The Trump-Putin meeting in Japan is crucial for
both leaders—and for the world.
Despite determined
attempts in Washington to sabotage such a “summit,” as I reported previously, President Trump and
Russian President Putin are still scheduled to meet at the G-20 gathering in
Japan this week. Iran will be at the top of their agenda. The Trump
administration seems determined to wage cold, possibly even hot, war against
the Islamic Republic, while for Moscow, as emphasized by the Kremlin’s national security adviser,
Nikolai Patrushev, on June 25, “Iran has been and will be an ally and partner
of ours.”
Indeed,
the importance of Iran (along with China) to Russia can hardly be overstated.
Among other reasons, as the West’s military alliance encroaches ever more along
Russia’s western borders, Iran is a large, vital non-NATO neighbor. Still more,
Teheran has done nothing to incite Russia’s own millions of Muslim citizens
against Moscow. Well before Trump, powerful forces in Washington have long
sought to project Iran as America’s primary enemy in the Middle East, but for
Moscow it is a necessary “ally and partner.”
In normal political
circumstances, Trump and Putin could probably diminish any potential US-Russian
conflict over Iran—and the one still brewing in Syria as well. But both leaders
come to the summit with related political problems at home. For Trump, they are
the unproven but persistent allegations of “Russiagate.” For Putin, they are
economic.
As I have also previously explained, while there was fairly
traditional “meddling,” there was no “Russian attack” on the 2016 American
presidential election. But for many mainstream American commentators,
including the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, it is an “obvious
truth” and likely to happen again in 2020, adding ominously that Trump is still
“cozying up to the chief perpetrator, Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
A New York Times columnist
goes further, insisting that Russia “helped to throw the election”
to Trump. Again, there is no evidence whatsoever for these allegations. Also
consider the ongoing assault on Attorney General William Barr,
whose current investigation into the origins of “Russiagate” threatens to
conclude that the scandal originated not with Russia but with US intelligence
agencies under President Obama, in particular with the CIA under John Brennan.
We should therefore not be
surprised, despite possible positive national security results of the
Trump-Putin summit in Japan, if the US president is again widely accused of “treason,”
as he so shamefully was following his meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July
2018, and as I protested at that time. Even the Times’ once-dignified columnist pages thundered,
“Trump, Treasonous Traitor” and “Putin’s Lackey,” while senior US senators,
Democrat and Republican alike, did much the same.
Putin’s domestic problem, on
the other hand, is economic and social. Russia’s annual growth rate is barely 2
percent, real wages are declining, popular protests against officialdom’s
historically endemic corruption are on the rise, and Putin’s approval rating,
while still high, is declining. A public dispute between two of Putin’s
advisers has broken out over what to do. On the one side is Alexei Kudrin, the
leading monetarist who has long warned against using billions of dollars in
Russia’s “rainy day” funds to spur investment and economic growth. On the other
is Sergei Glaziev, a kind of Keynesian, FDR New Dealer who has no less
persistently urged investing these funds in new domestic infrastructure that
would, he argues, result in rapid economic growth.
During his nearly 20 years as
Kremlin leader, Putin has generally sided with the “rainy day” monetarists. But
on June 20, during his annual television call-in event, he
suddenly, and elliptically, remarked that even Kudrin “has been drifting
towards” Glaziev. Not surprisingly, many Russian commentators think this means
that Putin himself is now “leaning toward Glaziev.” If so, it is another reason
why Putin has no interest in waging cold war with the United States—why he
wants instead, indeed even needs, a historic, long-term détente.
It seems unlikely that President Trump or any of the advisers currently
around him understand this important struggle—and it is a struggle—unfolding in
the Russian policy elite. But if Trump wants a major détente (or “cooperation,”
as he has termed it) with Russia, anyone who cares about international security
and about the well-being of the Russian people should support him in this
pursuit. Especially at this moment, when we are told by the director of the United Nations Institute for
Disarmament Research that “the risks of the use of nuclear
weapons…are higher now than at any time since World War Two.”
This commentary is based on
Stephen F. Cohen’s most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John
Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year,
previous installments are at TheNation.com.
Reprinted with the author’s
permission.
Stephen
F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York
University and Princeton University. His new book is War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump &
Russiagate.
Copyright © 2019 The Nation, Stephen F. Cohen