To address such questions in post-Soviet Russia, which is no longer an ideological dictatorship, it is not sufficient to analyze just the views and choices of the top Kremlin executives and their reference groups among the "elites." Important though they are, a realistic assessment of the U.S.-Russian relationship, present and future, must also take into account the domestic context of Russian foreign policy, which to a far greater extent than ever before is shaped by public opinion, powerful constituencies outside the Kremlin, the imperatives of the political calendar, and the Russian economy.

Public Opinion

There is little doubt about where Russian public opinion stood on the U.S.-led effort to disarm and destroy the Ba'athist regime--or how closely the Kremlin hewed to it in the run-up to and at the onset of the war.

From the first hint of possible military action against Saddam Hussein to the fall of his statue amidst a jubilant, shoe-banging crowd, Russians have been skeptical of the threat posed by Iraq, insistent that their government work for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, passionately opposed to any use of force, and suspicious of America's motives in the region.

In a January 2003 national poll, 52 percent of Russians felt "indignant" about a possible U.S.-British "military operation against Iraq," while only 3 percent approved of the idea.[1] Asked which side would enjoy their sympathy in the event of war, 50 percent said neither, while 10 percent would root for America and 32 percent for Iraq.[2] While about one-fifth thought the United States was preparing for war in order to "destroy terrorist bases" or prevent Iraq from manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, twice as many ascribed America's bellicosity to a desire to "show the world 'who's boss,'" and over a third (34-37 percent) considered U.S. "economic interests"--including control over Iraqi oil--as the underlying casus belli. [3]

In the months leading to war, positive attitudes toward America fell from 69 percent in October 2002 to 48 percent in March 2003, while negative ones rose from 24 percent to 40 percent.[4] With coalition forces massing in the Persian Gulf in early March, far more Russians considered the United States a greater threat to world peace (71 percent) than they did Iraq (45 percent).[5]

By the end of March, as coalition forces raced across the Euphrates plain, only 14 percent of Russians believed that America played "a mostly positive role in today's world;"[6] 91 percent disapproved of the war, while in another poll, 82 percent expressed indignation over it.[7] President Bush commanded an all-time unfavorable "high" of 76 percent in Russia.[8] At the same time, Saddam Hussein's favorability ratings--at 22 percent--barely budged with the outbreak of war, up a mere seven points from February 2002.[9] Similarly, in early March the majority of respondents (51 percent) felt that Iraq was neither a hostile nor a friendly country to Russia.[10] Thus, most Russians' anger appears to have stemmed not from sympathy with the target of American power but from its very exercise.

Policy Choices. Despite their opposition to the war, the majority of Russians--when asked in polls between December 2002 and April 2003 which side their country should take--consistently replied that Moscow should remain neutral (61-73 percent). Between 7 and 9 percent advocated support for the United States, while 19 to 32 percent were for "diplomatic assistance" to Iraq.[11]

The percentages of these latter two "proactive" groups virtually coincide with poles in Russian politics: the former with the liberal modernizers of the Union of Rightist Forces, headed by Boris Nemtsov, Egor Gaidar, and Anatoly Chubais and the latter with the Communist Party. As an analysis last January by a leading Russian polling firm put it, "The attitude towards the United States . . . [is] the dividing line of the Russian political spectrum."[12]

The outbreak of war did little to jolt the broad desire for neutrality. Asked in early April if Russia should risk "damaging its relationship with the United States over war with Iraq," a clear majority (60 percent) said no. In fact, only 16 percent advocated this course of action; the remaining 24 percent "weren't sure."[13]

With the official policy reflecting the majority's attitude faithfully, at the end of February 2003, almost seven in ten Russians (66 percent) supported their country's position, and a solid plurality (45 percent) felt their country was gaining respect in the world because of its stance.[14]

Russia's Muslims

Within the general electorate, Russian Muslims are a constituency to which the Kremlin likely paid special attention in developing its Iraq policy. Concentrated mostly in seven autonomous republics* and numbering 15 to 20 million, they are 10 to 14 percent of the population-the largest Muslim minority in Europe.** (By comparison, there are 4 to 5 million Muslims, or 7 to 8 percent of the total population, in France; 2.9 million, or 4 percent, in Germany; and 1.7 million, or 3 percent, in the United Kingdom. The 6 million Muslims in America are 2 percent of the United States' population.)

Some Muslim activists claim that because of a birthrate much higher than the national average, Russian Muslims will constitute one-third of the country's population by 2025.[15] In May 2002 the Russian Muslims' top administrative body, the Council of Muftis, drafted a manual for officers of the Russian armed forces, in which every tenth serviceman is of Muslim extraction. The handbook contained "a list of regulations from the Koran" and "descriptions of the particulars of everyday Muslim life."[16]

Like other religious minorities in Russia, most notably the Jews, the Muslim community has undergone an astonishing religious and cultural renaissance in the past decade. In 1991 there were eighteen mosques in Tatarstan, the home of Russia's most numerous Muslim people; today there are more than 1,000. The Russian Islamic University opened in Kazan, the Tatar capital, in 1998. Last September, the Kazan Mohammediya madrassa, a religious school, had about 1,000 students.

