The head of the US State Department John Kerry stated that the USA is ready to cooperate with Russia on the issue of Islamic State, but only if it stopped its airstrikes in Syria and started implementation of a plan on a transfer of power in the country. Washington doesn’t want to share intelligence information with Moscow, as, according to American officials, Russia could use the data for bombing the positions of the anti-Assad forces. The US authorities haven’t changed their opinion that defeating ISIS is impossible without overthrowing Bashar Assad. Finally, the fact that the USA is still participating in a discussion of the Syrian problem with Russia doesn’t mean that Russia’s activity in Ukraine has been forgotten, Washington stresses.
Andrey Sidorov, head of the Chair of International Organizations and Global Political Processes of Moscow State University, thinks that US policy towards Russia becomes rigid in proportion to the fact that the United States realizes that Russia will probably not want to be a part of a consolidated West or a consolidated North, that Russia has some other ambitions. “It was the right decision 20 years ago, in December 1995, at mortgage auctions, when we did not let the Americans into our market. Russia, represented by Yeltsin's entourage, decided not to sell its property to the United States. After that, Yeltsin became a drunkard [in the West’s eyes], even though before that, he was the biggest democrat on Russian land. From that moment on it began,” Sidorov thinks.
According to him, Barack Obama's administration (and the succession between administrations is quite serious) is building a containment perimeter. And both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of one and the same.
“There is no Cold War today, but the Americans are trying to build a containment perimeter around the weakest link. Currently, the weakest link on the Eurasian continent is Russia,” Sidorov says. China is an equal rival for the USA. According to the expert, “China became one of the leaders when it created the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and, for example, proposed an idea which, in general, is not a new idea, the creation of a Asia-Pacific free trade zone. But now the United States has signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The score became even.
“Today formation of a new architecture of the world is taking place. What place will Russia take in it, if the main position of the United States now is to build a perimeter? It is no coincidence that all the time they are trying to persuade us that we are in isolation: “Do it, like the Soviet Union did, truly immerse yourself in this isolation.” The Russian government does not want it, and basically it is doing the right thing, by trying not to be offended by what is happening. Because that is how the Soviet Union was defeated. It isolated itself. Russia, China can't be isolated as long as they do not want it themselves.”
