Strongman (15 page)
Authors: Angus Roxburgh
By common consent, it was Vaira V
ī
ķ
e-Freiberga, the Latvian president, who stole the show at the Prague summit with a powerful,
eloquent speech, delivered without notes. She herself had not personally endured the years of Soviet rule, as she had escaped with her parents at the age of seven, just as the Red Army
‘liberated’ her country and imposed communism there. But her words summed up what the event was all about:
Latvia lost its independence for a very long time, and it knows the meaning both of liberty and the loss of it. Latvia knows the meaning of security and the loss of it. And
this is why being invited in an alliance that will ensure our security is a momentous moment that will be writ large in the history of our nation.
We in Latvia would like to build our future on the rock of political certainty, not on the shifting sands of indecision. We do not want to be in some sort of grey zone of
political uncertainty, we would like to enjoy the full sunshine of the liberties and the rights that NATO has been defending so long. We do not want to be left out in the outer darkness, and
we would not wish this to happen to any other nation who has expressed the desire to join those nations that hold the same values, that follow the same ideals, and that are ready for the same
efforts and the same strivings. Our people have been tested in the fires of history, they have been tempered in the furnaces of suffering and injustice. They know the meaning and the value of
liberty. They know that it is worth every effort to support it, to maintain it, to stand for it and to fight for it.
Her audience – all male heads of state – almost stopped breathing as she spoke. Alexander Kwa
ś
niewski, the president of Poland, recalled later in an
interview: ‘I had tears in my eyes, to tell you the truth. It was one of those touching moments that showed that the Second World War was really over. We were starting a new era. This feeling
... I sensed it through my skin, a shiver through my body. The Second World War was finally over in Prague, in the palace that was previously used for communist meetings, where Václav Havel,
now president, was host.’
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Everyone present felt the same. Except, perhaps, the Russian delegation, which had turned up for a brief,
pro forma
session of the NATO–Russia Council the next morning. The foreign
minister, Igor Ivanov, recalled how he tried to explain to his Western partners that by ensuring their own ‘security’ the new NATO members were making Russia feel less secure:
‘What was the real interest of those states in joining NATO? Yes, there was a political interest, but where was the threat coming from? One should first formulate real threats and then think
in what way one can minimise or confront those threats.’ And he added: ‘In reality this does not add to anyone’s security, neither to NATO countries nor to Russia. It adds an
element of distrust. You want to think about your own security, but you don’t want to think about the security of Russia.’
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The Americans had an answer to such complaints. This is Nick Burns:
You know, by expanding NATO, we were also calling Russia’s bluff. The Russians had been saying, since the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991, that they were
different, that they also believed that Europe should be a place where people should be free to decide their own futures without fear of external domination. By inviting those seven countries
into NATO in November 2002, we were saying: if you choose freedom in a future democracy, we can help to guarantee that and to sustain it. The fact that many Russians subsequently said that this
was a treacherous move by NATO, that this was an indication of bad faith by NATO, I think tells you everything you need to know about those Russian leaders – that they didn’t
believe in the promise of democracy.
The Russians don’t, in the modern world, in the post-Soviet world, in the post-1991 world, the Russians don’t have a right to decide other people’s
futures. They don’t have a right to impose their empire on other peoples in what they call their near abroad. And if we had the strength, as we did, to see that other peoples could be
free and democratic, it was certainly the right thing to do to help them achieve that freedom.
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The ability of the Russians and Americans to talk at cross purposes was astounding. The Russians could not understand why their own behaviour at home meant that their neighbours continued to
fear them. The Americans and their allies could not see that the Russians were upset by being cast in the role of potential aggressor. NATO’s two summits in 2002 were hailed as ending the
Cold War. In fact they helped to blow on its embers and start a new one. Seen from Moscow, the old Iron Curtain, running through the centre of Europe, was being replaced with a new one, much closer
to home.
