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Kremlin Thwarts Washington Interests — U.S. Task Force The Bush administration should stop pretending Russia is a genuine strategic partner and adopt a new policy of “selective cooperation” and “selective opposition” to the authoritarian government of President Vladimir Putin, a U.S. bipartisan task force has concluded, the Washington Post reported. “U.S.-Russian relations are clearly headed in the wrong direction,” the task force wrote in its report. “Contention is crowding out consensus. The very idea of ”strategic partnership“ no longer seems realistic.” Former senator John Edwards, who co-chaired the task force along with Republican former housing secretary Jack Kemp, said the administration has shied away from addressing Putin’s behavior. “What they’ve done is focused on the positive things Russia is doing and been soft on the problems,” he said, adding, “We need for the world to see what’s happening inside, and at a minimum Putin needs to feel the pressure from that.” The report crystallizes a growing reassessment of Russia in Washington five years after Bush first met new Russia’s President. Since then Putin has moved to reassert control over Russian society and eliminate opposition, the report states. The paper points out that the Bush administration officials have been disturbed by other actions in recent months, including Russian maneuvering to force U.S. troops out of Central Asia, Moscow’s use of energy exports as a weapon against smaller neighbors, and Putin’s outreach to Hamas. At the same time, Moscow has moved closer to Washington in the effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Once considered a virtual accessory to Tehran’s alleged nuclear arms program, Russia lately has turned around and collaborated with the Bush administration to pressure the Islamic state to renounce any such ambitions, although the Kremlin still resists sanctions. The report also highlights Russia’s spectacular economic recovery since the meltdown of the 1990s but focuses on the deterioration of democratic institutions under assault from Putin’s Kremlin: “As a result, Russia is left only with the trappings of democratic rule — their form, but not their content.” The task force rejected calls to kick Russia out of the G-8 but says it was “a much closer call than we expected.” Instead, it suggested that Russia ought to be “at least on informal probation,” and recommended a “de facto revival” of the G-7 that existed before Russia joined in the 1990s to play “a guiding and coordinating force within the group.” In outlining its prescription of “selective cooperation” and “selective opposition,” the task force said the Bush administration should continue working with Moscow on decommissioning Russian nuclear weapons, and should forge an agreement on civil nuclear energy while also pressing the Kremlin to reverse its internal crackdown and external pressure tactics. The U.S., it said, should accelerate NATO membership for Russian neighbors such as Ukraine and Georgia and should increase aid to democracy groups, rather than cut it, as Bush has done. ---------------------------------------------------
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