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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (10914)	5/13/2006 6:04:44 PM
From: sea_urchin	Respond to of 22250

> there's no evidence that the "chow" even wags its tail at the US -- rather, some people hear it growling. guardian.co.uk >>The obvious if unstated enemy was not Chechen "terrorists" or "coloured" revolutionaries from the former vassal states of the old Soviet Union but the old foe, the American "wolf", with its voracious appetite dressed up as phony concern for human rights and the spread of democracy. After 20 years of decline combined with the festival of liberty ushered in by Mikhail Gorbachev's revolution in 1985, the bear is back. Helped by a tide of petrodollars, his "national champion" gas and oil titans projecting Russia's power abroad, and his authority unassailable at home in contrast to Bush, Blair and Chirac, Mr Putin is walking tall on the global stage. The rest of the world is worried. The US has concluded that Mr Putin represents a clever return to traditional Russian authoritarianism. Central and east Europeans, all too familiar with Russian domination, are quaking. Western Europeans, mired in introspection, are waking up to the new challenges. All are scrambling to devise new policies towards Russia. Andrew Kuchins, a Russia expert at Washington's Carnegie Endowment, said: "It is a precarious situation. We need cool heads and for neither side to over-react." Alexander Rahr, a biographer of Mr Putin and Germany's leading analyst of Russia, said years of western cooperation with Russia were giving way to rivalry. "Putin is starting to set the international agenda. The Americans are getting nervous and angry. The US wants to prevent this but has very limited means to do it." Five years ago at a country house outside the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, George Bush first met Mr Putin. The US president said he looked into the eyes of the former KGB officer, caught a glimpse of his soul and saw a man he could trust. But now, with the bitterness of a jilted lover, Mr Cheney called an end to the US romance with post-Soviet Russia. "None of us believes that Russia is fated to become an enemy," he declared, before accusing the Kremlin of exploiting Russia's mineral wealth to blackmail and bully foreign customers, of reversing the democratic gains of the past decade, of "improperly" curbing Russians' rights. If Mr Cheney's attack was the strongest ever on Mr Putin from the Bush administration, the vice-president's criticisms can be heard all across bipartisan Washington. Bruce Jackson, an influential neo-con lobbyist on Russia, said: "It's a difficult time now for the Russia romantics. The people who over-invested in this are in intellectual and political trouble right now." Mr Cheney's Lithuania speech was preceded by criticism from Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. Mary Warlick, her Russia department chief, said last month: "The promise of strategic [US-Russian] partnership has not been fulfilled ... the jury is out about where Russia is going to end up." Leading Republicans and Democrats, such as John McCain and John Edwards, have joined the chorus of what critics of the new line call Russophobia. Mr Kuchins says the Kremlin is enraged by the American lectures but Mr Putin's speech showed his contempt. "Putin lumped together the US, Africa and Latin America and that is new. That is part of the response: 'You Americans no longer are important to us, so piss off'."<<