Focus on America

Russian Bear Growls at U.S. Hypocrisy

By K Gajendra Singh

"The war in Iraq is a historic strategic and moral calamity undertaken under false assumption….. Undermining America's global legitimacy …..Collateral civilian casualties, abuses…... are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability."

Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter

At the 43rd annual International Security Conference held in Munich on 10 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the importance of the role of United Nations, U.S. missile defense, NATO expansion, Iran's nuclear program and the Energy Charter. He accused Washington of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions, trying to divide Europe and making the Middle East more unstable.
Ever since Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ended the cold war in 1989, out of naiveté and misplaced goodwill which, after USSR's collapse the US claimed as the victory of the Capitalist West over Socialist Russia, this is the first blunt criticism of US by a Russian leader. He said the US was trying to coerce the whole world to its will for total domination while using brazen lies and illegal, brutal and inhuman means. Putin's speech marks a new era in Russia's after 7 years of his rule which has brought stability and economic strength .Following the speech he visited Saudi Arabia ,Qatar and Jordan , first ever visits by a Russian head of state. With Middle East in a state of flux and USA bogged down in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and others in the region are looking elsewhere to counter irrational US policies.

"I see in Putin a statesman and a man of peace and fairness," Saudi King Abdullah

Unlike 1991, when Gorbachev's initiative to help resolve the problem of Iraqi occupation of Kuwait was brushed aside by Washington, Moscow is now better positioned to play a vital and constructive role in the region. Exchange of Presidential visits with Syria two years ago, writing off of old Syrian debts of almost $10 billion and supply of missiles to deter arrogant Israeli jets buzzing the Presidential Palace in Damascus have almost restored the old relationship. Historical enemies Russia and Turkey have made up and have booming economic exchanges

"I see in ... Putin a statesman and a man of peace and fairness," said Saudi King Abdullah according to official Saudi Press Agency. "That's why the kingdom of Saudi Arabia extends a hand of friendship to Russia." Qatar has the world's third-largest natural gas reserves after Russia and Iran while Russia is second largest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia. They could consult each other on oil and gas prices. Putin's warm reception in Riyadh, Qatar and Amman is harbinger of Russia's growing influence in the region and desire of the states for a bulwark against USA's destructive policies. Clearly, the Arabs and the Muslims have seen through US policies!
Middle East and the Muslim world are learning to trust Putin's Russia. It was granted observer status in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in 2005, and in 2006 the Russia-Muslim World Strategic Vision Group was established. Before embarking on his tour of the Middle East, in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV, very popular in Arab and Islamic world, Putin said that the new U.S. strategy in Iraq will work only if a date for withdrawal of foreign military forces was agreed upon.
Putin's Munich Discourse
Putin's audience in Munich comprised of dozens of Western ministers and policy makers, including the new US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and the hawkish Republican Presidential contender, Senator John McCain. Putin stated; "Today we are observing unrestrained, hypertrophied use of force in international affairs, a force that plunges the world into an abyss of recurring conflicts….I am convinced that the UN Charter is the only legitimate decision-making mechanism for the use of military force as a last resort…..The UN must not be replaced either by NATO or the European Union."
On NATO's eastward expansion, Putin said that it has nothing to do with its modernization and would affect Moscow's relations with the Alliance.{Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - joined NATO in 2004. Georgia and Ukraine, which saw US franchised street gangs, financed, trained and supported by Washington and its so called democracy promoting institutions and NGOs, install US puppets in power ( both are in trouble now ) are being encouraged to join NATO. Russia strongly objects to the deployment of NATO bases on the territory of newly admitted member nations. Reports suggest that Romanian and Bulgarian bases could be used if Iran was attacked.
"It is evident that the process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernizing the alliance or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it is seriously eroding mutual trust," the Russian leader said. "Why do they have to move their military infrastructure closer to our borders?" Putin wondered, "Is this connected with overcoming global threats today?" No! The US objective, he says, is 'uni-polar world'. Explaining, "What is a uni-polar world?", he said, " No matter how we beautify this term it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master."
He stated that deployment of a U.S. missile defence system in Central Europe could trigger a new spiral of the arms race. US reasons for deploying a missile defence system in Europe are not convincing enough, since launching of North Korean ballistic missiles against the U.S. across Western Europe would be in conflict with the laws of ballistics. "Or, as we say in Russia, it's the like trying to reach your left ear with your right hand," he clarified.
Putin pledged to amend Russia's military strategy. He gave an important clue that would worry America. "All our responses will be asymmetric, but highly effective," he said. This riposte was in response to US plans to install a radar system in the Czech Republic and a missile interception system in Poland, 'to protect itself against a potential threat from Iran.' Recently Washington has also shifted its largest sea-based missile defence radar in the Pacific from Hawaii to the Aleutian Islands, not far from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.
Putin affirmed that Moscow is committed to its obligations on the reduction of nuclear warheads by 2012. The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, signed on May 24, 2002 by Putin and Bush in Moscow, and expiring December 31, 2012, limited both countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,700-2,200 warheads each. The treaty has been criticized for a lack of verification provisions and the possibility of re-deploying stored warheads. Putin hoped that "our partners will also act in a transparent manner and will not try to stash away an extra couple hundred nuclear warheads against a rainy day."
"We are seeing increasing disregard for the fundamental principles of international law," said Putin. The United States had repeatedly overstepped its national borders on questions of international security; a policy he said had made the world less, not more, safe. "Unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem; they have become a hotbed of further conflicts,"
"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," asserted Putin. He added that force should only be used when the option is backed by the United Nations Security Council. "This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure any more because nobody can get protection of international law," he said.
Putin also said the increased use of force was causing an arms race with more and more countries wanting to get nuclear weapons. He did not name the countries but quite obviously these are North Korea, even Iran and many Arab states who want nuclear weapons to counter Israel's arsenal of hundreds of nuclear bombs and means to deliver them. While sanctions were imposed on India and Pakistan in May, 1998 after they went nuclear, there is no question of any inquiry, let alone action, against Israel, which is regularly vetoed by USA in New York and Vienna.