A Danger of Radicalization. While the overwhelming majority of Russian Muslims follow the more liberal Sufi branch of Islam, freedom of travel has exposed tens of thousands of haj pilgrims to the more militant and austere Wahhabite sect practiced in Saudi Arabia. Russia's largest mosque is being built in the center of Kazan with money from the Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank. In December 2001 one of Russia's top Muslim leaders admitted to having met Osama bin Laden's brother several times in the Muslim-majority autonomous republic of Bashkortostan.[17]

Hundreds of Russian Muslim clerics, community leaders, and young students of Islam have trained in Saudi Arabia and returned as proselytizing Wahhabite imams, while Arab teachers of Islam freely travel throughout Russia. In November 2001, following reports that some graduates of the Yodyz madrassa in the city of Naberzhnye Chelny had gone to Chechnya to fight the Russian troops, the Tatarstan government expelled the Arab teachers of the madrassa and revoked the school's license.

This past March, the chief mufti for the Sverdlovsk region, Khazrat Sibgatulla Khadzha, told reporters that the "struggle against Islamic extremism in the central Urals area is not sufficiently active."[18] According to the mufti, "Arab emissaries" distributed Wahhabite literature that contained "calls for an armed struggle against the nonbelievers." The cleric also claimed that the Wahhabites had opened two youth camps in the region and organized similar camps in Siberia and the Far East.[19]

With the Soviet legacy of enforced atheism and secularism crumbling rapidly in Tatarstan, the number of women insisting on wearing head scarves in public grew large enough to alarm the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, which in the spring of 2002 issued a decree requiring that no scarves be worn in photographs for official documents, such as domestic passports and driver's licenses. Insisting that the Koran prohibited a Muslim woman from "removing the veil before an unknown man," fifteen Tatar women, represented by the Muslim Women's Union, sued the authorities for denying religious freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. Turned down by a Kazan district court and then in the Supreme Court of Tatarstan, the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, which upheld the lower courts' decision in March 2003.

From 9/11 to Iraq. Two weeks after the September 11 attacks, Vladimir Putin met with Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin, the chairman of Russia's Council of Muftis, and Talgat Tadzhuddin, supreme mufti of the Central Religious Board of Russian Muslims. (The political leadership of Russia's Muslim community is largely split between these two clerics, who are bitter rivals.) Putin had invited them to the Kremlin to express gratitude for their support in the war against terrorism. Both Tadzhuddin and Gaynutdin joined the government in its condemnation of the attacks in New York and Washington, proposing that an international conference be held under the banner, "Islam against terror."[20] However, as soon as U.S. bombs began to fall on Taliban positions in October, at least some prominent Muslim clerics and their followers dissented from the official position.

Already by October 15, 2001, protests against the U.S. strikes took place in Kazan during the annual "day of mourning" rally, which commemorates the fall of the city to the Russian forces under Ivan the Terrible in 1552. Two weeks later, a cochairman of the Council of Muftis, Nafigulla Ashir, condemned the attack on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers as a "criminal war" and avowed that it would be "justified" for any Russian Muslim to take up arms in defense of the Taliban.[21]

In April 2002, as the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia marked Memorial Day in Israel with rallies that condemned suicide bombings and commemorated their Israeli victims in nearly 100 Russian cities, Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov, a deputy for the Duma's largest party, the pro-government United Russia (UR), led a protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Moscow. A much larger anti-Israel demonstration was held in Khasavyurt, Dagestan's second largest city, with participants carrying posters that read "Hands off Palestine" and "Sharon is Terrorist No.1."[22] "We are absolutely dissatisfied with Russia's attitude toward the Palestinian problem," the imam of one of the mosques in Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala, told reporters. "There are more than 25 million [sic] Muslims in Russia, and if Russia is not taking into account the position of its citizens, this may lead to serious problems."[23]

"Setting the Islamic World Against Russia." In October 2002 a prominent Russian Islamic scholar warned that Russia's "fully supporting the U.S. administration plans for a military strike at Iraq . . . eventually would . . . set the Islamic world against Russia."[24] As the prospect of U.S.-led war on Iraq hardened into a reality, the position of the leaders of the Russian Muslim community shed any trace of ambiguity. At the end of February, Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin declared that a military operation against Iraq would be a "tragedy for the whole region" and could provoke a "wave of terrorist acts" throughout the world. He claimed that "thousands" of Russian Muslims were prepared to go to Iraq to "defend the Iraqi people."[25]

On March 13 Mufti Tadzhuddin told reporters in Moscow that the "Muslim community of Russia condemns the actions of the United States and Britain, which are blasphemously attempting to assume the role of supreme rulers of the world's destiny." He added that Russia's Muslims "fully support the position of President Vladimir Putin on the Iraq question."[26]

During an antiwar rally sponsored by United Russia on April 3, Tadzhuddin announced, during an antiwar rally sponsored by United Russia, that his organization had declared jihad against America. "Russia's Muslims have effective levers of influence in the United States," he said. "We will set up a fund to raise donations that will be used to buy weapons to fight against the United States and to purchase food for the people of Iraq." He added that this was the first time Russia's Muslims had declared jihad since the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany in 1941.[27]

Tadzhuddin's outburst provoked swift denunciations from most quarters, including the Russian Orthodox Church, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, the president of Russia's Jewish congress, and Muslim muftis from across the Russian Federation.[28] In a meeting chaired by Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin on April 14 in Moscow, Russia's Islamic leaders came together to annul the call for jihad and, more importantly, snatch power from the "rogue" cleric: "Tadzhuddin has seceded from Islam and presented himself as a false prophet. His statement conflicts with the major postulates of sharia law." A near-unanimous resolution was subsequently passed in support of President Putin and his policy concerning "stabilization around Iraq and worldwide."[29]

