Obama for President
// The price of the question
The Democrats' hope that Americans want to change U.S. policy right down to their leader's sex and race is firmly based. But I would not condense the campaign to the Democratic race alone. In the end, it is a competition not between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but between Democrat and Republican. And it is still too early to write off the Republicans.
The choice is not a pleasant one from the Russian point of view. Senator McCain, who is known for his pronouncements on Russia in the “Carthage must be destroyed” vein, is no great shakes. His desire to expel Russia from the G8, and many other positions reminiscent of the height of the Cold War, are sincere. It is usually said that it is easier for Russia to get along with Republicans, but this senator seems to defy that stereotype.
Russia's problem with Democrats is that they place too much emphasis (from the Russian point of view) on ideological human rights issues. Nonetheless, the current administration in Washington probably exceeds its opponents in ideology-bases foreign policy. It is time for Russia to stop fearing the Democrats and the unavoidable moralization from a Democratic president. In a country that has made a choice for democracy, such worries are self-deprecating.
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama have gone beyond the traditional views of the American establishment in their declarations on Russia. Both speak of the need to work with Russia. It is hard to say how sincere they are about it yet. We know that Clinton has many of her husband's people on her team who have no particular love for Russia. Obama, they say, does not shy away from Zbigniew Brzezinski. But we need to see the real chance for disarmament, for example, which is important for Russia at least for greater international security. That chance will arise if a Democrat comes into the White House. Many Europeans, tired of Republican militarism, will sympathize on this point.
In any case, the next U.S. president will have to deal with the new leader in the Kremlin. For better or worse, relations with America have usually depended on the personal relationship between the leaders of the two countries, and the two new leaders may very well get along. From that perspective, Barack Obama looks like the candidate who can promise more serious progress, since he is not strapped with Cold War phobias, like McCain, nor tied to old practices by his advisors, the way Clinton is.
Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 07, 2008
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