Putin’s tongue lets him down again
In his state-of-the-nation speech in the spring, President Putin spoke as if he was already where he wanted to be – accepted as a respected voice on the world stage, and
virtually claiming joint leadership of the war on terror. ‘Russia is today one of the most reliable guarantors of international stability,’ he said. It was ‘precisely
Russia’s principled position’ that had allowed a durable anti-terrorist coalition to be created. By joint efforts, he said, ‘we’ liquidated the most dangerous centre of
international terrorism in Afghanistan.
He then went on to talk of Russia’s ‘numerous concrete steps towards integration with Europe’ and his goal of forming a ‘single economic space’ with the European
Union.
Fine words, but as so often with Vladimir Putin, he then blew it. On a trip to Brussels for a summit meeting with EU leaders in November 2002, he lapsed into the kind of language that labelled
him not as a world statesman but as a bar-room thug. At a press conference a French journalist asked him a direct but not particularly offensive question about Chechnya: why was Russia using
anti-personnel mines and shells that were killing hundreds of people? And did the president not think that by trying to wipe out terrorism in this way he was wiping out the population of
Chechnya?
Perhaps the poor
Le Monde
correspondent did not know that this was Putin’s rawest nerve. By merely asking such a question, he was in Putin’s eyes a terrorist sympathiser.
‘If you’re so keen to be an Islamic radical,’ he railed at the journalist, ‘and are happy to be circumcised, then I invite you to Moscow. We are a multi-faith country and
have specialists for this. And I’ll recommend they do the operation so thoroughly that you have nothing left to grow back.’
This happened just one week before the Prague summit – a handy reminder to NATO’s old and new members that Putin, perhaps, was not quite ready to join the civilised world.
Allies against the Iraq war
Had President Putin deployed such crude language with regard to the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein he might have earned a wry smile and some kudos in Washington. But the growing
confrontation with Iraq was to drive another wedge between Russia and America, and demonstrate that, when it came to pursuing its foreign policy goals, Washington scarcely pretended that Russia was
a superpower that mattered: certainly they would court Putin to try to get his backing, but if they failed it would not hold them back. The Bush administration was no more interested in taking
Russia’s advice on Iraq than Clinton had been on Yugoslavia.
The Iraq crisis had been deepening throughout 2002, as suspicions grew that Saddam Hussein was continuing to produce and store weapons of mass destruction, in defiance of United Nations Security
Council resolutions. A new resolution, number 1441, passed on 8 November 2002 after two months of tough negotiations, gave Iraq a ‘final opportunity’ to disarm or face ‘serious
consequences’. Weapons inspectors returned to Iraq in late November. Over the coming months they discovered no banned weapons, but Iraq failed to prove they had destroyed stockpiles that had
previously been documented. The diplomatic confrontation that now developed centred on two things: whether the weapons inspectors should be given longer to complete their task (as the chief
inspector, Hans Blix, wished), and what to do next – given that Resolution 1441 did not authorise the use of force. It pitted the US and the UK, broadly speaking, against Russia, France and
Germany. Since Russia and France were permanent members of the Security Council with the power of veto, it was clear that the US and Britain would not be able to push through a second resolution,
authorising military action. The Americans disdainfully referred to the Putin–Schröder–Chirac alliance as the ‘axis of weasels’ – an ironic reference to
Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ (Iraq, Iran and North Korea). US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld inadvertently alienated France and Germany still further when he referred to them
disparagingly as ‘Old Europe’, as opposed to the more obliging ex-communist countries to the east – ‘New Europe’ – which by and large supported the American
position.
Putin was implacably opposed to American plans to invade Iraq, for many reasons. Russia had major business interests there; it worried that oil prices could slump if Iraqi oil flooded the market
after the war; it bristled at what it saw as US unilateralism, overriding international decisions; it opposed the hidden agenda of regime change; it felt UN weapons inspectors should be allowed to
continue their work searching for weapons of mass destruction; and it wanted to exhaust all of its own diplomatic avenues to persuade Saddam Hussein to back down or resign from office. Putin was
fully signed up to the war on terror, but unlike Bush he did not regard Iraq as a state that sponsored terrorism.