Energy Charter
Russia is already cooperating with European countries on the basis of principles agreed in the Energy Charter, a mechanism for cooperation between Western and Eastern Europe on energy issues and signed at The Hague in 1991. The West now wants for its investors free access to Russia's vast oil and gas deposits and export pipelines, but is unwilling to grant similar facilities to now petro-dollar rich Russia to invest in European downstream business. Remember how US refused China, which has saved one trillion dollars by over exporting to US, investment in UNOCAL or a Dubai company a contract for handling of US ports .The US wants only one way freedom in investment.
On Energy Charter Putin declared, "We have stated on numerous occasions that we are not against coordinating the principles of our relations with the European Union in the energy sphere. But we find the [Energy] Charter itself hard to accept." He said Russia's EU partners themselves are not observing the Charter, citing the nuclear materials market, which is still off limits to Russia. "No one has opened it up for us. There are also other issues that I would not like to bring up just now," he said.
Putin recalled that Germany shortly after the end of the Cold War had sought to reassure Moscow (its historic enemy) that it would never send its military forces outside its borders. Berlin now has troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan. "Where are those guarantees now?" Putin demanded. He said that Europe was attempting to set up new "virtual" barriers to replace the Berlin Wall. "Rubble from the Berlin Wall was 'hauled away as souvenirs' to countries that praise openness and personal freedom", he said, but "now there are attempts to impose new dividing lines and rules, maybe virtual, but still dividing our mutual continent."
Putin dismissed European complaints about Russian threats last year to cut off energy supplies to its neighbours, saying Moscow was only seeking market prices and stable, long-term contracts with countries including Ukraine and Georgia, which in the past had received subsidized supplies. Even friendly Belarus had to agree to market related prices

