Reporting from Washington — When he arrived in Moscow for national security talks Monday, President Obama was tracing the footsteps of U.S. presidents dating back to Eisenhower. And, like many of his predecessors, Obama found out what difficult bargaining partners the Russians can make.
The two sides took small steps toward scaling back their nuclear arsenals but left wide differences and lingering difficulties on a range of other issues, such as Iran, missile defense, American military support to Russia's neighbors and human rights.
"I don't want to use the word 'disappointment,' but clearly there's a long way to go to work out an agreement, and to move U.S.-Russian relations to more solid ground," said John D. Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control advocacy group.
Although Russia bears little resemblance today to America's onetime chief rival and peer superpower, Obama has the best of reasons for the respectful approach he has chosen for dealing with the new lords of the Kremlin: They can block the path to nearly every one of his foreign policy priorities.
In its role as something of a spoiler, Russia has the leverage to undermine U.S. efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program, to stop extremism in Afghanistan, to broker Middle East peace and to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.
"They have an enormous ability to create problems if they don't think their interests are taken into account," said Paul J. Saunders, a State Department official in President George W. Bush's administration.
Moscow's differences with Washington were on display on Monday, as Obama held his first summit in the Kremlin with President Dmitry Medvedev. On most of the key issues, the two sides could agree only to keep talking.
Obama continues with the summit today, meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for breakfast before flying to Italy for a meeting of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations.
Russia's leverage over the United States comes from various sources, including its historic ties with other countries, its huge energy resources and its geographic position.
Russia's long-standing economic relationship with Iran has been a principal hurdle to American efforts to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Although the West believes tough sanctions by Moscow would play a decisive role, Russia has continued to balk. At their news conference, Obama cited the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, but Medvedev remained silent, refraining from mentioning Iran by name.
Russia has been uneasy about the U.S. military presence in Central Asia and has posed a threat to American efforts to keep open military supply lines to Afghanistan, playing a role in Kyrgyzstan's decision this year, later reversed, to deny the U.S. access to one of its bases.
On Monday, Moscow shifted position on Afghanistan, approving as many as 10 U.S. flights a day through Russian airspace.
That decision, along with another to resume military contacts that were cut off last year after the clash between Russia and Georgia, were among the few bright spots from the summit.
Some of the festering disagreements between the two countries were postponed. The two presidents agreed to jointly study Iran, and to look again at the question of a proposed U.S. missile defense system in Eastern Europe, which Russia views as a threat to its security.
On arms control, the marquee issue of the summit, Russian officials as well as Americans officials of both political parties favor a substantial scaling back of their countries' nuclear arsenals. But this week's meetings have shown that reaching that goal remains tricky.
The two sides announced that they have reached preliminary agreement on a follow-up to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, but the deal is unlikely to be completed by Dec. 5, when the agreement expires.
And the target reductions are far less than many hoped for.
"This is incremental," said Charles D. Ferguson, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "When you pull back the curtain, the wizard reveals that we're almost pretty much there."
paul.richter@latimes.com