Politics and Economy

Although Russia's Iraq policy appears to have mirrored the country's mood (and certainly that of its Muslims), it cannot be explained by public opinion alone. After all, public opinion is not always automatically translated into policy even in mature liberal democracies, much less in nations, such as Russia, that have only recently broken with a long authoritarian tradition. Deference to the leader, especially in matters of foreign policy and national security, is an integral part of that tradition and, with his country in its fourth year of economic growth, Vladimir Putin remains a very popular president. Why, then, has he not attempted to use his popularity to mold and change the country's attitude or, failing that, hazarded his vast political capital on taking an unpopular decision and leading Russia in a pro-U.S. direction, changing public opinion as British prime minister Tony Blair and his Spanish counterpart, Josˇ Maria Aznar, have done?

Elections and Reforms. While no single cause can by itself account for Putin's choice, a combination of factors proved irresistible in the end. The Duma election is only eight months away, and the presidential poll is to take place in March 2004. While Putin's reelection appears certain, the voters are likely to punish United Russia, the pro-government party in the Duma, for any and all unpopular decisions the president makes. Meanwhile, despite the Kremlin's blessing, United Russia, which advertises itself as the party of the post-Soviet middle class, has been less than uniformly successful in local gubernatorial and mayoral elections around the country. Among those who intend to vote, UR is in a dead heat with the Communists (KPRF): 23 percent to 24 percent in favor of the KPRF, which since 9/11 has been skewering the Putin administration for being America's lapdog.[30] If Putin had sided with the United States on Iraq, he would have undoubtedly reduced or even jeopardized the UR's plurality, let alone majority, in the 2004-2008 Duma.

During what would be his second and last term as president, Putin desperately needs a pro-reform majority, or at least plurality, in the Duma in order to complete a very ambitious program of structural reforms, which he considers one of the most important parts of his legacy. Among the most painful and politically risky measures are the privatization of state-owned monopolies in electricity and other utilities; the housing reform that would gradually eliminate enormous state subsidies and bring rents closer to their real cost; the pension reform that would gradually shift funding from the state to payments by employees and employers and transfer custody of millions of pensions from the state-owned Sberbank to private state-regulated mutual funds; and a sharp reduction in the ranks of the armed forces and the creation of an all-volunteer army.

Just how much political capital Putin will need to spend to secure these reforms is evident from a recent national poll: between 36 and 56 percent felt that the housing, electricity, and pension reforms would "make life worse for people like me"; only 8 to 14 percent thought that the reforms would make their lives better.[31]

The Elite Grievances. The Kremlin's policy choices in the Iraq affair were also influenced by the mood of the political establishment, including deputies in the Duma and the senior bureaucracy in the foreign and defense ministries, which have grown increasingly unhappy with what they perceive as a "one-way street" in Russo-American relations.

In this view, Russia has taken a number of major steps helpful to the United States since September 11, 2001: unprecedented overflight and basing rights and intelligence sharing; quiet acquiescence to the unilateral abrogation of the ABM treaty (despite the spoiling for a fight by the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate and by America's European allies) and the expansion of NATO to former Soviet territory. Not only, the argument goes, did the United States fail to reciprocate in any way commensurate with the Russian proffers, but, in fact, it damaged Russian interests in a number of ways. Much in the list of particulars may be inaccurate, ascribing ill will and intent to oversights, bureaucratic inertia, and policies in which Russia was far from a major consideration. Still, as the dean of American sociologists, W. I. Thomas, once noted: "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."[32]

Among the Russian grievances are:

The Jackson-Vanik Trade Law Amendment. Passed by the U.S. Congress in 1974, the measure prohibits granting normal trade relations (formerly known as most favored nation) status to countries with non-market economies that restrict freedom of emigration. Even though more than 70 percent of the Russian economy is in a nonstate sector (last year the United States officially recognized Russia as a market economy) and both emigration and travel abroad are unrestricted, Russia has to receive an annual waiver to be exempted from the law. By contrast, China no longer does.

The Bush administration repeatedly promised Moscow that it would have Congress repeal Jackson-Vanik. Last year it encountered stiff resistance in the Senate, controlled by the Democrats until the November midterm elections. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph R. Biden, opposed the repeal because of a Russian ban on U.S. poultry exports. (Russia was the single largest importer of American chicken parts, accounting for half of the total U.S. exports, much of them produced in Biden's home state of Delaware.) The White House retreated. 

Steel Tariffs. In March 2002 the Bush administration imposed tariffs ranging from 8 to 30 percent on imported steel for a three-year period. In addition to Russia, which provided 4 to 6 percent of the over 23 million tons of steel imported by the United States, the countries most adversely affected by the tariffs were Ukraine, Japan, China, South Korea, and Brazil.

