Brooks Sunday Global Review With Russian Specialist Nicolai Petro

Dr. Nicolai Petro

FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND FIVE CENT CIGAR NEWSPAPER

Political science professor offers insight on foreign relations during online discussion

Kathleen McKiernanIssue date: 2/27/09:

As part of a new online public forum for foreign policy discussion, the University of Denver’s Center for New Politics and Policy sought out the insights of University of Rhode Island political science professor Nicolai Petro on U.S.-Russian relations.

Senior policy fellow at the CNPP, Webster Brooks III, comments regularly on international affairs, and produces the “Brooks Sunday Global Review,” which is broadcast nationwide every Sunday at 8 p.m. through XM Sirius satellite radio.

Originally organized as the University of Denver’s African-American studies center, the center is now expanding its agenda to focus on new opportunities that arise in American politics from the election of the country’s first African-American president, Barack Obama.

An expert on Russian politics, and a former attaché to the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Petro discussed political development in Russia, and how the U.S. should respond to Russia’s foreign policy during his interview with Brooks on Sunday.

He offered counterarguments to Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., who had spoken on the same topic the previous week, as part of Brooks’ two-part series on Russia. While Cohen argued that Russia views America as a Cold War adversary, Petro sees a chance to improve relations between America and Russia.

“There are interesting new opportunities for improving US-Russian relations, but it would have to begin with a reassessment of Russian initiatives by the U.S. because, if the current administration uses the same assessment as the Bush, there will be no improvement. The [U.S.] can’t keep lecturing at Russia. We need to start treating each other as equals,” Petro said.

Petro refers to the air base in Manas which NATO used as a key supply facility for troops in Afghanistan, and which Kyrgyzstan decided to close Feb. 20.

Petro says it may be harder to change relations between America and Russia because of the media’s influence on American attitudes and assumptions toward Russia.

“The mainstream media does a bad job of explaining what’s happening in Russia, so people think of it as an abnormal country,” Petro said. “It’s harder to just be friends with Russia because of the negative tone taken by the mainstream media. That’s where I come in. Through education we can show where the media is missing the story. That’s what I try to do when I teach about Russia.”

Since many media correspondents come from a similar background and education, they think alike and that “makes it hard to recognize things that are not expected,” Petro said.

“Our assumptions about what’s possible leads to omission of a great deal of information. Because it’s missing, people can’t go back and say the story is incomplete, because to them it’s the full story. It’s a big problem, the assumptions we have going into discussions with [Russia] have fed a persistent ‘intelligence gap.,’” says Petro, that may take more than a generation to overcome.

Brooks Sunday Global Review: Inside Putin’s Russia House With Dr. Nicolai Petro

Dr. Nicholai Petro

PRESS RELEASE
BROOKS SUNDAY GLOBAL REVIEW
FEBRUARY 26, 2009

INSIDE PUTIN’S RUSSIA HOUSE — INTERVIEW WITH DR. NICOLAI PETRO ON US-RUSSIA RELATIONS

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT – On Sunday, February 22, 2009, former U.S. Attache to Russia, Dr. Nicolai Petro joined Sunday Global Review host Webster Brooks for an hour-long discussion on U.S-Russia strategic relations with the new Obama administration. The in-depth discussion covered areas of nuclear weapons, global energy policy, Afghanistan and the Central Asian region. In addition Dr. Petro discussed the political turmoil in Ukraine, its relations with Russia and upcoming national elections in 2010.

Can Arseniy Yatsenyuk Save Ukraine from Itself?

Prime Minister Yulia Tymeshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk

“In many ways the locus of Yatsenyuk’s path to victory that stresses ending the political rancor between the Regions Party and the Tymoshenko Bloc, and building a new sense of national unity and purpose mirrors Barak Obama’s road to the White House in the 2008 elections.”

————————————-

Unless a transformational figure emerges to capture the imagination and majority of Ukrainian voters in the January 2010 national elections, Kiev’s drift back to Russia will accelerate and the Orange Revolution will perish in its infancy. Five years after millions of Ukrainians defiantly overturned a fraudulent election orchestrated in Moscow to usher in Victor Yushchenko’s reform movement, corruption is rampant, chaos reigns in government and nostalgia to re-establish the bonds of affection with Russia is metastasizing across Ukraine. While Ukraine has been a strategic battleground between Europe and Russia, it is Kiev’s dysfunctional leadership that has furnished the means of its own nation’s destruction. Today, the one leader who is uniquely positioned to save Ukraine from itself may be Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whose meteoric rise is altering the political calculus of Ukraine’s upcoming elections. If Yatsenyuk enters the race, his road to the presidency will be as difficult as it is unlikely.