The Russians were dismissive of the unconvincing presentation given by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council on 5 February 2003, purporting to prove the existence of weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq. ‘We were shown photos taken from space,’ Sergei Ivanov recalls, ‘huge trucks, juggernauts, carrying chemical weapons. They said that it was reliable
evidence. We said, “Well, maybe you have this intelligence, but we don’t.” ’
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Putin was not, however, initially inclined to spoil his budding relationship with George W. Bush by making a public stand. At first he stuck in his public pronouncements to a position of guarded
support for American efforts to ensure Saddam’s disarmament. He told French journalists: ‘The only task facing the international community there is to satisfy itself that Iraq has no
weapons of mass destruction or to find them and force Iraq to destroy those weapons. In this connection we share the position of our American partners which is that we must do everything in order
that Iraq would engage in a full-fledged cooperation with the UN inspectors.’
When he travelled to Berlin on 9 February for a short meeting with Chancellor Schröder, Putin warned that the ‘unilateral use of force against Iraq would only bring suffering to
millions of people and further escalate tensions in the region’. But he also cautioned against stoking up anti-American sentiments.
His line became much tougher when he moved on the next day to Paris for a state visit, during which the three leaders issued a joint declaration condemning the use of force. The tripartite
declaration was a French–German initiative. Schröder and Chirac had forged a very close relationship, which had culminated just the previous month in celebrations at Versailles to mark
the 40th anniversary of the historic Elysée treaty of friendship between the two countries. According to Chirac’s adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne (known in diplomatic circles as
‘MGM’), ‘we were close allies of the Germans and knew they shared the same assessment of the Iraq situation, but we didn’t know about the other permanent members of the
Security Council. The British were with the Americans, but what would the Russians and Chinese do? So it was utterly important for us to know what the Russians would do.’ He says that until
they met, neither Putin nor Chirac felt absolutely sure that the other would be prepared to veto a second resolution, and neither wanted to end up doing it alone. Germany, as a non-permanent member
of the Security Council, had a vote but no power of veto, so Schröder was relying on Chirac to cast the veto on his behalf – and to get Putin on board too.
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MGM and his German counterpart drafted a joint statement and agreed that Chirac would try to get Putin to sign up when he arrived in Paris from Berlin. The French laid on a lavish reception for
him at Charles de Gaulle airport – military band, red carpet, guard of honour provided by the three services and the National Guard. Chirac even went to the steps of the plane to greet Putin
and presented him with an imposing bouquet of flowers. MGM says it was all designed to flatter the Russian: ‘He wanted to show respect to Putin, to please him, and for the Russians to feel
that they are a great country, and that they are a full partner in the international community.’ Flying into the city on an air force helicopter, Chirac showed Putin the text of the
declaration, and he said yes right away, asking only for a few small changes. MGM and Putin’s diplomatic adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, went off to make the changes and agree them with Berlin.
The declaration said: ‘There is still an alternative to war. The use of force can only be considered as a last resort. Russia, Germany and France are determined to ensure that everything
possible is done to disarm Iraq peacefully.’
But in essence, says Gourdault-Montagne, it was a ‘pact’: ‘Putin, until that moment, had some doubts about France, because at that time there was a lot of talk to the effect
that the French are showing their muscles, but at the last moment they will change their minds and go with the US. Now Putin knew that Chirac would impose a veto, and we knew the Russians would be
with us. We knew that we were together.’
And Washington knew that if it went to war against Iraq it would have to be without the authorisation of the United Nations. Condoleezza Rice admits: ‘We didn’t much like this
spectacle of America’s closest allies standing with the Russians on a security interest of the United States.’
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