Russian steel imports to the United States accounted for 10 percent of the annual trade turnover between the two countries, and Russia stood to lose $400 to $500 million because of the imposition of the duties. In addition, the sharp decrease in trade was predicted to cause massive layoffs in the privatized Russian steel industry, which employed 750,000 people. At the time, Moscow called the imposition of the tariffs "illegal" and warned of their "negative" impact on the relations between the two countries.[33]

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Paris Club Debt. Russia hoped for U.S. assistance in expediting its entry into the WTO and in negotiating partial forgiveness or rescheduling of more than $100 billion of Soviet debt to sovereign lenders (the so-called Paris Club). As of now, Russia remains at least a year away from WTO membership, and the Paris Club has not rescheduled or forgiven any of its Soviet debt (most of it accumulated by the Gorbachev government between 1988 and 1991). The latter is likely a source of particular bitterness, as the Russians watched Eastern European, particularly Polish, communist-era debts forgiven in the early 1990s and as the United States today helps postwar Iraq write off its Saddam-era debts, many of which are owed to Moscow.

The Consulate. The U.S. Embassy's Moscow consulate is known throughout Russia for the rudeness and incompetence of its staffers, who capriciously deny visas to (or subject to humiliatingly long interviews) not just would-be tourists from the middle and upper-middle class, but also leading Russian entrepreneurs, civic leaders, and cultural figures traveling to America by invitation. 

Fear of "Backlash." Meeting with the Bush administration's top foreign policy officials in Washington last February, one of President Putin's key advisors added to this litany the alleged U.S. "opposition" to Russian interests throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States, pressure on pro-Russian elements in the post-Taliban government of Afghanistan, and resistance by U.S. diplomats in Georgia to Russia's efforts to rid the Pankisi Gorge of Chechen and Arab fighters.

According to the same Kremlin insider, this record, as seen from Moscow, made even generally pro-U.S. members of the political class doubt if Russia could count on U.S. assistance--military, economic, and diplomatic--in coping with a "backlash" and "retaliation" by the "Islamic world" which, they felt, would inevitably follow Russia's support of a U.S. war on Iraq. Unlike the United States or Europe, Russia must take into account its "soft underbelly": over 60 million Muslims in six states on or close to its southern borders--Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--and, further south, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Economic Benefits of the Status Quo. Economic considerations have also contributed to Moscow's policy choices. Iraq was the Soviet Union's client state for two decades in the 1970s and 1980s (its debt to Moscow is estimated at $8 to $12 billion), and Russia inherited a major economic presence there. Russia remained one of Iraq's major trading partners after UN sanctions were imposed in 1990. Iraq bought products that Russia could not sell anywhere else, including its cars, which are by far the dominant brand on the Iraqi road. Russian technicians continued to run power plants, manage factories, and build railroads. Russia's sales to Iraq under the UN oil-for-food program likely have netted Moscow well over $1 billion.[34] Thus, the status quo (inspecting Iraq for weapons of mass destruction while preserving the regime and possibly lifting UN sanctions) translated into an important cash flow for Russia and generated thousands of jobs.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia remained Iraq's main supplier of weapons and military equipment. Undoubtedly, arms shipments have also been made by private Russian firms in violation of the UN-imposed sanctions. The disclosure in late March of the sale of Russian-made night-vision goggles, antitank missiles, and global-positioning-system jamming devices to Saddam's troops is only the most conspicuous part of the pattern. As with the export of Russian nuclear energy technology to Iran, the Russian military-industrial complex is willing (or, perhaps, eager) to complicate or even damage Russo-American relations for cash and jobs.

Russia's interests in Iraqi oil are also extensive. Russian businesses hold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of contracts to explore, drill, and service Iraqi oil fields, which are among the world's richest. In 1997 Russia's largest oil firm, LUKoil, negotiated a $4 billion, twenty-three-year contract to rehabilitate the West Qurna oil field in southern Iraq. In addition, it is almost certain that Russian oil companies facilitated the export of Iraqi oil in circumvention of UN sanctions.

The removal of Saddam Hussein is also likely to cost the Russian treasury billions of dollars in lost taxes because of a sharp increase in Iraqi oil production, which may conceivably rise to 4 million barrels per day from last year's average of 2.9 million. With every dollar drop in the price per barrel estimated to cost Russia a half percentage point of its GDP, regime change in Iraq could jeopardize Russia's four-year-old economic recovery and the steadily rising standard of living, on which the Putin administration rightly prides itself. Asked by pollsters to predict the consequences of U.S. victory in Iraq, most leading Moscow political analysts, journalists, and intellectuals said that they expected it would result in "the worsening of the economic situation in Russia."[35]

The French Syndrome. Finally, like their German and French counterparts, a sizeable segment of the Russian elite undoubtedly welcomed a chance to demonstrate that former superpowers can "stand up to" and thwart the world's "hyperpower," if only momentarily and largely on a symbolic level. Short-lived though it is likely to be, this revival of "multipolarity" and the opportunity to strut in the brief but bright limelight of world attention must have been gratifying even to those in the political class who see partnership with the United States as the only viable strategic option for Russia.

Neither Carrots nor Sticks. In the fall of 2001, after siding decisively with the United States, Vladimir Putin declared:

Unlike the past, Russia today cooperates with the West not because it wants to be liked or wants to get something in exchange for its position. We are not panhandling and we are not asking anyone for anything. I conduct this policy only because I feel that it is completely in accordance with Russia's national interests.[36]

At the time, Putin showed little deference to, or even patience with, the traditionally anti-American defense and foreign bureaucracies, whose list of grievances was likely to have been just as long then as it is now. Within a week of September 11, he overruled his defense and foreign ministers by granting U.S. troops unprecedented overflight rights and encouraging the former Soviet republics in Central Asia to allow the establishment of American bases there.