Human rights

Putin rebuffed criticism of his country's human rights record by the head of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, who said the world was seeing an "increasingly uni-polar government in Russia, where competing centres of influence are being forced to toe the party line. Putin responded that Russia was taking steps to stop foreign governments clandestinely using Russian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to influence Russian policy. On the killings of Russian journalists during his Presidency, Putin retorted that it was in Iraq that most journalists were killed doing their job.
Iran
On Iran, Putin stated that unlike many countries including in Europe, Russia did not pass missile technology to Iran. "I have no evidence to show that Russia, in the 1990s, helped Iran create its own missile technology. Other countries acted there. Technology was transferred through different channels. We have proof, and earlier I passed it directly to the U.S. president," Putin said.
"Technology is coming from Europe, from Asian countries. Russia has nothing to do with this," he said. "Russia supplied much less weaponry there than the U.S. or other countries did," he said, Russia has provided Iran with air defense systems with an effective range of 30 to 50 kilometers. "We did that so that Iran would not feel driven into a corner," he explained.
But Putin clarified that Iran has no missiles that could threaten Europe. "As regards [fears that] Iran has missiles that could threaten Europe, you are wrong. Iran has missiles with a range of 1,600-1,700 km. Calculate how many kilometers it is from the Iranian border to Munich," he asked.
Iran has been the target of US led campaign after it resumed uranium fuel enrichment in January 2006, which some Western countries claim is part of a covert nuclear weapons program. Moscow shares the concerns of the Vienna based International Atomic Energy Agency, but the agency has not found a nuclear weapons program. Although Tehran has repeatedly affirmed its program is peaceful, the UN Security Council under US pressure did adopt a resolution in December imposing sanctions on Tehran, but much diluted on the insistence from Russia and China.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the President's speech in Munich was not "confrontational" and attributed his blunt words to the sense that the number of conflicts fomented by Washington "was constantly growing" and that international law was being undermined by such actions. "It is in the interest of the United States, the European Union and other countries that international law is upheld, not further destroyed," Peskov stated.
Western Reaction
US and European leaders were stunned at the candour of his speech .While the US officials mostly played it down as empty rhetoric divorced from the real world but the European leaders are worried and felt that West must square up to a brash and combative new Russia. "We should take him at his word. This was the real Russia of now, and possibly in four or five year's time it could go further in this direction," declared Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt in Munich." We have to have a dialogue with Russia but we must be hard-nosed and realistic. We must stand up for our values."
Karl Schwarzenberg, the new Czech Foreign Minister, said it was none of Moscow's business whether Prague hosted the radar facilities for the US missile shield. "We have to thank President Putin [who] clearly and convincingly argued why NATO should be enlarged," he quipped to applause. "Some people have not noticed that the Soviet Union no longer exists."
"I do not see how we can negotiate a new partnership pact on this basis," said German Green Angelika Beer, a member of the European Parliament. "We need Russia for energy and Kosovo. He knows that - but perhaps he is going over the top," she said. The European Union wants to negotiate a new partnership agreement with Russia but its hand is weakened by its dependence on Russian energy supplies. The other alternative is Iran. Any takers!
"This Munich conference is normally about the Americans and Europeans bitching at each other," said Ron Asmus, executive director of the Transatlantic Centre - a think tank in Brussels. "It will be interesting to see whether Putin actually managed to bring us together." USA and Europe need Moscow's support in UN to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear question and in securing independence for the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he was disappointed by Putin's statement that alliance enlargement was "a serious factor provoking reduced mutual trust." "I see a disconnection between NATO's partnership with Russia as it has developed and Putin's speech," he said. "Who can be worried that democracy and the rule of law are coming closer to somebody's border?" Scheffer asked. The answer: the entire world that has seen two countries - Iraq and Afghanistan - completely devastated and Somalia and Sudan ravaged by lower intensity war and Iran threatened to be invade by the USA with NATO in tandem - all to spread democracy.
"One Cold War was quite enough," US Defence Secretary Robert Gates
Robert Gates sat through Putin's speech stone faced. A former CIA chief, as is the usual US trait when demonizing Putin they refer to his KGB background (rarely mentioned when George WH Bush, a former CIA chief , was Vice President or President ) Gates replied next day, "As an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time," He paused for effect before adding, "Almost."
"Russia is a partner in endeavours," Gates added. "But we wonder, too, about some Russian policies that seem to work against international stability, such as its arms transfers and its temptation to use energy resources for political coercion." [Really , What about invading Iraq to grab energy ?]
Throughout his reply to Putin's commanding performance, Gates asked how America's European allies must help rebuild Afghanistan (There are few takers for South Afghanistan.) and remain vigilant in the fight against global terrorism. He mentioned Putin only once by name, to say he had accepted his invitation to visit Moscow.
Gates also referred to China, saying, "Looking eastward, China is a country at a strategic crossroads. All of us seek a constructive relationship with China, but we also wonder about strategic choices China may make. We note with concern their recent test of an anti-satellite weapon."
If the United States and its partners fail in Iraq, and chaos tears the nation apart, Gates warned, "every member of this alliance will feel the consequences" of regional turmoil and terrorism. He acknowledged the damage done to America's global standing by its conduct in the campaign against terrorism.
Sen. John McCain who was present in Munich described Putin's remarks as "the most aggressive speech from a Russian leader since the end of the Cold War." During his formal remarks later, McCain echoed the sentiments of several Americans in attendance that Russia appeared to be turning more autocratic and its foreign policy was standing increasingly in opposition to Western democracies. "Today's world is not uni-polar," McCain said, disputing Putin's main theme. "In today's multi-polar world, there is no need for pointless confrontation."
Why the Russians dislike Washington?
The Soviet Union's collapse was ruthlessly exploited by US led West when its capitalist controlled media sang praises of economic reforms and democratization bringing economic disintegration and ruination to Russia .The worst kind of depression in modern history with economic losses more than twice those suffered by USSR in World War II. Russian GDP was trimmed to half and capital investment fell by 80 percent. People were reduced to penury and misery, death rates soared and the population shrank. And in August 1998, the Russian financial system collapsed.
Putin was appointed Prime Minister in 1999, then acting president. In the 2000 election, Putin took 53% of the vote in the first round and, four years later, he was re-elected with a landslide majority of 71%. After Putin took charge he arrested the decline, brought stability and security and consolidated the disintegrating core of the Russian state. The rise in energy prices, natural and a consequence of Iraq war has benefited Russia immensely.
