Making up with Vladimir

When George W. Bush first met Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in June 2001, Bush rhapsodized that he "looked [Putin] in the eye" and got "a sense of his soul." For a time, Bush viewed "Vladimir" as his staunch friend. In joint appearances, Bush would wax eloquent about the "war on terror," and Putin, the former KGB man, would smile a supportive crocodile smile, then go home and use similar rhetoric to justify crackdowns on Russian dissidents and minorities. It promised to be, as Bush put it, "a very constructive relationship."

But like most marriages of convenience, it soon frayed. Putin refused to support the Iraq war in 2003, and by 2005, his government had launched a rollback of Russian democratic reforms. Bush was left helplessly on the sidelines, insisting that "Vladimir" had privately assured him of his commitment to democracy, and "when he tells you something, he means it."

Even so, U.S.-Russia relations got worse. By 2006, when Bush spoke of his hope that Russia would someday be "like Iraq, where there's a free press and free religion," Putin was openly mocking: "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq." By February 2007, Putin was denouncing U.S. foreign policy as having "nothing in common with democracy." Rather, he said, it was "an almost uncontained hyper-use of force ... in international relations." By summer 2007, Putin was threatening to point missiles at Poland if the U.S. deployed a planned European missile defense system.

If U.S.-Russia relations have soured, much of the blame lies with the Bush administration. Despite Bush's claims of friendship, the U.S. has generally treated Russia as a washed-up power, eager to learn at our feet and grateful for the occasional crumb of U.S. attention.

It's been a costly error in judgment. Russia may be corrupt, repressive and internally weak, but it still has the capacity to help or hinder U.S. goals in Iran and Iraq and the capacity to destabilize much of Central Europe and Central Asia. Not least, Russia still possesses the world's second largest nuclear arsenal -- but meaningful talks on negotiated nuclear threat reduction have come to a virtual halt.

The U.S. can't afford to turn Russia into an enemy. If Bush wants to salvage something from his disastrous presidency, he needs to use his Sunday visit to Russia to get the relationship onto a healthier footing.