According to a top Kremlin official, the Russian president understands, unlike many of his subordinates, that at least some of the U.S. policies Russia finds objectionable are not those of the Bush administration and, indeed, often are contrary to the wishes of the White House. Instead, they have been implemented by the lower echelons of the vast bureaucracy (especially in the State Department and the Pentagon), which the Kremlin perceives as "incorrigibly anti-Russian." In the same official's words, "even though the transmission has been disconnected, the motor is still running."

Moreover, a Kremlin insider close to President Putin insisted in February that Moscow views the United States as its "most important strategic partner," and that "partnership, if possible, alliance and, even better, close friendship" with the United States remains the "strategic direction" of Russian foreign policy. The necessity to salvage this "strategic direction" may have been behind Putin's conspicuous silence during the final rounds of the Iraq debate in the United Nations in February and March of 2003. Unlike his French counterpart, Jacques Chirac, Putin did not publicly support his foreign minister in brandishing a veto over the putative U.S.-British UN Security Council resolution.

Still, by the end of 2002, the United States had neither sticks nor carrots with which to influence Russia's behavior. From NATO expansion and ABM to the WTO and the Paris Club debt, the chips had either been cashed in or thrown out. Without Russian public opinion united behind him in sympathy and solidarity with the United States, as it was after 9/11, and with his pockets empty of anything that would impress the political class, Putin apparently decided not to challenge the elite consensus and, instead, joined it.

Where To From Here?

Opposing an international mandate for a project that America's elected leaders and a majority of its population consider vital to their security is a serious matter. Providing the enemy with equipment that diminishes the effectiveness of the U.S. military and endangers the lives of its soldiers makes the situation worse still.

Yet the tension over Iraq is hardly a renewal of the cold war. True, the former superpower, with which America was locked in a worldwide ideological and political struggle not yet seventeen years ago and which ten years ago still had 10,000 nuclear weapons aimed at the United States and its allies, has failed to behave as Britain, Denmark, Spain, or Poland did. Instead, it acted only slightly better than France.

U.S. & Russia, Ltd. The conflict over Iraq will not rupture U.S.-Russia relations. It is bound, however, to bring the tenor of the discourse to a considerably more subdued level and will result in a more realistic assessment of the limitations to U.S.-Russian cooperation. A product of the 1991 "velvet revolution," today's Russia is a coat of many colors. Some are brilliantly bright, others almost as dark as in Soviet days, and many, still, in shades of gray. So too in Russia's foreign and national security policy do radical demilitarization, the end of global imperial ambitions, the peaceful liquidation of empire, and a dramatic reorientation of the very criteria by which national greatness is judged, coexist (and are likely to continue to coexist for years if not decades) with tactics and public opinion trends that America and Americans will find less than helpful and, sometimes, adverse.

Much as the commonalities of American and Russian interests will multiply as Russia moves, however haltingly, toward a functioning democracy and liberal capitalism, geography, history, and demography will for a long time (if not forever) prevent Russia from siding with the United States on every aspect of every issue of international relations and security. Until then, the best strategy is an obvious one-to forgo the illusion of a cloudless relationship; expand and deepen areas of proven, long-term, strategic, mutual interest (a global war on terrorism and Russian oil exports to the United States top the list today); and frankly discuss, contain, and, where possible, defuse disagreements to prevent them from poisoning the rest of the ties.

Cleaning House. While the United States ought to do what it can to rid the relationship with Russia of unnecessary irritants, some of which have been listed above, the Kremlin will have a great deal to do to demonstrate a reciprocal commitment. In addition to addressing its apparent inability to control arms exports to rogue states, Moscow must react credibly to the evidence found in the Baghdad headquarters of the Iraqi secret police, the Mukhabarat, that the Russian External Intelligence Service (SVR) offered two-week courses in surveillance and eavesdropping techniques to Iraqi agents as recently as September 2002.

There is a long tradition in Russian history of crying out "If only the tsar knew!" when incompetent or rapacious officialdom commits abuses in the name of the state. If Russia is to be treated as a modern democracy, its chief executive sooner or later will have to ensure that his publicly declared policies are followed not only in the vast concrete fortresses of the foreign and defense ministries, still stuffed with reflexive anti-Americanists, but also in the musty and dimly-lit basements where its weapons traders and secret services continue to do deals with criminal, blood-soaked regimes.

A Credible Promise. Provided that the United States and Russia are satisfied with each other's efforts to address their mutual concerns, there are several reasons to believe that a limited but better-focused relationship will be viable. First, victimization by determined and relentless Islamic terrorism has forged a bond between Russia and America--and this tie bypasses a lotus-eating Europe. Unlike Europeans, but like Americans, the Russians have seen buildings razed by explosions in their cities, and their grief, angst, fear, and anger that call for action are comparable to that of Americans. The October 2002 horror of hostage-taking in Moscow has greatly strengthened the post-September 11 solidarity with America's global antiterrorist project. (In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, some local Russian leaders pointed out that, in contrast to the European Union's laws, the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit the death penalty, which an overwhelming majority of the Russians support in cases of terrorism, and called for the repeal of the moratorium on capital punishment in Russia.)

Second, occupying the top third of the Eurasian continent, as Russia does, cannot but encourage activism and longing for participation in world affairs. Many in the Russian political elite (most certainly, President Putin and his entourage) understand that only by allying itself with America will Russia have an opportunity to contribute in a meaningful and productive way to a better, safer world. As President Putin said in the beginning of April, "The United States and Russia are the biggest nuclear powers in the world, and a special responsibility rests upon us. In solving . . . problems . . . of a global [nature] and crisis situations, [post-Soviet Russia has] always cooperated, [is] cooperating, and will cooperate with the United States."37 America, in turn, has a historic opportunity to help channel Russia's aspirations in a direction beneficial to both the Russian people and the world.

