According to Newsweek magazine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Bush that Russia didn’t criticize Bush for firing the staffers at CBS after they aired false National Guard documents that led to a scandal at CBS. This comment came at their meeting in Slovakia last week at the end of Bush’s fence-mending trip to Europe.
Bush was criticizing the Russian crackdown on the free press in Russia, and Putin made the comment in responding to Bush’s concerns. Putin actually believes that President Bush personally fired the CBS people for criticizing him in the weeks leading up to the election. Bush explained that he has no power to fire people like that and that it was a CBS company decision, but Putin didn’t believe him.
Putin’s advisors are giving him very bad advice about U.S. politics and Putin is buying into it hook, line and sinker. It also explains Russia’s about-face in selling nuclear fuel to Iran after it said in a joint statement with the U.S. that Iran must not possess a nuclear weapon. Does he really think Russia will get back all of the spent nuclear power rods that could be used to build an Iranian nuclear weapon?
Will Russian soldiers enforce that part of their agreement? Will the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) be able to observe what goes on there?
It’s scary to think that someone who misunderstands the U.S. so badly is in charge of one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals and is a dictator at heart. Putin comes across as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, so the U.S. should keep a close eye on Russia until it embraces democracy more fully, and not just in name only.
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