MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov)
The Moscow meeting of senior foreign officials representing the UN Security Council's permanent members and Germany, who tried to decide how to resolve the crisis around Iran, did not yield any results.
The reason is the difference in approaches of the West, notably the United States, on the one hand, and by Russia, on the other, to methods that could prevent Tehran from going nuclear. Moscow still sees any use of force as unacceptable. However, Russia and the U.S. absolutely agree on one thing: neither Iran nor North Korea should be allowed to acquire the bomb.
Unfortunately, as the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg in July is approaching, there are fewer areas left on which Russia and the U.S. are unanimous. Relations between Moscow and Washington have chilled. Russian experts are worried by mounting criticism from Washington of the quality of Russian democracy and the country's foreign policies. They perceive these tongue-lashings as unfair and disguising America's hostile interests.
Let us look at the situation through the eyes of an ordinary Russian. Ivan Ivanov is perplexed: why was Washington so happy with Russia under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s? At that time, the country had a pitiful dummy of a democracy, which disguised the carouse of corrupt oligarchic clans that ordered the Kremlin about. Why did the American elite, led by President Bill Clinton, insisted on Yeltsin, despite all his shortcomings, pushing the country in the right direction?
Most Russians are positive that when Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin, he took over a country in chaos. Nevertheless, the new president managed to restore the governing system and prevent the country's disintegration.
Today it is fashionable to accuse Moscow of such sins as authoritarian elites, the return of imperial ambitions and the use of natural gas as a tool to solve all foreign-policy problems. In March, the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations issued a report stating that Russia under Putin was heading in the wrong direction. The White House published a new version of its National Security Strategy, where it grimly warned, "Efforts to prevent democratic development at home and abroad will hamper the development of Russia's relations with the United States..."
One thing is obvious: the stream of allegations is gaining strength as Russia recovers after the stroke caused by the change of its social and economic model. The more powerful the country becomes, the less sympathy it evokes in some people in the United States. In other words, the reasons of the current cold war are in many aspects similar to those of the first one. Then the West was worried about the Soviet Union's increasing influence in Eastern Europe. Today it fears Russia's transition into an influential and energetic state.
The difference in Russian and American interpretations of democracy increased after the Russian People's Council, a gathering of the country's public movements, recently adopted the Declaration on Human Rights and Dignity, which was endorsed by the Orthodox Church. This document accuses the Western model of civil liberties of amorality. When taken out of the moral context, rights and freedoms allow people to display xenophobia, insult others' religious feelings and commit other sins. The Western concept mistakes human rights for permissiveness, according to the authors of the document, which has been applauded in society.
Many would deem these ideas as questionable. But they make one thing clear: America's messianic faith in the supremacy of its own democratic model is unlikely to be understood in Russia.
Fortunately for Moscow and Washington, alongside the democratic program, there is another program of Russian-U.S. relations based on less ideological and more pragmatic interests. The United States needs Russia and Russia needs the United States to cooperate in such spheres as dealing with al-Qaeda terrorists, ensuring that Iran's and North Korea's nuclear research remains peaceful and guaranteeing the security of energy production and distribution.
