On Goals and Compromises

Source: Day

Many US commentators are taking a critical view of the first meeting of the US and Russia leaders after the election of Vladimir Putin for a third presidential term during the G20 summit in Mexico. The positions of Washington and Moscow on all the key issues – the situation in Syria, Iran’s nuclear program, and missile defense – have in fact remained the same. The Day asked Lilia Shevtsova, a leading research associate at the Moscow Carnegie Center, who often visits the US and mingles with US politicians and experts, to assess the results of the talks between Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart and say whether these results may influence the chances of the former to be reelected.

“Judging by the statements of Obama and Putin at their press conferences, we can make two conclusions. Firstly, the two presidents’ meeting was rather tense and tough. The proof of this is that the meeting lasted longer than expected. Television footage showed the tense faces of Putin and Obama, who seemed to be sitting next to each other at the press conference, but they showed neither personal chemistry, nor special emotions, nor the relaxed atmosphere that we had seen on the photos of Medvedev and Obama. This time you could see that the two leaders were constrained, concentrated, and tense. The language of gestures and poses said that these people found it difficult to speak to each other. Secondly, the statements they made at the joint press conference did not seem to be a breakthrough on the acute problems they had discussed: either on missile defense, or on Iran’s nuclear program, or on the situation in Syria. I would say that, as a result of this meeting, Putin may be considering himself the winner.”

Why?

“Firstly, he not only did not depart from the Kremlin’s position but must have forced Obama to drop a tougher language with respect to Assad and in fact forced him to get back to the available, and losing, scenario – the peacemaking plan of Kofi Annan. And the fact that Obama agreed that the problem must be resolved by the Syrian people themselves was an indirect confirmation of Putin’s emphasis on the concept of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
 
“So we can say that, at least in the Syria question, Obama and the West have lost, while the Kremlin and Beijing have won.
 
“Putin may have felt himself confident for another reason, too: he knows there are fierce election battles in store for Obama, that he has not yet been elected, that Romney’s chances are improving and Obama, not Putin is more vulnerable.
 
“Putin felt himself more confident and perhaps opted for additional toughness also because it is Obama, not he, who needs the ‘reset:’ he has always taken a skeptical and critical view of it.
 
“Naturally, there was an item on this meeting’s agenda, which was bound to complicate relations between the two presidents. It is the Magnitsky Bill which the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was to have discussed on June 19.”

But the hearing was adjourned in the last minute.

“Yes, but when Putin and Obama were discussing this issue, it was not clear whether the Americans would put off the discussion of this bill. In this question, too, the Russian side took an extremely firm stand and forced the American side to backtrack. The very fact of a Senate hearing being postponed means that Obama opted to reach a compromise with Putin.
 
“Therefore, the outcome of the two presidents’ negotiations is Putin’s increased self-confidence, his attempt to pressure the US, and, in the long run, Obama’s aspiration not to aggravate relations with Putin’s Kremlin, and perhaps the Western side’s partial surrender of its position on at least Syria.”

How can this meeting affect Obama’s chances to be reelected?

“As before, the foreign policy is not a crucial point in the US election race, and the chances of Obama against Romney depend on the domestic political and economic situation. I think the Republicans will surely take advantage of at least the fact that Obama derived no benefit from the meeting with Putin. Moreover, Putin did not help Obama to prove that his ‘reset’ with Russia was successful. As a matter of fact, during the joint press conference and when answering the questions of journalists at his own press conference, Putin made it perfectly clear that he was not very much interested in the ‘reset.’ He is not giving up even an iota of his position. So I don’t think Putin played in favor of Obama at the G20 summit – deliberately or accidentally, perhaps without intending to do so, he played in favor of Romney.”

Do you think the US will adopt the Magnitsky Act?

“Judging by the reaction of many US experts, this law will undoubtedly be adopted in one form or another – not only because it has gone through the House of Representative and is sure to go through the Senate but, above all, because it is being supported not so much by the Republicans as by the Democrats. Now that Obama is being accused of overemphasizing realpolitik and pragmatism and ignoring the normative dimension in politics, I think we will no longer be able to pressure Congress into blackballing the Magnitsky Bill. The administration no longer has room for maneuvering. The administration will, by all accounts, allow this law to be passed. This law is bound to be passed. The question is whether the Magnitsky Act will be passed at the same time as the Jackson-Vanik Amendment will be repealed. It is unclear so far. Nor is it clear what amendments to this law the administration itself will propose in an attempt to alleviate it and not to irk the Russian side too much.”

Two events are drawing public attention in Russia this week: Khodorkovsky’s lecture and reconciliation between the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and the head of the Investigatory Committee. What do you think about the importance of these events for the making of a civil society in Russia?

“Khodorkovsky’s articles hit the rawest nerves of the Russian political life. This means that, languishing in prison, he very closely watches Russian life and is deeply pondering on crucial problems. In this case, he focuses on the problem of empire and nation state. He is absolutely right in spelling out the dilemma that Russia faces. On the one hand, Russia has not ceased to be an empire, and, on the other hand, it is very difficult to build a nation state in Russia due to the fact that Russian nationalism is still anti-liberal and anti-European. Nevertheless, Khodorkovsky makes a curious attempt to prove the necessity of a bridge between liberalism and nationalism. He tries to prove that it is necessary to form liberal nationalism in Russia, as it was done, incidentally, in Ukraine and Poland, uphold liberal values, and seek a national identity. However, he offers no practical recommendations as to how this can be done. But nobody else can give these recommendations, either.”

And what can you say about the resolution of the Novaya Gazeta conflict? Many are critical of the behavior of Dmitry Muratov who contented himself with apologies from the Investigatory Committee head and decided not to go to the end.

“I think Dmitry Muratov had every reason, which he prefers not to enlarge upon, to make peace with Bastrykin and the Investigatory Committee because, as he said frankly, it is about the lives of people, the lives of his correspondents in the North Caucasus, about the necessity to fully investigate the case, and find the perpetrators and organizers of the assassination of Politkovskaya.
 
“At the same time, this informal ‘ceasefire’ in fact puts Novaya Gazeta in a very dramatic situation. Shaking hands with Bastrykin, the newspaper is giving up, albeit temporarily, the goal in the name of which it exists: to protect human rights and obey the law. This drama is part of our life – it is a trap which we often get into. And it is not enough to just strive to achieve a goal. We sometimes have to agree on a compromise. Yet, reconciliation apart, there still remains the urgent problem of a legal assessment of this informal pact or, rather, a legal assessment of the behavior of Bastrykin himself.”

This interview originally appeared in The Day.