There is, furthermore, the unrivalled centrality of the United States in the Russian national conscience. Even when America was the enemy, her appeal to the Russians, elite and hoi polloi alike, was far and away stronger than that of Europe. It is America, not Europe, that for decades provided a yardstick against which to measure Soviet achievements: from Stalin's prescription of "Bolshevik enthusiasm" and American working habits as the key to success, to Nikita Khrushchev's slogan of "catching up and surpassing America" (not France or Germany), to the obsession with American clothes and music among the children of the Brezhnev elite in the 1970s. In Soviet days, as today, very few, if any, achievements were as beneficial to a politician's domestic standing as a summit with the American president.

Public Support. Iraq notwithstanding, Russian public opinion is likely to continue to support the U.S.-Russian partnership. Even in a March 2003 nationwide poll, a solid plurality (42 percent) felt that, while "staying on the sidelines" of the U.S.-Iraq conflict, Russia ought to "remain in the U.S. antiterrorist coalition."[38]

Despite much grumbling, America's core image in Russia is hardly negative. In a national poll administered last August, among the "words most suitable to describe" the United States, the top choices (between 58 percent and 35 percent) were "wealth," "power," "progress," and "liberty." [39] Despite decades of Soviet propaganda, "violence" (18 percent), "inequality" (14 percent), "imperialism" (17 percent), and "racism" (10 percent) were distinctly less popular. (By contrast, in the same poll administered in France, the latter four words were chosen as best describing the United States by, respectively, 35 percent, 39 percent, 27 percent, and 23 percent of the respondents.)[40]

Putin Changes Tack. After allowing the histrionics of Russia's defense and foreign policy establishments to run their course during the first weeks of the war, Putin reemerged in early April to assert the need for pragmatism about Iraq. On April 2, during a visit to the city of Tambov, Putin acknowledged Russia's opposition to the war, but then stressed that, "for political and ideological reasons, [Russia] is not interested in the defeat of the United States."[41]

The next day, the president urgently summoned a group of journalists to Novo-Ogaryovo, his country residence outside Moscow, where he lectured them on the necessity to maintain and "develop further" partnership with the United States in the war against terrorism, nuclear arms reduction, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the economy. Asked about widespread opposition to the war, Putin said, "I can understand people who [disagree]. . . . I understand and in general agree with their opinions. . . . But at the same time, I think emotions are a bad adviser when it comes

to decisionmaking."[42]

On April 5 Putin urged Russian lawmakers to ratify the Treaty of Moscow-the major nuclear disarmament agreement that he and President Bush signed in May 2002, and which the Duma had refused to consider in protest of the war.[43] On the question of writing off Iraq's debt, Putin again distanced himself from the anger and outrage expressed by aides: "On the whole, the proposal is understandable and legitimate," he said on April 11. "Russia has no objections to such a proposal."[44]

Policy Debate. The disagreement with the United States over Iraq has already provoked some much-needed introspection about the rabidly anti-American tendencies of the foreign and defense establishments. In mid-April the editors of Yezhenedelny Zhurnal castigated Foreign Minister Ivanov as "a Soviet diplomat . . . most concerned with finding the harshest possible expression to characterize the Americans."[45] In the opinion of Vladimir Lukin, deputy speaker of the Duma and former ambassador to the United States, "the psychological condition that we inherited from the Soviet Union, from our past superpower status . . . [that compels us to act as] an irritant to the United States . . . often takes precedence over a rational approach to our own interests."[46] Georgy Mirsky, chief political analyst at the Moscow Institute for World Economics and International Relations, told a gathering of leading foreign policy experts, "Our anti-Americanism is disgusting. It's the anti-Americanism of hooligans and vulgar people."[47]

At a Kremlin-run forum on April 16, several foreign policy intellectuals declared Russia's Iraq strategy a failure. Former deputy foreign minister Anatoly Adamishin said, "We were so proud of forming an antiwar bloc . . . but someone in Moscow should have understood that it was impossible to avert this war. Our main goal now is to make sure that our relations with the United States do not suffer further."[48]

Even Yevgeny Primakov-former prime minister, confidante of Saddam Hussein, and keeper of the flame of Russian great power ambitions-recently acknowledged in a primetime television interview, "We should under no circumstances lapse into anti-Americanism [because] this would inflict a great deal of damage on our interests."[49]

Europe: A Short-Lived Romance. By contrast, Russia's romance with Germany and France (and, by extension, the European Union) is very likely to be short-lived. In the past several years, Russia has been profoundly disenchanted with Europe, and a temporary anti-U.S. diplomatic alliance is not likely to repair the rift. Europe has repeatedly disappointed Moscow with its isolationism, its systematic and deliberate disavowal of the key tools of global influence (armies, military hardware, and technology), its near-obsessive concentration on what, to the Russians, seem to be petty details and projects of political correctness and unification. Russia is frustrated by Europe's willful somnolence, its seeming lack of concern for its sluggish economy, and, most of all, the wishful thinking that passes for European policy in the war on terrorism.

