that in her address of September 18 at the George C. Marshall Foundation Ms Rice said that the United States “will not allow Russia to wield a veto over the future of the Euro-Atlantic community” meaning Georgia and Ukraine’s admission to NATO.
In their turn, the Russian MFA press service reminded that Ms Rice had threatened Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili with closing the door to NATO in case he used force to settle the Georgia-Ossetian dispute.
Condoleezza Rice said the United States “will continue to sponsor Russian students and teachers and judges and journalists, labor leaders and democratic reformers who want to visit America and to support Russia’s fight against HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis”. In its remarks the Russian MFA emphasized that cooperation cannot be selective, and the official relations between Russia and the U.S. should not influence the relations between the peoples of Russia and America as well as the work of the G8.
Dmitry Sidorov, Washington
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 20, 2008
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