Russian foot-dragging over UN attempts to squeeze Iran on its nuclear activities fits into an increasingly worrying pattern for the US. On a wide range of fronts, Moscow is no longer following Washington's script -- and no longer even pretending to do so.
Russian diplomats have worked hard to forge a compromise under which Iran would conduct uranium enrichment on Russian soil. But Moscow has been equally determined to prevent precipitate action against Tehran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested last week that imposing tight deadlines for Iranian compliance with international demands was "not feasible." That was a diplomatic way of waving the veto. As is the case on other issues, Russia appears to be coordinating its approach with Washington's primary competitor, China.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's perceived offences stretch far beyond the Iran question. He has badly upset his opposite number in Washington by conducting talks with Hamas, the winners of last January's Palestinian elections whom the US and Israel want to isolate.
Russian support for President Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus, is designed to thwart another "color revolution" in a country of the former Soviet sphere. Likewise, Moscow hopes to see its man, Viktor Yanukovich, emerge as the winner of Sunday's parliamentary election in shakily pro-Western Ukraine.
Security and energy
The former Soviet republics of central Asia are the scene of further Russian retrenchment. Uzbekistan, in particular, has moved closer to Moscow. It has down-graded relations with Washington and ordered the US base there to close.
That has adversely affected US and allied counter-terrorist operations in Afghanistan, according to a new report by the US Council on Foreign Relations. The report identified "a seeming Russian effort to curtail US and NATO military access to central Asian bases -- a sign that Russia is retreating from the idea that success in Afghanistan serves a common interest."
Security and energy deals, coupled with disregard for human rights and democratic norms, are the tools Moscow is using to re- establish its spheres of influence. Russian oil and gas are increasingly wielded as a policy weapon against wayward neighbors such as Ukraine, Georgia and Poland, the council said.
Even the EU, ever more dependent on Russian energy supplies, is kow-towing to the new czars. The European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hurried to Moscow recently to try to secure a preferential EU energy partnership with Russia.
Such uncompromising trends all conspire to undermine US influence while reminding the world of Russia's importance. And they are mirrored inside Russia itself, where the freedoms of the post-communist Yeltsin era have all but vanished, civil rights activists say.
Putin's new law restricting the funding and operations of non-government organizations, due to come into effect next month, is only the latest in a string of regressive measures. They range from the Yukos show trial to the emasculation of the democratic opposition through bureaucratic obstruction, threatened financial penalties, state control of the broadcast media, and outright intimidation.
For these and other reasons, US Senator John McCain, a possible presidential candidate in 2008, is urging the Bush administration to boycott this year's G8 summit, due to be held under Putin's chairmanship in St Petersburg this July.
US Vice President Dick Cheney seems to share McCain's concerns. Bypassing the state department, he asked a group of Russia experts in January to assess the threat posed by Russia's changing foreign policy outlook.
Cheney might have looked no further than Andrei Illarionov for an explanation of what is going on. A former economic adviser to Putin, he resigned last December in protest at government policies.
Miscalculation
In a long article published in Kommersant, Illarionov warned that Russia is turning into an oligarchy comprising relatively few, immensely rich and powerful unelected men centred on Putin in the Kremlin. Their power is based on control of state assets.
"Changes in legislation and limitations on political activity have effectively devalued the shares held by citizens in what might be described as a publicly held company called the Russian State," he said. "This company has been transformed into a privately held company that the nominal owners -- Russian citizens -- no longer control."
Such a concentration of power could not last forever, Illarionov argued. But it could last a long time. Two consequences were likely in the meantime: Russia would regress to the status of a resource-rich but undeveloped third world country, in which most people had little money and no say; and for which equable international relationships would no longer be such a priority.
The underlying reason for Russia's shift in outlook is of course the vast wealth currently being generated by its oil and gas exports. It is a source of political confidence as much as cash. This, at least for now, is Russia's great strength -- and foreign energy-dependent America's great weakness.
But a less obvious reason for Washington's alarm is its gradual realization of the depth of its own past miscalculation.
Not long into his first term, US President George Bush met Putin for the first time, and declared he had found a friend. He nicknamed him "Pootie-Poot" and said he could see into his soul. Washington had already stopped regarding Russia as a problem or a threat. Bush decided Moscow was an ally in the "war on terror" and the struggle for global democracy.
The extent of Bush's mistake is daily more evident. It could bring a new chill in relations between the old Cold War adversaries. The big question now is whether the president has the will to admit his error and confront the issue.
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