Bush & Putin

Washington Post White House correspondent and former Moscow bureau chief Peter Baker was online Monday, Dec. 13, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss President Bush's evolving relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The relationship between the two leaders, a central part of Bush's policy toward Russia, has changed in recent months and presents a new challenge for foreign policy makers during the second Bush administration.

Baker, who spent nearly four years in Moscow and covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, covered the White House during the presidency of Bill Clinton and is the author of "The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton."

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: Does Bush regret his "looked into his soul" comment? Is there a feeling around the White House that Bush got snowed on Putin?

Peter Baker: Good morning everyone. Thanks for sending in all the questions. Let's get going.

Bush hasn't publicly expressed any regrets for the looking-into-his-soul comment, but it's noteworthy that he hasn't exactly expressed anything quite so intimate or friendly in the last year or so. Certainly some of the people below him still wince at the remark, but there's a broad feeling that this is not the same relationship it was in 2001.

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Lakeland, Fla.: Mr. Putin openly supported the candidacy of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yanukovych. Now that doctors have confirmed that oposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned, is there any reason to suspect that Putin was complicit in the act?

Peter Baker: It's an interesting question. There's no public evidence that would suggest any involvement by Putin himself. But there is a history of unfortunate things happening to people who get in the way of the Kremlin. A candidate who ran against Putin in this year's presidential campaign disappeared for several days and when he reappeared said he was kidnapped and taken to Ukraine. A reporter who has been critical of Putin's Chechnya policy fell ill on her way to cover the Beslan school siege and said afterward that she believed she was poisoned. So it's not beyond the realm of imagination that there's someone somewhere up to no good.

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Oslo, Norway: Since both nations are at war with Islamic terrorists, shouldn't that be an opening for large-scale cooperation between the two leaders?

Peter Baker: That's been the underlying foundation for the relationship since Sept. 11. Putin, as you recall, was the first world leader to call Bush after the attacks on New York and Washington and he quickly linked the war on al Qaeda to the war in Chechnya. U.S. officials have said they have gotten good cooperation from the Russians on terrorism, but the two wars are very different in important ways.

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Washington, D.C.: If it's revealed that Putin helped plan -- or even just had knowledge of -- the attempt to poison Yushchenko in an attempt to influence the Ukrainian election, wouldn't that be a clear cut case of terrorism, as defined by the Bush administration? And if so, wouldn't the United States have to react accordingly, or be accused of gross hypocrisy worldwide?

Peter Baker: Well, this follows along the line of the previous question. Another example has come to mind since that answer as well. Just this year, a Chechen separatist leader living in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar was killed by a car bomb. The Qataris caught three Russian agents and convicted two of them for the murder. (The third had diplomatic immunity.) The Russian government denied any involvement. This was certainly perceived in Qatar as a case of state-sponsored terrorism, but it did not seem to spark much reaction here in Washington or in Western Europe.

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Austin, Tex.: Russia could see us as being pulled ever deeper into a swamp in the Middle East -- to their advantage, world wide -- couldn't they? They have Islamist problems themselves of course, but they have no domestic dependence on imported oil as we do.

Could they adopt a covert policy of "let us let you and him fight?" Why should not they manipulate the U.S. vs. Islam war to their eventual advantage as they see it developing?

Peter Baker: The Russians very much see themselves at war with radical Islam as well and this carries large ramifications for Russian statehood. Russia has one of the largest Muslim populations of any non-Muslim-majority nations in the world, something like 25 million people. In the Kremlin, they wake up at night filled with dread fear that Chechnya spills over to other Muslim regions. There's some evidence that instability has spread to the rest of the Caucasus -- witness Beslan, among many other examples. So while the Russians probably don't mind seeing the United States humbled in Iraq, they do believe it's in their interest to see the situation stabilized.

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Milton, Mass.: Dear Mr. Baker,
From a distance Bush and Putin appear to act like allied corporate chieftans, pushing their strengths and ignoring their individual peccadillos.

Their administration/government policies appear more hostile however (Russia's aid to Iraq and Iran, U.S. involvement with the elections in the Ukraine, Russia's new missile, America's semi-permanent bases in Central Asia).

From your perspective, is the U.S.-Russia relationship moving together or apart?

Thanks very much.

Peter Baker: It's a mixed picture. The U.S. side believes Russia has become more cooperative, or at least less obstructive, on Iran, Iraq and North Korea. But on the other hand, there does seem to be an increasing "values gap," as the U.S. ambassador in Moscow has termed it, when it comes to Russian moves in Ukraine, Georgia and other neighbors, as well as democracy in Russia itself. The rapprochement of 2001 and 2002 seems to be evolving into a more difficult relationship that could be a much bigger challenge for Bush in the second term.

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Encino, Calif.: I have only seen photos of Putin, but rarely have I ever observed a more sinister, soul-less countenance! He did head some sort of dreaded government group, did he not?

So, for what purpose do you believe our president paint such a rosy picture of Putin -- could it have been worth misleading our people?