According to Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the International Relations Committee of the Federation Council (the upper house of the Russian parliament), Russia's siding with the United States in the war on "international terrorism" has posed a threat to the "Euro-Islamic idyll."[50] Margelov sees the roots of Europe's hostile attitude toward Russia as part of the wider "vexation" of the "openly anti-American forces, including those in the Islamic world," which have "despaired of finding in Russia an ally-an heir to the USSR's struggle with 'Satan Number One.'"[51]

With this recent history in mind, a contributor to Russia's leading business newspaper, Vedomosti, recently cautioned Moscow against the "temptation of multipolarity," in which Russia would join France and Germany in "standing up" to America.[52] Unlike America, however, the EU is not a "global player" capable of flexibility in its relations with Russia in order to pursue a larger strategic "geopolitical" agenda. When the war in Iraq is over, the authorwarned, Russia will again face in the EU a heavily bureaucratized colossus, "unable to compromise." [53]

After Washington chose China, not Russia, as its chief mediator with North Korea, Andrei Piontkovsky of Moscow's Center for Strategic Studies said, "We are losing our positions in Asia because of . . . this failure of a strategic triangle that [Foreign Minister] Ivanov invented with Germany and France."[54]

A Different Association

Russia's policy on Iraq has been shaped by a number of factors, including public opinion, domestic politics and the political calendar, short-term economic objectives, the state of bilateral U.S.-Russian ties, as perceived by the Russian political class, and the desire for great power recognition. Thus far, their combined weight has proved greater in the Kremlin's policymaking than the apparently sincere desire by the Putin administration to enhance and deepen the U.S.-Russian post-September 11 "partnership."

The result--behavior that the U.S. government and the majority of U.S. citizens found unhelpful and, at times, adverse to America's objectives in a matter of paramount importance to their country's national security--highlights the limitations of the U.S.-Russian relationship. Yet, rid of unrealistic expectations and refocused on the areas where mutual concerns continue to generate cooperation--be they the world struggle against terrorism or Russian oil exports to the United States--the association itself is likely to survive.

For, as they say in economics, the "fundamentals" have not changed. A Russia that continues a difficult and uneven evolution toward democracy and liberal capitalism will not remain a U.S. opponent for long and, instead, will be propelled, again, toward greater cooperation and, eventually, greater trust.

Similarly unaffected by the row over Iraq is America's key strategic priority in its relations with Russia: to help build a regime responsive to the will of the Russian people. Indeed, it may be a small but nevertheless significant consolation to the United States that, in the case of Iraq, Russian foreign policy, which used to be hermetically sealed from public opinion, reflected the latter rather closely.

We are likely to remember the rift over Iraq as sobering evidence of the significant gulf that remains between the United States and Russia, as well as between Americans and Russians, not as the wedge that drove them unbridgeably apart.

Notes

1. Vserossiyskiy Tsentr Izucheniya Obschestvennogo Mneniya (VTsIOM, Russian Center for Public Opinion and Market Research), conducted January 24-27, 2003. Accessed at http://www.russiavotes.org on March 6, 2003.

2. Fond Obschestvennoye Mneniye (FOM, Public Opinion Foundation), conducted February 1-2, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/virtual/body on March 6, 2003.

3. VTsIOM, conducted September 21-23, 2002. Accessed at http://www.russiavotes.org on March 6, 2003.

4. VTsIOM, conducted February 26-March 3, 2003. Accessed at http://www.wciom.ru on March 6, 2003.

5. Ibid.

6. FOM, conducted March 22, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/of031201.html on April 19, 2003.

7. FOM, conducted March 22-23, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/short/d031212.html on April 19, 2003; and VTsIOM, conducted March 21-24, 2003. Accessed at www.russiavotes.org/images/slide388.gif on April 22, 2003.

8. FOM, conducted March 29, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/of031305.html on April 19, 2003.

9. FOM, conducted March 29, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/of031304.html on April 19, 2003.

10. Rossiyskoye Obschestvennoye Mneniye i Isledovaniye Rynka (ROMIR, Russian Public Opinion and Market Research), conducted March 6-11, 2003. Accessed at http://www.romir.ru/socpolit/vvps/03_2003/iraq-war.htm on April 19, 2003.

11. ROMIR, conducted November 2002. Accessed at http://www.romir.ru/socpolit/vvps/11_2002/iraq.htm on March 6, 2003; FOM, conducted February 1-2, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/virtual/body on March 6, 2003; VTsIOM, conducted January 24-27, 2003. Accessed at http://www.russiavotes.org on March 6, 2003; and VTsIOM, conducted February 26-March 3, 2003. Accessed at http://www.wciom.ru on March 6, 2003.

12. L.A. Sedov, "Yanvarskii Opros VTsIOM" (VTsIOM January Evaluation), VTsIOM, February 11, 2003. Accessed at http://www.wciom.ru/vciom/new/public/public_own/ 030211_politru.htm on March 6, 2003.

13. FOM, conducted April 12-13, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/tb031509.html on April 20, 2003.

14. FOM, conducted February 22-23, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/short/tb030808.html on March 6, 2003. In the same poll, 24 percent thought that respect for Russia was unaffected by its position on Iraq, 5 percent felt that it was diminishing, and 25 percent did not know.

15. Francoise Michel, "Russia's Muslims uneasy at U.S.-led strikes in Afghanistan," Agence France Presse, November 15, 2001. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on March 6, 2003.

