By Vestnik Kavkaza
On Wednesday, Russian President Putin sent a message of congratulation to US President Barack Obama with reference to his victory in the elections. The Kremlin accepted positively information on Obama’s victory in the elections and expressed a hope that “positive steps in the bilateral relations and on copperation between Russia and the US at the international arena in favor of international security and stability will be developed and improved.” The same day the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Alexei Pushkov, called a press conference where he presented his position on the US presidential elections: “This time Obama is not as strong as he used to be four years ago. And Romney built a right course of his campaign – the attention to economic issues as Obama is most vulnerable in this sphere. But Romney lacked personal skills and good reputation for bating weakened Obama. These were not elections of a strong candidate and a weak candidate. These were elections of weakened Obama and non-strong-enough Romney. The situation makes us think about the conditions of the American political elite and the American leadership, as one cannot say it was a strong all-national victory. The situation contributes to a split in the American society which happened under Obama and marked itself in summer when reduction of the American state debt was discussed. Democrats and Republicans couldn’t find common ground for a month and adopted a compromise at a last moment. Obama failed to solve the problem of splitting on “rights” and “lefts”, Republicans and Democrats, a political split on ideological camps. The opposite thing took place: it grew deeper. Now right-conservatives who are furious about Obama’s politics won’t let him live easily. Conflicts, disputes, and ideological fights which we saw in recent three years will continue. I predict a very difficult term for Obama as it would be difficult for him to provide the planned policy. It has been already stated that internal and foreign political courses would hardly change.”
Speaking about Russian-American relations, Pushkov noted that they were an important element of the election campaign: “Romney even tried to play an anti-Russian card. It brought him no extra voices, as the US society doesn’t want to return to a cold war with Russia. In a couple of month after Romney’s famous statement that Russia is the main geopolitical rival of America, he said that a rival didn’t mean an enemy, our main enemy is Iran, while Russia is our geopolitical opponent. He corrected his previous statement because it became clear that it didn’t bring expected benefits. I believe Russian-American relations didn’t turn into a critical topic of these elections but they took an important place as Romney tired to argue the policy of restart.”
Commenting on a possibility of continuation of the restarting policy, Pushkov emphasized that he expressed his private view: “The reset policy has been exhausted in large extent. If we consider it as a tactical sum of steps directed at reconstruction of a dialogue between Moscow and Washington, the policy of restart has brought the result as we all remember what relations between Moscow and Washington were in last months of Bush Jr.’s term. Even personal relations between Bush and Putin worsened, Condoleezza Rice only stated what we had to do and presented new requirements. The media reported on “a rhetorical cold war” between Moscow and Washington. If we consider reset during the first term of Obama from the point of view of an attempt to overcome this “rhetorical cold war”, yes, the reset policy succeeded. It brought results and caused signing of some important agreements, for example, START-3 and improved official relations between the Kremlin and the White House.
If we consider the policy of reset as launching Russian-American relations at some new level of approaching national interests and geopolitical interests of the US and Russia, it failed and gave no results. Some people believed that it would mean a serious and stable partnership. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen, except for Afghanistan and North Korea.”
Pushkov thinks that the crucial point is the Syrian problem: “Even though diplomats stress that we have one aim but different methods, Syria is a case when methods are so different that similarity of aims is doubtful. I think the American target is not in establishing democratic Syria or maintaining united Syria. The main political goal is resignation of Assad. It seems this is the only target which Americans try to achieve in Syria. But what will be next? Then, democracy, freedom, and prosperity will come, they say. Now the American administration is correcting its initial helpless position. It is clear that Assad’s withdrawal won’t lead to fulfillment of requirements set by the American side. Hilary Clinton has already stated that the Syrian National Council is not the only representative of the opposition, and the bet is placed on some other opposition, even though the SNC used to be the opposition which was absolutely supported by Washington. However, the main goal is still overthrowing of Assad, and what will be next is unclear. In this sense the reset policy brought no results expected by optimists: strategic purposes of Russia and the US didn’t approach.”