Ukraine’s next president will inherit a nation in the throes of a spiraling
economic crisis still searching for the bottoming out point. With the fourth highest debt level on the planet, industrial output plummeting 30 percent last year, inflation at 24 percent and its national currency (the hryvna) in free fall; economic circumstances in Ukraine couldn’t be worse. The January gas crisis with Moscow that shut off natural gas flows to twenty European countries has exacerbated Ukraine’s problems, and made it an unreliable provider of energy transiting to Europe. While Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko valiant attempt to reassure the European community at the recent Munich security conference that Ukraine has the capacity to shoulder its energy transiting responsibilities to the west, plans are moving forward on three natural gas pipelines from Russia and Central Asia that would all bypass Ukraine. Further, when the IMF conditioned the release of the second tranche of Ukraine’s $16.4 billion package to re-capitalize the banking sector and service its external debt, Ukraine was obligated to submit a plan for a balanced budget. Prime Minister Tymoshenko’s government presented a plan riddled with account deficits; prompting the resignation of Ukraine’s Finance Minister.

The gas crisis and Ukraine’s embarrassing proposal to the IMF are just two revealing examples of how deeply Ukraine’s political leaders have been living in a fantasy world since the Orange Revolution. The Yushenko-Tymokshenko Orange coalition disagreed on virtually everything once they took power in 2004. Since Tymoshenko was tossed out after the first eight months in office the two
leaders and factions haven’t stopped fighting. Worse than the Ukrainian government’s incompetence is the atmospherics of adolescent carnival its leaders have exhibited in conducting the nation’s affairs. Their governmental decorum has all the dignity of a primary school dining hall food fight. In short, Ukraine is not ready for rapid ascension into the European Union or NATO, nor is NATO ready to receive Ukraine. Even Russia has its doubts about its dealings
with Kiev. On February 16, Ukrainian leaders threatened to expel Russian Ambassador Chernomyrdin after his recent criticism of the nation’s leadership as totally disorganized.

President Yushenko’s fight for the supremacy of the Ukrainian language, uniting Ukraine’s Orthodox Church and building international recognition of the 1932-33 Holodomor as Soviet genocide will do nothing to solve the Ukraine’s crisis. That is precisely why his popularity in the polls is down to three percent. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is a far superior administrator of state affairs than Yushenko and former Prime Minister Yanukovych. She managed
to unite with Yanukovych’s Regions Party in 2007 to form a governing coalition and then defeated the Regions Party’s recent attempt to topple her from the Prime Minister’s post with a “no confidence vote.” Tymoshenko also deserves credit for negotiating a deal with Russia to end the gas crisis, eliminating energy transit middlemen who were gouging profits and attempting to restore credibility to the nation’s wages and pension system. But Tymoshenko is distrusted by vast numbers of Ukrainians who view her as part of the problem and are fatigued by her constant fighting with President Yushhenko and Yanukovych.

Going forward to the Ukraine’s national elections, Yulia Tymeshenko’s bloc does not have enough parliamentary seats and she doesn’t have the nationwide support to forge an effective governing coalition and lead a genuine reform movement. While Victor Yanukovych’s Region’s Party has a slim parliamentary majority he also lacks sufficient support to form a governing coalition. He is currently running behind Tymoshenko in the polls by a few points, and is facing a backlash in his party for fumbling the last attempt to dipose Timoshenko from office. As for President Yushenko, his spectacular fall from grace has virtually sunk his “Our Ukraine” coalition.

Against the backdrop of Ukraine’s crumbling economy and gross malfeasance in leadership, Arseniy Yatsenyuk has a tremendous opening to break out as a uniting force to save Ukraine’s flagging ship of state. While Yushenko, Yanukovych and Temoshenko fight, Ukraine is sinking and Yatsenyuk’s popularity is rising. As a former banker, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Speaker of the parliament, the 34 year-old Yatsenyuk is experienced and conversant in Ukraine’s byzantine politics. He is young, relatively scandal free and has the best chance to represent the next generation of a new
post-partisan Ukrainian leadership.

But can Yatsenyuk be the sober visionary leader who can impart a new sense of realism that implores Ukraine to clean up its own financial house? Does he have the charisma to inspire Ukrainians to take their destiny in their own hands and not look to Europe or Russia for salvation or blame them when things go wrong? Can he reign in Ukraine’s oligarchs who have ravaged the country in the same
way that Russia’s oligarchs did during the transition from state ownership to free enterprise without Putinizing the system? Will Yatsenyuk finally craft a sensible forward-leaning Ukrainian energy policy that modernizes its infrastructure and restores its credibility in Europe? Can Yatsenyuk try to articulate a vision that bridges the cultural and religious divide between Ukraine and Russian nationals? And can he lead a parliament to get things done with significant numbers of members from the Tymoshenko Bloc and the Regions
Party?