16. Nabi Abdullaev, "Muslims Want to Give Army a Lesson," Moscow Times, May 30, 2002. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on March 6, 2003.

17. Gordon M. Hahn, "Putin's Muslim Challenge," Russia Journal, January 25-31, 2002. Accessed at http://www.therussiajournal.com/index.htm?obj=5458 on April 20, 2003.

18. "Urals Region Called Center of Islamic Extremism," RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly, Volume 3, Number 12, March 19 2003, pp. 1-2.

19. Ibid.

20. "Putin Meets Russia's Muslim Leaders," BBC Monitoring, September 24, 2001. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 20, 2003.

21. Anatoly Medetsky, "Russian Muslims lash out at U.S. campaign in Afghanistan," Associated Press, Novem-ber 5, 2001. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com

on March 7, 2003.

22. Anderi Zolotov, Jr., "Russian Jews and Muslims Take Sides," Moscow Times, April 16, 2002. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on March 6, 2003.

23. Ibid.

24. Dmitry Makarov, "Nurullaev: We Have Created Our Civilization Together," Argumenty i Fakty, October 30, 2002, p. 7.

25.. "'Thousands of Russian Muslims Prepared to Fight on Iraqi Side: Head Mufti," Agence France Presse, February 26, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on March 6, 2003.

26. "Russian Muslim Leaders Condemn U.S. Policy in Iraq," RFE/RL Newsline, March 14, 2003, p. 2.

27. "United Russia Declares Jihad on America," Kommersant, April 4, 2003, p. 8.

28. "Mufti's Jihad Call Does Not Reflect Muslims' Position-Speaker," ITAR-TASS, April 4, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 18, 2003.

29. "Mufti Tadzhuddin Commits Self-Jihad," Kommersant, April 15, 2003, p. 8.

30. L.A. Sedov, "Rezul'taty Fevral'skogo Oprosa VTsIOM," VTsIOM, February 28-March 3, 2003, p.11. 

31. VTsIOM, conducted February 28-March 3, 2003. Accessed at http://www.wciom.ru on March 6, 2003. Between 24 and 32 percent of the surveyed saw no effect from the reforms on their lives and 12 to 23 percent were uncertain.

32. As quoted in Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968), p. 475.

33. "United States to Impose Duties of 8 to 30 percent on Imported Steel," Mining and Metals Report, March 7, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on March 6, 2003.

34. Carrie Satterlee, "Who Benefits from Keeping Saddam in Power," the Heritage Foundation, February 28, 2003, p. 1. Accessed at http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/ wm217.cfm on March 6, 2003.

35. FOM, conducted April 1-3, 2003. Accessed at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/short/d031410.html on April 20, 2003.

36. As quoted in Lidiya Andrusenko and Ol'ga Tropkina, "Mezal'yans s Amerikoy" (Misalliance with America), Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 11, 2002. Accessed at http://ng.ru/politics/2002-09-11/1_america.html on March 6, 2003.

37. Anthony Louis, "Analysis: Russia Changes Tack on Iraq," United Press International, April 5, 2003. Accessed on http://www.nexis.com on April 22, 2003.

38. VTsIOM, conducted February 28-March 3, 2003. Accessed on http://www.wciom.ru March 18, 2003.

39. A.A.Golov, "Obraz SShA vo Frantsii, v Rossii i v partiynykh elektoratakh" (America's image in France,

Russia, and Within Parties' Electorates), VTsIOM, August 22-26, 2002. Accessed at http://www.wciom.ru on March 6, 2003.

40. Ibid.

41. Sergei Blagov, "Iraq: Putin Softens Tone in Fence-Mending Move with United States," Inter Press Service, April 4, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 20, 2003.

42. Anthony Louis, "Analysis: Russia Changes Tack on Iraq," United Press International, April 5, 2003. Accessed on http://www.nexis.com on April 22, 2003.

43. "In Further Bid to Mend U.S. Ties, Putin Promises to Ratify Nuclear Accord," Agence France Presse, April 5, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 21, 2003.

44. Dmitry Zaks, "Russia Hints 'Peace Camp' Alliance with France and Germany is Dying," Agence France Presse, April 13, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 20, 2003.

45. Sarah Karush, "Russian Analysts Warn about Knee-Jerk Anti-Americanism After Iraq War," Associated Press, April 16, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 19, 2003.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. Dmitry Zaks, "Russia Misplayed Iraq Hand, but Damage to U.S. Relations Not Fatal: Analysts," Agence France Presse, April 17, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 20, 2003.

49. "Anti-Americanism not in Russia's Interests-Former PM," BBC Monitoring, April 7, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 20, 2003.

50. Mikhail Margelov, "God posle 11 sentyabrya" (A Year After September 11), Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 9, 2002. Accessed at http://ng.ru/politics/2002-09-09/2_politics.html on March 6, 2003.

51. Ibid.

52. Fyodor Luk'yanov, "Rossiya i Irak: iskushenie mnogoplyarnost'yu" (Russia and Iraq: A Temptation By Multipolarity), Vedomosti, March 7, 2003. Accessed at http://www.vedomosti.ru on March 7, 2003.

53. Ibid.

54. Dmitry Zaks, "Russia Misplayed Iraq Hand, but Damage to U.S. Relations Not Fatal: Analysts," Agence France Presse, April 17, 2003. Accessed at http://www.nexis.com on April 20, 2003.

Leon Aron is a resident scholar at AEI.