Source: American Interest
In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for president, Mitt Romney vowed to take a hard line in dealing with Russia. “Under my administration,” he said, “our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.” Earlier in the campaign, Romney had cited Russia as “our number one geopolitical foe.” The party platform endorsed at the Republican convention calls for passage of legislation that would impose a visa ban and asset freeze against Russian officials involved in gross human rights abuses:
Russia should be granted Permanent Normal Trade Relations, but not without sanctions on Russian officials who have used the government to violate human rights. We support enactment of the Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act as a condition of expanded trade relations with Russia.
A week later, the Democratic Party platform criticized Romney’s comments on Russia and defended the Obama Administration’s approach to dealing with Russia:The Cold War mentality represented by Mitt Romney's identification of Russia as ‘our number one geopolitical foe’ ignores the very real common interest we share with Russia in reducing nuclear stockpiles, stopping additional proliferation by countries such as Iran and North Korea, and preventing nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. The President's ‘reset’ policy toward Russia has produced significant cooperation in these areas, as well as in Russian support for the Northern Distribution Network that supplies our troops in Afghanistan. . . . At the same time, we are candid with the Russians when we disagree. The administration will not put aside our differences but will raise them directly with the Russian government. And we will continue to strongly criticize Russian actions that we oppose, such as their support for the Assad regime in Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin wasted little time weighing in with his reaction to the two candidates’ views. In a recent interview, Putin praised the Kremlin’s relations with the Obama Administration, notwithstanding ongoing differences over missile defense:
I believe that over the last four years Presidents Obama and Medvedev have made a lot of progress on the way to strengthening Russia-US relations. We have signed the new START treaty. Backed by the U.S., Russia has become a full-fledged member of the World Trade Organization. There have been more reasons to be optimistic about our bilateral relations: our strengthened cooperation in combating terrorism and organized crime, in the non-proliferation of weapons of mass-destruction and others. In other words, we have accumulated quite a lot of positive experience.
Putin also described Obama as “an honest person who really wants to change much for the better.” At the same time, Putin didn’t pass up a chance to blast Romney:
As for Mr Romney’s position, we understand that this is to a certain extent motivated by the election race and election rhetoric, but I also think that he was obviously wrong, because such behavior on the international arena is the same as using nationalism and segregation as tools of US domestic policy. It has the same effect on the international arena when a politician, a person who aspires to lead a nation, especially a superpower like the US, proclaims someone to be an enemy.
Does all this mean that Russia would prefer to see Obama reelected? Would the Kremlin go so far as to help his chances by not creating problems for him? Not necessarily. ...