Where did the tons of Saddam's chemical weapons go? This is the question that Iraq does not answer “Russia has become part of the Euro-Atlantic community,” Russian Foreign Minister Igor Sergeevich Ivanov said in his article “America must...

Where did the tons of Saddam's chemical weapons go? This is the question Iraq does not answer.

"R

Russia has become part of the Euro-Atlantic community,” said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Sergeevich Ivanov in his article “America must not return to cold war attitudes” in the Financial Times on February 14, 2003. (It was translated into Russian under a slightly different title, The Shadow of the Cold War, and appeared in Vedomosti on February 18.)

Generations of Russian Westernizers and reformers, from the circle of associates of the young Tsar Ivan IV to the liberals who supported President V. Putin's post-September foreign policy course, dreamed of hearing such words from the Russian Foreign Minister. But something keeps from triumph and rejoicing. This “something” is the content of the article, full of half-truths, stretches sewn with white thread and false pomposity.

The article opens with a message to the city and the world about "a new phenomenon in world politics, the significance of which goes beyond the Iraqi crisis." This is how I. Ivanov assesses the joint statement of France, Germany and Russia on Iraq, proposing to extend the work of UN inspectors for several more months and thereby make the military operation of the United States and its closest allies impossible.

It seems that our foreign ministers have some kind of indestructible craving for "new phenomena in world politics", and above all for strategic triangles, to which for some reason they want to fasten Russia. A few years ago, during his visit to Delhi, Yevgeny Primakov stunned his hosts with his idea of ​​a China-India-Russia strategic triangle. This idea burst on the day of its proclamation.

The same fate awaits the Ivanovo Entente, no matter how much he poses with the French and German foreign ministers. It will most likely fall apart next week. When the American operation in Iraq begins, France will certainly, and most likely Germany, want to be in time for the winners' table and the distribution of prizes after the end of the first, purely military stage of the operation, which will be swift and successful. (French and German warships are already in the Gulf.)

Russia, having ruined relations with the United States, will end up with nothing, used and abandoned by its new "strategic partners" in the Ivanovo Triangle.

France and Germany are playing a complicated game with the USA for their influence, for their prestige, for their interests within the real Euro-Atlantic community to which they belong together with the USA, and not the mythological one to which I. Ivanov attributed Russia. All this is covered, of course, by arguments about the inviolability of the norms of international law, the exclusive role of the Security Council, and so on. But I remember that in 1999, France and Germany, together with the United States, took part in the Kosovo operation, not in the least embarrassed at that time by the lack of a Security Council sanction.

Fascinated by the construction of another anti-American triangle, I. Ivanov in his argument runs further than the French and Germans. This is how slyly he sets out in his article the essence of the Iraqi problem: "The world community, acting through the Security Council, has set itself the task of finding out whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." The world community did not set such a task. Every serious expert, every informed politician, including, of course, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, knows very well that Iraq has tons of chemical and bacteriological weapons. Security Council Resolution No. 1441, which, by the way, Russia voted for, requires not finding out whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but the destruction of its stockpiles of these weapons. The task of the inspectors is not to find a nerve gas canister under a bed in one of Saddam's palaces, but to force Iraq to account for what happened to the stockpiles of chemical and bacteriological weapons recorded by the inspectors at the time of their withdrawal from Iraq in 1999. Iraq refuses to do so.

I. Ivanov's deliberate distortion of the essence of the problem actually sends an encouraging signal to the Iraqi dictator: "Keep on deceiving world public opinion, dear comrade Saddam, we will do it together with you." Such a signal seriously weakens the chances of Saddam's peaceful disarmament by tough diplomatic pressure from the entire world community, leaving him no illusions and no loopholes.

It is this scenario of a peaceful resolution of the Iraqi crisis that would be the most preferable. The opponents of the war do have serious arguments. And the most important of them is the inevitability of casualties among the civilian population even with the most pinpoint strikes of the most “smart” bombs. I. Ivanov says about this: "It is absolutely obvious that an armed attack on Iraq will inevitably entail massive losses, in particular among the civilian population." It is good, of course, that we have such a humane and philanthropic Foreign Minister. The only pity is that he still has not noticed tens of thousands of civilian casualties in the war going on in his country. Apparently, the citizens of Russia, especially if they are of the “wrong” nationality, are of less value to him than the citizens of Iraq.

The Russian official position on Iraq, which has recently been articulated more and more confidently by I. Ivanov, is undergoing noticeable changes before our very eyes. For a long time we have been in the advantageous position of intermediary between the Anglo-American approach and the Franco-German one. Quite recently, during his visit to Kiev, the President of the Russian Federation stated that if Iraq continues to disobey the UN Security Council resolutions, then perhaps it is worth considering using harsher methods against it than purely diplomatic ones. One can only guess about the struggle of the factions in the president's entourage, about the pressure exerted from various sides on his foreign policy course.

It is known, however, that one idea is quite popular now in the circles of the top foreign policy bureaucracy. It is formulated approximately as follows. We have made too many concessions to the US in recent years. We've been in retreat for too long. Now, in the year of the presidential election campaign, it is all the more necessary to show firmness and toughness towards the United States. The image of a strong and decisive leader will appeal to voters.

This "theory" is untenable for at least three reasons. Firstly, a confrontation with America for the sake of confrontation and demonstration of "toughness" does not meet the national interests of the Russian Federation. Whether we like it or not, for at least the next 10 to 15 years, the US will remain the biggest player on the world stage. Relations with them will not be easy for Russia, and it is important to build the right system of coordinates for them. Such a system cannot be a discourse on the extent to which to support the United States, or oppose the United States, or, all the more so, the favorite pastime of our "elite" - how to cause as much trouble as possible to the United States.

For Russia, with its limited resources today and the range of threats to its security in the South and East, the correct formulation of the question is different: how to maximize the potential of the world's only superpower to solve the problems of our own security. This is exactly what happened in Afghanistan, where, pursuing, of course, its own goals, the United States at the same time solved the important problem of Russia's security by eliminating the foothold of Islamic radicalism on the southern borders of the CIS.

Russia's support for the American operation in Afghanistan made it possible to change the nature of Russian-American relations, giving them a certain level of trusting partnership. It is unlikely that the "skin" of the Iraqi dictator or the vain ambitions of the President of the French Republic are the values ​​for which it is worth sacrificing the resource of Russian diplomacy, which may come in handy more than once.

Second, there is no electoral need for a new round of anti-American bitterness. When questions are asked about the assessment of certain specific areas of the president's activity - the economy, social policy, Chechnya - his 70 percent rating immediately drops to 40 or 30 percent. With one exception. V. Putin's foreign policy is approved by the same 70 percent of the population. If V. Putin has serious problems in the election year, then at least not in the sphere of foreign policy. Silent, and lately more and more obvious resistance to V. Putin's post-September foreign policy course is being rendered not by society, but by the political "elite".

And, finally, the last thing, since we are talking about the president and his electoral prospects. If we accept the thesis of retreat, unjustified concessions and the need for a different policy towards the United States, then the question naturally arises: who is personally responsible for the retreat and concessions? If the United States is our enemy, a world gendarme threatening the freedom-loving people of Iraq, then who allowed the troops of the strategic enemy to settle on the territory of the former Central Asian republics of the USSR? Who liquidated the bases in Cuba and Vietnam? Who allowed NATO expansion and the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty? Who undermined Russia's national security? Interesting questions to start the election campaign.