U.S. relations with Russia have gone steadily downhill under Bush

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush may have liked what he saw when he first peered into Vladimir Putin's soul nearly six years ago. Yet while Bush was looking away, the sunnier horizon he sought with Russia turned cloudy.
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A worried Bush has dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for fence-mending with Moscow this coming week, just three weeks after a similar mission by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Bush also called Putin on Thursday. The two leaders are to meet next month in Germany, and Washington is trying to prevent a diplomatic disaster.

Putin is not sounding receptive to the Bush administration's message that the U.S. intends no harm to an increasingly restive Russia. On Wednesday, Putin made what many took as a veiled comparison between the global aspirations of the United States and Nazi Germany.

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It was not supposed to be this way, not with two leaders who seem to like one another, generally good economic times in both countries and converging interests in the fight against terrorism. Rice, Bush's longtime top foreign affairs adviser, is even a specialist on Russia and a fluent Russian speaker.

Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/12/america/NA-ANL-US-Russia.php

[dave_p]

1. Haven't US relations with everybody? nt

[Bitwit1234]

2. But, but...how come? Condi is a Russian expert

at least that is what the republican say.

[Captain Hilts]

4. So am I and she hasn't a clue how to deal with them. nt

[Posteritatis]

5. Well, a Cold War-era Sovietologist, anyway

Having your Secretary of State do the diplomacy thang with Russia as though it were still an powerful and aggressive, paranoid multi-state empire of unparallelled tyranny might cause some political difficulties...

[HereSince1628]

3. Why would we expect otherwise? Bush's entire foreign policy

and military team was made up of dedicated cold warriors.

America got what it voted for, and that's bad. On the good side, America learned that when acted on the prevailing myth that it doesn't matter who is president has very difficult consequences to life with...

[Turbineguy]

6. Why pick on Russia?

Too bad Osama bin Laden is not the President, Emperissimo or King of a country. Then the US could be on good terms with it.

[go west young man]

7. My wife, who is Russian, and her family and friends all beieve in

Putin fully and are very proud of the path he has put Russia on. They all agree the U.S. is the real danger and Bush has caused the real conflict. They also see the U.S. proping up the Former eastern Block countries and putting missle sites in place around Russia. They know that those missle sites are to contain Russia as Russia's oil wealth is helping their GDp increse by 9% yearly. In other words Russia is on the upswing and the U.S. is worried. Hence the recent smearing of Putin in the U.S. mainstream press in regards to the poisioning in London of a former Russian spy and even going so far as to report on Putin kissing a young Russian boy on the cheek. It shows how desperate our media/government is to discredit Putin at this stage. What it all comes down is a screwed up foreign policy. The same crap is going on in South America and the Middle East. Just a terrible foreign policy.

[Deja Q]

8. So the man who claimed Putin killed him with radiation was lying?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/24/news/spy.php

I suppose it's possible... but anything's possible.

[legerdemain]

9. What do they think about Ras-putin's war in Chechnya

and his interference in Eastern European democracies?

[newyawker99]

14. Hi legerdemain!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Jack_DeLeon]

10. True, but hasnt Russia's relations with lots of other Democratic countries gone down too...

They seem to be doing a good job of stiffling democracy over there. Probably the only nations Russia has been making good with are its client states.

[moondust]

11. Right wing hard-liners will never trust Russia.

OPINION, FWIW: Russia once dared to experiment with something other than greed-based capitalism/plutocracy. Old guard capitalists will always be suspicious of them for doing that and will likely always seek to keep them boxed in while spreading U.S. influence in the region. Case in point: Proposed U.S. missile defense installations in "New Europe"/old Soviet satellite states on Russia's doorstep. Putin sees that as aggression. Who can blame him?

[Edweird]

12. I expect that Putin has zero respect for bush.

Yes, bush is dumbass and a sociopath, but Putin, being former KGB is the real deal. It's always obvious to the wolves who the wanna-be's are. I am sure Putin has nothing but contempt for our coward-in-chief. That must surely complicate our relationship with them.

[MadHound]

13. Granted, Bush causes US relations to go down with anybody, even our best allies

However Putin hasn't been winning the game of Diplomacy either. Poisoning your enemies in a foreign country, playing pipeline games with Europe, the mess in Chechnya, the list of Putin's sins and blunders is a long one.

Sadly what it is starting to look like is the reignition of the Cold War again. And once more corporatists world wide will celebrate, while the rest of us live in dread.

[Ghost in the Machine]

15. Putin, after the war chimp looked into his soul

[merh]

16. Blame it on Condi

Isn't that her expertise?


Or maybe she just needed something to do, she just can't get into the ME crisis, she didn't study that. x(