Peter Baker: Putin is a truly interesting figure who looks different to different eyes. To a Westerner, he can appear to be a man with cold eyes and expressionless face, the former KGB colonel thrust into a public role. To a Russian, though, or at least to many, he comes across as a man of purpose and reliability. Putin benefits at home tremendously by comparison to his predecessor, the often-lush Boris Yeltsin. One poll taken last year asked what quality Russians most liked in Putin and 40 percent said his sobriety. Hard as it may seem, many Russians even see him as sexy. A girl band a couple years back even recorded a song called "I Want a Man Like Putin." It soared to the top of the chart.

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Washington, D.C.: Does Putin scare you? Do you think the Putin we saw at first (Bush's best buddy) was the real Putin? Or do you think the Putin we are seeing now (typical of every former Russian/Soviet leader in the last 80 years) is the real Putin?

Peter Baker: The people who are scared are the Russians who don't share his point of view. In the four years my wife, Susan Glasser, and I were correspondents in Moscow, we saw a noticeable rise in the level of fear in certain segments of society -- mainly political rivals, non-governmental organizations, business leaders, journalists, and so on. People who used to speak openly now refuse to return calls. More people consider their phones tapped again. Reporters now censor themselves. Opposition politicians are effectively banned from television. And so on.

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Clarendon, Va.: Is there any evidence of increasing alliance between Russia, China and India? What is the Bush Administration's position on this?

Peter Baker: Putin was just in New Delhi, where he very publicly aligned himself with the Cold War version of Indian politics and against American hegemony, which Russians call a "unipolar" world. Russia has important relations with both India and China, supplying both with large arsenals of arms. China and Russia also may be growing a symbiotic relationship between the world's second largest oil producer (Russia) and the world's fastest growing oil consumer (China). But Putin and the Kremlin remain very wary about China. There's great paranoia in Russia given that only a relative handful of people live in the vast Russian Far East compared to the billion and a half Chinese just below the border eager for elbow space.

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Clarendon, Va.: Energy experts and groups in Russia warned last week that unless Russia becomes more energy efficient, they will become a net importer of energy by 2010. What role does Russia play in the Bush Administration's energy policy and how would the cessation of oil and gas exports from Russia affect it? In general, how, if at all are we cooperating with Russia on energy?

Peter Baker: That's an interesting forecast. I hadn't seen it and frankly it sounds dubious. Russian oil production grew by 50 percent during the four years we were in Moscow and Russia still supplies 25 percent of Europe's natural gas. The Bush administration opened what was called an "energy dialogue" with Russia several years back that has largely gone nowhere. The United States buys virtually no Russian oil and the Kremlin locked up the one oil tycoon who was most eager to change that. There have been some advances in U.S.-Russian energy cooperation -- Lukoil buying Getty service stations in the States and putting their own name on them, ConnocoPhilips buying a stake in Lukoil. But by and large people on both sides are disappointed that more has not happened.

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San Diego, Calif.: Do you find it blind loyalty and hypocritical that Condoleezza Rice left the Democratic party because she saw Carter as naive in his feelings about the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; yet she serves a President who claims to be able to "look into the soul" of a former KGB agent and know what Putin is thinking?

Peter Baker: It's interesting how views have changed even more recently. In 2000, Bush and Rice sharply criticized Clinton for reducing U.S.-Russian relations to his personal friendship with the erratic Boris Yeltsin. Now of course many say the same thing about Bush and Putin.

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Queens, N.Y.: Why should Russia accede to USA and EU push to incorporate former Soviet entities into Europe?

The West doesn't have democracy. Why should anyone listen to this nonexistent dribble?

Finally,the USA, Russia and Israel have deadly nuclear weapons poised to strike any enemies, why shouldn't Iran, North Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina possess their own deterrent? Why are we so silent about the Israeli nuclear threat to the Middle East? Is this just hypocrisy, or do the Western leaders think that the rest of the world is just that stupid to know what's really happenning? Please answer honestly and without bias.

Peter Baker: These are interesting questions. When it comes to Eastern European countries joining entities like EU and NATO, the most important impetus has come not from the United States but from these countries themselves. No one was more eager to join these European structures than Poland, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, and so on. Should Russia be able to decide that for them?

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Washington, D.C.: With Bush's increasing penchant for secrecy, total loyalty and media-bashing, I see him (and the country) speeding toward Putin-style control. What do you think?

Peter Baker: This is something people say from time to time and obviously there's a serious debate underway here in the United States about some of the policies enacted by the Bush administration. But it's important to remember not to go too far with such comparisons. The very debate we're having here about Bush and his policies simply could not happen these days in Russia in any real way. It's not nearly as open a society as it was four years ago when we first moved there. The election we just had could not happen in Russia. John Kerry would never have been allowed to run.

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Washington, D.C.: Seems to me Bush, who notoriously couldn't think of a single mistake he has ever made as president, and Putin, who refuses to take responsibility for the bungled Moscow theater seige, have a lot in common. To what do you atribute Putin's reluctance to admit a mistake?

Peter Baker: Putin is never challenged. The Kremlin press pool is not allowed to ask him questions. He has only one real press conference a year, and even there many of the questions are planted. He did not debate his opponents in the presidential election earlier this year. No one even gets to ask if he ever made a mistake.

I'm going to wrap up here. Thanks to everyone who sent questions. I hope we get to do this again soon.

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