Washington Post editorial - 06.19.2001

 

 

The Washington Post

Mr. Putin's Soul

PRESIDENT BUSH detracted from a generally successful and important trip to Europe with his excessive praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin's character. The mistake did not undo the gains of Mr. Bush's commitment to NATO expansion, nor of his tribute to Europe's new democracies. But neither was the mistake without consequence. It undercut his professed commitment to democracy in Russia. Given his sharp criticism of the Clinton administration's personalization of relations with then-President Boris Yeltsin and then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, it was a surprising mistake for the new president.

It's not that President Bush is wrong to pursue warm relations with Russia; on the contrary, it seems to us that he got the balance mostly right. He straightforwardly endorsed NATO expansion and missile defense, even knowing that Russia wouldn't like either; he simultaneously made clear that such differences, as far as America is concerned, shouldn't preclude a constructive relationship. Russia as part of Europe -- as a democracy, getting along with other democracies -- is the right aspiration, and it's good that Mr. Bush embraced it.

But an important part of the message is -- or should have been -- that fulfillment of that aspiration depends on Russia as well as on the West. The United States and its allies shouldn't erect unnecessary obstacles to Russian integration, but Russian behavior at home will affect its reception. Crushing the civilian population of Chechnya is not the route to acceptance. Neither is blocking European human rights monitors or waging vendettas against the free press.

Mr. Bush could have communicated that message and still held a successful meeting. He could, in public, have congratulated Mr. Putin for his straightforward manner, for his patriotism, for his readiness to cooperate. But the U.S. leader went considerably further. "I was able to get a sense of his soul," Mr. Bush said. "He's an honest, straightforward man. . . . I wouldn't have invited him to my ranch if I didn't trust him."

It's not just that such easy trust in the former KGB man makes Mr. Bush look naive. The Russian people know that Mr. Putin, a complex figure, has not been honest about Chechnya. He has not been straightforward or honorable in his campaign against the press. To endorse him so wholeheartedly is to suggest that those issues don't, after all, matter all that much -- that maybe Mr. Bush just wants his deal on missile defense after all.

Given Mr. Bush's other statements, public and private, it seems reasonable to infer that that's not the message he intended to deliver. Still, his performance left him with some important unfinished business for the coming months: to make clear to Mr. Putin that his record on democracy and Chechnya, and not his smile or his soul, will determine the degree to which his country is accepted as a partner by the United States.