Time to Come to Grips with Russia's Real Agenda

By Douglas Farah

Secretary of State Rice seems baffled by Vladimir Putin's recent speech denouncing the United States in some of the harshest terms possible, as Anne Applebaum eloquently points out in the Washington Post.

But the time for treating Russia like a trustworthy ally in fighting global terror, or having common interests with the United States in Latin America, Africa or Europe has long passed. Only the administration, perhaps still tied by Bush's peering into Putin's soul, seems oblivious to what Russia really wants-to reestablish itself as a world power whose interests will often collide directly with the interests of the United States and its allies.

Russia is a sovereign state, and most (with important exceptions) of its clients are also sovereign states, with the right to enter into these international agreements. But it is time to stop pretending Russia's interests are anything but extremely hostile to combatting Islamist terrorism, stabilizing key regions and ending regional conflicts that pose the real threat of becoming much broader wars.

The first is Russia's ongoing supply of weapons to Iran and Hezbollah at a time when both are posing direct threats to U.S. interests in several regions, including Iraq and Lebanon. This has been well documented, including senior Israeli officials' formal protest to Russia over the sale of sophisticated anti-tank weapons that Hezbollah used with great effect in last summer's war.

This link to Hezbollah, in which Viktor Bout is alleged by U.S. and foreign intelligence officials to be directly involved, has drawn little public comment from U.S. officials.

There are other cases cases much closer to home that have drawn little response from the Bush administration. My full blog is here.

TrackBack