標題:Isolation of Russia not viable option for U.S.
By Sue Pleming - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Isolating Moscow over its incursion into Georgia does
not seem to be a viable option for the Bush administration -- Russia is just
too important to the United States.
"It seems to me that the United States has to have a darned good reason to
break off relations with Russia and go back to the dark days of the Cold
War," said Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"I don't believe events thus far provide that reason ... Both sides need the
other too much," he told Reuters.
If relations deteriorate to a Cold War level, a lot is at stake, from
cooperation at the United Nations on curbing Iran and North Korea's nuclear
ambitions to U.S. access to Asia and Afghanistan. Russia is also an important
energy supplier.
So far, Washington's response has amounted largely to rhetoric and it has
taken only tiny steps to isolate Moscow, which sent troops into Georgia last
week after Tbilisi tried to retake a separatist pro-Russian region that
rejected Georgian rule in the 1990s.
The United States has excluded Moscow from discussions among the Group of
Eight industrial nations over the Georgian crisis and canceled a naval
exercise with Russia.
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush have
made clear that Moscow's membership in global bodies such as the World Trade
Organization could be in jeopardy if the military action continues.
MOSCOW OFF THE TABLE
Rice, a Soviet expert, did not go to Moscow this week when she went to France
and Georgia, visiting Tbilisi on Friday to publicly demonstrate firm U.S.
backing for a country Bush calls a beacon of democracy, in line with the
administration's so-called freedom agenda.
The State Department insists Rice has been in contact often by phone with
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov since the crisis began, but she has
spent much more time reassuring Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who
called Russians "evil" and "barbarians" at a joint news conference with Rice.
Bush also took aim at the Russians on Friday, accusing Moscow of "bullying"
and damaging its international standing by sending its military into Georgia.
But experts said the United States could not push too hard because punishing
and isolating Russia was not the solution.
"We have never profited much by not talking to people with whom we don't have
common ground," said James Collins, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
"I have never believed we are very effective at trying to play the game of
reward and punishment with a nation as big as Russia," added Collins, now
with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Relations have deteriorated steadily in recent years between the two
countries, especially over U.S. plans for a missile defense shield in Poland
and the Czech Republic, U.S. backing for Kosovo's independence from Serbia
and Georgia's proposed NATO membership.
The signing on Thursday of a long-stalled U.S. agreement with Poland on the
missile defense shield, which Russia sees as a threat, will further
complicate U.S.-Russia ties.
"The missile defense deal with Poland certainly raises the ante and I believe
that the timing is anything but accidental," Kupchan said.
While the United States must balance punishing Russia and ensuring the door
is not closed with a strategic partner, experts say Washington must make
clear its displeasure with Russia's actions in Georgia.
"We should not take our eye off the immediate issue, which is for the first
time since the end of the Soviet Union, Russian troops have invaded and are
occupying another country," said former senior State Department official
Strobe Talbott, who is now president of the Brookings Institution.
"But isolating Russia is not really an option, it will not be isolated. It is
too big, it is too powerful," he added.
How the United States and its allies respond depends on whether Russia pulls
back its troops from Georgia after Tbilisi signed a French-backed cease-fire
deal on Friday.
"If for some reason or another the Russians proceed with their occupation, go
to Tbilisi and topple Saakashvili, then we are probably in a world where
Russia finds itself outside the community of nations and some type of
militarized rivalry is likely to return," Kupchan said.
"But barring that, let's withhold judgment until we have a better sense of
the story."
(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)
c Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Georgia/idUSN1541704620080815?sp=true
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