By David J. Kramer
Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton came away from her visit to Moscow this week with
mixed results. The two big ticket items
involved Iran and the human rights situation inside Russia.
By
all appearances, Clinton struck out on moving Russia closer to supporting
sanctions against Iran should current negotiation efforts fail. "We did not ask for anything today," she
said, in a rather stunning admission. "We reviewed the situation and where it
stood, which I think was the appropriate timing for what this process
entails."
That
she would not try to push Russia toward supporting sanctions is hard to believe
-- and, if true, frankly irresponsible. More
likely, she tried and failed but was putting the best spin on it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's
comments after his meeting with Clinton clearly indicated continued Russian
resistance to any sanctions push. Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin, never a supporter of getting tougher toward Iran, reinforced
this position in comments from Beijing on Wednesday when he argued that
discussing sanctions now against Iran would be "premature."
This
contrasts with comments Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made in New York
last month and that he reportedly reiterated in his private meeting with
Clinton on Tuesday. The Kremlin,
however, has not publicly challenged either the foreign minister's or prime
minister's contradictory comments, even though the president is ultimately in
charge of Russian foreign policy (the idea that Medvedev would slap down Putin
is rather laughable). Yet these
conflicting messages cause confusion about who calls the shots in Moscow. Then again, perhaps the situation is very
clear: it is Putin and not Medvedev (more on this in a future blog entry). What a shame, then, that Putin was in
Beijing, not Moscow, during Clinton's visit.
All this is not a surprise to those of us who have been saying that
Russia is unlikely at the end of the day to support tough sanctions against
Iran -- even in exchange for the Obama administration's regrettable decision
September 17 on missile defense (which, by the way, was handled abysmally).
In
contrast to the bad news on Iran, Clinton's comments on the human rights
situation inside Russia were a pleasant surprise. In spite of her short shrift of human rights
concerns in the past (recall her comments on the way to Beijing in February
when she said she didn't want those issues to "interfere" with other pressing
matters), Clinton made clear the concerns of the Obama administration about the
deteriorating situation inside Russia.
Her meeting with human rights and civil society activists was a very
good follow-up to President Obama's similar meeting in July. Her interview with independent radio station
Ekho Moskvy and her remarks to students at Moscow State University (MGU) also
touched on these issues in a strong way.
"I
think all of these issues -- imprisonments, detentions, beatings, killings - it
is something that is hurtful to see from the outside," Clinton said at MGU.
"Every country has criminal elements, every country has people who try to
abuse power, but in the last 18 months ... there have been too many of the
incidents," adding that not enough was being done to "ensure no one had
impunity from prosecution ... I said that this is a matter of grave concern not
just for the United States but for the Russian people, and not just for
activists but people who worry that unsolved killings are a very serious
challenge to order and the fair functioning of society," Clinton said. In
an innovative society, she observed, "people must be free to take unpopular
decisions, disagree with conventional wisdom, know they are safe to peacefully
challenge accepted practice and authority."
In
her interview with Ekho Mskvy, she highlighted the attacks on journalists and
human rights defenders, noting they are "of such great concern. ... in the last 18
months ... there have been many of these incidents. ... I think we want the
government to stand up and say this is wrong."
Her
strong statements on these issues were especially important given an
unnecessary and unfortunate situation caused by an article in the Russian
newspaper Kommersant earlier in the
week based on comments made by NSC Senior Director Michael McFaul suggesting
that human rights concerns would receive less attention from the Obama administration. The thrust of the Kommersant article seemed out of synch
with Obama's handling of the issue in July, with Clinton's comments this week,
and with McFaul's own passion for human rights over his career (and I've known
him for some 16 years). Clinton stepped
into the fray and allayed the concerns, at least for the time being, of those
who were worry that human rights issues will fall down the list of priorities
in the interest of the Obama Administration's overall "reset" policy with
Moscow.
ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images
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