Since 1999 Russian economy has averaged 6 to 7 annual growth, its gold and foreign currency reserves are the world's fifth largest. Moscow is booming with new construction, frenzied consumption of Western luxury goods, but over 60% Russians live below the poverty line. Still Putin's rule has brought stability and restored some sense of pride, and he remains very popular.
Stephen F. Cohen in an article "The New American Cold War " wrote in 10 July 2006 issue of US Magazine, "The Nation" that since 1990s, Washington has followed hypocritical policy of "strategic partnership and friendship," with Presidents being on first name basis but underneath, all US administrations have followed a ruthless policy of undermining Russia " accompanied by broken American promises, condescending lectures and demands for unilateral concessions. USA has been even more aggressive and uncompromising than was Washington's approach to the Soviet Communist Russia."
" A growing military encirclement of Russia, on and near its borders, by US and NATO bases, which are already ensconced or being planned in at least half the fourteen other former Soviet republics, from the Baltic and Ukraine to Georgia, Azerbaijan and the new states of Central Asia. The result is a US-built reverse iron curtain and the remilitarization of American-Russian relations.
" A tacit (and closely related) US denial that Russia has any legitimate national interests outside its own territory, even in ethnically akin or contiguous former republics such as Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia." Richard Holbrooke, a democrat Secretary of State in waiting roundly condemned Russia for promoting a pro-Moscow government in neighbouring Ukraine, where Russia has centuries of shared linguistic, marital, religious, economic and security ties and declared ' that far-away Slav nation part of "our core zone of security."
"Even more, a presumption that Russia does not have full sovereignty within its own borders, as expressed by constant US interventions in Moscow's internal affairs since 1992. They have included an on-site crusade by swarms of American "advisers," particularly during the 1990s, to direct Russia's "transition" from Communism; endless missionary sermons from afar, often couched in threats, on how that nation should and should not organize its political and economic systems; and active support for Russian anti-Kremlin groups, some associated with hated Yeltsin-era oligarchs.
It was even suggested that Putin be overthrown by the kind of US-backed "color revolutions" carried out since 2003 in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, and attempted this year in Belarus. US corporate media 'increasingly call the Russian President "thug," "fascist" and "Saddam Hussein," one of the Carnegie Endowment's several Washington crusaders assures us of "Putin's weakness" and vulnerability to "regime change." (Do proponents of "democratic regime change" in Russia care what it might mean destabilizing a nuclear state?)
" Underpinning these components of the real US policy are familiar cold war double standards , condemning Moscow for doing what Washington does - such as seeking allies and military bases in former Soviet republics, using its assets (oil and gas in Russia's case) as aid to friendly governments and regulating foreign money in its political life.
"More broadly, when NATO expands to Russia's front and back doorsteps, gobbling up former Soviet-bloc members and republics, it is "fighting terrorism" and "protecting new states"; when Moscow protests, it is engaging in "cold war thinking." When Washington meddles in the politics of Georgia and Ukraine, it is "promoting democracy"; when the Kremlin does so, it is "neo-imperialism."
" And not to forget the historical background: When in the 1990s the US-supported Yeltsin overthrew Russia's elected Parliament and Constitutional Court by force, gave its national wealth and television networks to Kremlin insiders, imposed a constitution without real constraints on executive power and rigged elections, it was "democratic reform"; when Putin continues that process, it is "authoritarianism."
US has attempted by exploiting Russia's weakness, to acquire the nuclear superiority it could not achieve during the Soviet era. Washington unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, in order to create a system capable of destroying incoming missiles and thereby the capacity to launch a nuclear first strike without fear of retaliation. US coerced Russia to sign an empty nuclear weapons reduction agreement without actual destruction of weapons or verification, but allowing US development of new ones, which Washington has announced.
"The extraordinarily anti-Russian nature of these policies casts serious doubt on two American official and media axioms: that the recent "chill" in US-Russian relations has been caused by Putin's behaviour at home and abroad, and that the cold war ended fifteen years ago. The first axiom is false, the second only half true: The cold war ended in Moscow, but not in Washington."
"The crusade to transform Russia during the 1990s, with its disastrous "shock therapy" economic measures and resulting antidemocratic acts, further destabilized the country, fostering an oligarchic system that plundered the state's wealth, deprived essential infrastructures of investment, impoverished the people and nurtured dangerous corruption. In the process, it discredited Western-style reform, generated mass anti-Americanism where there had been almost none - only 5 percent of Russians surveyed in May (2006) thought the United States was a "friend" - and eviscerated the once-influential pro-American faction in Kremlin and electoral politics."
US leaders and media pretend that Washington has a "well-intentioned Russian policy," but "a Russian autocrat ... betrayed the American's faith." After a decade of broken US promises and Yeltsin's boozy compliance, Kremlin declared four years ago, in a Radio commentary "The era of Russian geopolitical concessions [is] coming to an end." Looking back, the commentator remarked bitterly that Russia has been "constantly deceived."
In the undeclared cold war now there are no structures for any substantive negotiations and cooperation, .The "dialogue is almost non-existent," in regard to nuclear weapons after US's abandonment of the ABM treaty and real reductions, its decision to build an antimissile shield, and talk of pre-emptive war and nuclear strikes which had kept the nuclear peace for nearly fifty years are now open. Reportedly, Bush's National Security Council is contemptuous of arms control as a "baggage from the cold war." US editorial pages are dominated by resurgent cold war orthodoxies, with incessant demonization of Putin's "autocracy" and "crude neo-imperialism". It reads like a bygone Pravda on the Potomac.
So the discourses at Munich should surprise no one except hypocritical US leaders, its media and its Trojan horses in EU like, UK, Poland and the Czechs. Those in the Baltics and East Europe ,who decry past Soviet domination , would they have preferred Nazi victory and rule .In any case, USA was not prepared to expend men and material to liberate East Europe and the Baltics from the Nazis. It were the Soviet people and its armed forces which destroyed 80% of Nazi military machine and sacrificed tens of millions of its citizens and military men. Hollywood only makes films of great US victories.
Arabs welcome Putin's Middle East visit
Arab world has welcomed President Putin's Middle East visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan .Arab experts feel that the primary aim is to "send a message" to the US that Moscow has a key role to play in this vital region and that it is high time for Washington to give up its policies of domination and destruction.
"By carrying out this exceptional trip, I believe Putin is at pains to dispatch a message to the United States that the Middle East is not a backyard for Washington, but a vital area for the whole world," Faisal al-Rofou, head of the political science department at the University of Jordan, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. (In Jordan and most Arab countries such comments have the governments' approval)

