[Mb-civic] Skip St. Petersburg, Mr. Bush - Anne Applebaum - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Skip St. Petersburg, Mr. Bush

By Anne Applebaum
The Washington Post
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; A19

Close your eyes and say it out loud: "G-8." Let the two syllables run 
across your tongue again: "gee-eight." What images drift into your brain?

If you are like most Americans, I suspect that this simple psychological 
experiment will produce something like, "stuffy statesmen, boring 
meeting, prepackaged conclusions." Or maybe, "screaming protesters, riot 
police, prepackaged slogans." Or even, "turn the page and read something 
else."

Maybe it isn't surprising. After all, the Group of Eight, once known as 
the Group of Seven, started life as a private meeting between the 
leaders of the world's largest industrial democracies. Off the record, 
they discussed the economic and political problems of the day. The only 
"message" produced was a statement to the effect that inflation was bad 
and oil prices were high.

Over the years, the G-8 evolved. Even as it came to mean less and less 
to Americans, it meant more and more to others. The Japanese, seeing the 
G-8 as a substitute for the U.N. Security Council they'll never join, 
spent lavishly, racking up a $750 million bill last time they hosted. 
The Europeans, leaping on the chance to set the international agenda, 
chose elaborate, crowd-pleasing "themes" to do with aid or technology. 
African, Latin American and Middle Eastern leaders showed up to bask in 
the reflected limelight. The Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was 
allowed first to attend meetings and then to join, on the muddled 
grounds that making him a member, despite his country's lack of 
qualifications, would magically turn Russia into one of the world's 
largest democracies, too. It did not.

But now, having acquired ludicrous levels of significance and symbolism, 
the institution faces a genuine crisis. In July, the organization is 
going to meet for the first time under Russian leadership, in Russian 
President Vladimir Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg. And for the first 
time, a G-8 summit could produce, along with the bland communique, a 
political backlash harmful to all.

For by going to St. Petersburg, President Bush, Prime Minister Tony 
Blair, President Jacques Chirac, and the leaders of Italy, Germany, 
Canada and Japan will in effect place their stamp of approval on the 
removal of political rights, the harassment of independent groups, the 
renationalization of energy and the censorship of media that Putin has 
imposed on his country since he took over from Yeltsin six years ago. 
They will also give their blessing to Putin's use of gas pipelines to 
threaten Ukraine, and to his ambiguous role in Iranian nuclear and 
Middle East peace negotiations. And after Bush goes home, the denizens 
of the Kremlin -- along with Venezuelans, Iranians, Arab leaders and 
others around the world -- will sit back, laugh and agree that the 
leaders of the so-called West merely pay lip service to the ideals of 
freedom and democracy; they don't really believe in them. If you have 
enough oil, they'll let you into their clubs anyway. The long-term 
result: The American president's ability to speak credibly about 
democracy and political freedom will be irreparably damaged.

Perhaps you think it ridiculous to sound so apocalyptic about a meeting 
that most Americans find too boring to read about. But don't listen to 
me, listen to Andrei Illarionov, an economic adviser to Putin before he 
resigned last year in disgust. Illarionov says that Putin invariably 
returns from G-8 meetings feeling strengthened and empowered in his 
political course -- and it is true that Putin's opponents have been 
arrested or put on trial in a summit's wake. He also says the G-8 is 
taken deadly seriously in Russia, and shrugs when told that Americans 
don't much care one way or the other. "What is important is not how you, 
in the U.S., view the G-8. You have to think how your participation will 
be viewed and used in the world." Nor does it matter that U.S. leaders 
have always met with Russian dictators, since, to the Russians and to 
others, this is much different from a bilateral meeting: "There is no 
case in previous history when you endorsed such policies at such a 
level, at the G-8 level."

I should explain that Illarionov is in Washington this week for a 
conference. I should also add that he says he's been surprised by how 
many people, both here and in Russia, have asked whether he's really 
returning to Moscow afterward -- "will you dare go back" being a 
question that no one even considered asking five years ago. It is tragic 
but true: Russia has once again become a place where blunt-speaking 
economists have to watch their backs.

There is still time: President Bush has four months to decide whether he 
wants to endorse this new Russia, four months to decide whether he wants 
to bestow on Putin the full approval of the West's most prestigious 
club, four months to decide whether he will destroy what remains of his 
credibility as a promoter of democracy and human rights. He can mitigate 
the damage -- he can stop in Vilnius or Kiev on the way, he can declare 
his faith in freedom to his Russian hosts -- but neither the Kremlin, 
nor the other opponents of democracy around the world, will care. All 
they will remember is that he was there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701332.html?nav=hcmodule
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