Al-Rofou remarked that the Russian leader's Munich comments indicated Moscow was "fed up with the domination polices of George Bush."

"Putin is heir to the legacy of a great state - the Soviet Union - and although Moscow's role has receded over the past few years, the Russian leader wants to say that it is high time for Moscow to play that great part again in the affairs of the Middle East and the world at large," he said. "Therefore , his Middle East trip seeks to drive the idea home that we are present in this part of the world and the United States should recognize others' interests in the region," he added.

Putin's visit would "add significance" to the agreement concluded in Mecca with Saudi brokerage between the key Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas. (Against Israeli protests Moscow had received a Hamas delegation, soon after it won in a free democratic election.)

"I believe the accord will figure largely in Putin's talks with Saudi leaders and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas," he said. Abbas is scheduled to meet with Putin in Amman on 13 February. Palestinian diplomats expected the Mecca declaration to be high on the agenda during the meeting.

"We count on the Russian support for ensuring a lift of the Western embargo that was imposed on the Palestinian Authority in March" in the wake of the landslide victory scored by Hamas, al-Rofou said.

During the last Mid East Quartet meeting in Washington at the beginning of this month, the Russian delegate urged a speedy end of the boycott of the Hamas-led government which he said came to office through the ballots. [US led West remains opposed to Hamas as only pro-West puppets are acceptable. So much for Western proclaimed love for democracy.] Besides Russia, the quartet also includes the US, the E U and the U. N.

Qadri Saeed, at the Cairo-based al-Ahram Strategic Studies, believes that Moscow "stood a good chance of influencing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through its balanced ties with both Fatah and Hamas on one side and between the Palestinians and Israel on the other".

"In face of the receding US influence in the region due to setbacks in Iraq and other areas, the Russians now feel they can occupy the ensuing vacuum in the region," he concluded.
K Gajendra Singh, served as ambassador of India to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.

"Chief among the spoils of victory is the privilege of writing the history."
Mark Alexander Editor/Publisher of Patriot Post in Patriot Post, 17 February 2006