Although Yatsenyuk lacks money, party organization and a program for
Ukraine’s resurrection, he has two things working in his favor; the Ukrainian peoples’ desperate search for new leadership and his political rival’s incessant infighting that makes him a more attractive alternative. What Yatsenyuk needs now is a clear and compelling vision of a new Ukraine, and a new theory of nation-building that departs with the failed attempts of the past. He cannot simply split the political difference between the major parties. He can
be a radical pragmatist proposing solutions that benefit all Ukrainians
struggling under severe economic conditions, but he cannot be a soft centrist who tries to be all things to all Ukrainians. The fact that Yanukovych and Tymoshenko have started attacking Yatsenyuk instead of ignoring him now provides him with greater opportunities to highlight policy differences and new reforms, rather than engaging in personal smears. Yatsenyuk can and will have to be tough in taking on his detractors; he cannot be equally as dirty.

Yatsenyuk has formed a new organization called the Change Front Citizens Initiative. Unlike the Orange Coalition that was powerful enough to overturn a corrupt government in 2004, but too weak and too divisive to govern effectively; Yatsenyuk must build his own independent base of disaffected citizens and Ukraine’s youth that are anchored to his core vision. By doing so early in the process, he can position his campaign to break off sections of Ukraine’s other
major and minor parties on principle and policy to forge a winning coalition as the January 17 elections draw near.

In many ways the locus of Yatsenyuk’s path to victory that stresses ending the political rancor between the Region’s Party and the Tymoshenko Bloc, and building a new sense of national unity and purpose mirrors Barak Obama’s road to the White House in the 2008 election. Can Arseniy Yatsenyuk be the change that the new Ukraine believes in?

COMMENTS FROM BOOKER RISING WEB-BLOG ON ARTICLE
I think…he doesn’t understand a few things.

Eastern Ukraine has a border with Russia politically but culturally there is no border.

Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus were one nation of Eastern Slavs until Genghis Khan’s son came in and took over control of Russia.

Ukraine was split up and most of Belarus (White-Russia) went to “more Western Catholic Slavic” Poland-Lithuania (I know the Lithuanians are Balts..but)…

So today you have the Western have of Ukraine that is more Western centered and looking…which culturally is more similar to Catholic Poland and is Ukrainian speaking, which is really a dialect of Russian with a lot of Polish words.

In the East you have Russian speaking Ukrainians and Russians and if you ask a Russian many will tell you there is no such thing as a “Ukrainian”…they are just Russians who speak a dialect. In Russia, Ukrainians are not usually considered a “separate people like Chechen, the various Turkic and Mongol tribes, etc).

That being said, people in Eastern Russia watch Moscow TV, speak Russia, have family in Russia, often go to Russia, etc.

So what you have is an urbanized, more educated Western Ukraine (which I also believe is more industrialized) that wants to be part of the EU and NATO and almost half the nation wants to be part of Russia.

Hell the dictator of Belarus tried to rejoin Russia but at the time it was Russia that rejected reunification!

I’m not sure how to alleviate this issue, because slavic nationalism is deep…Russian nationalism is deep…you have a cleft country.

For more proof of what I”m saying check out this map.

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/12…mpires- past.php

Imperial Germany is the area that the Prussians took from the Poles, but the fact German and Polish dominance influenced the culture of the West part of Ukraine results in the same thing.
Dragon Horse | 03.01.09 – 4:53 pm | #

——————————————————————————–

MY COMMENT: What? An article/comment about the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, and nada about the National Endowment for Democracy?

You gotta be kidding me.

>WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite an exit poll indicating he won last month’s disputed runoff election.

U.S. officials say the activities don’t amount to interference in Ukraine’s election, as Russian President Vladimir Putin alleges, but are part of the $1 billion the State Department spends each year trying to build democracy worldwide.

No U.S. money was sent directly to Ukrainian political parties, the officials say. In most cases, it was funneled through organizations such as the Eurasia Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans and Democrats that organized election training, with human rights forums or with independent news outlets.

But officials acknowledge that some of the money helped train groups and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate – people who now call themselves part of the “Orange Revolution.”

For example, one group that received grants through U.S.-funded foundations is the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, whose Web site has a link to Yushchenko’s home page under the heading “partners.” Another project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development brought an official with Ukraine’s Center for Political and Legal Reforms to Washington, D.C., last year for a three-week training session on political advocacy.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/ un…_1n11usaid.html

MY COMMENT: As Condi said…”no one could have predicted” or some such.

CBear
Care Bear | 03.01.09 – 6:09 pm | #

——————————————————————————–

carebear…what exactly are you trying to say? Like any country the U.S. has interests, but if the Ukraine eventually joined NATO and the EU because of U.S. meddling would the average Ukrainian be better off or worse off than if they stayed in Puti…I mean ‘Russia’ orbit?
Dragon Horse | 03.01.09 – 6:26 pm | #

——————————————————————————–

MY COMMENT: The so-called “Orange Revolution” was not authentic (Bought and paid for by the US via the NED.) These “movements” often flounder (When the cash stops) and we fools (Tax payers) are left wondering “what went wrong?”

Hence my “no one could have predicted” quote.

The next “no one could have predicted” event? Iraq. We bought and paid the Militias to stand down, so Gen P and the Neo-Cons could claim that the “surge worked”

Let’s see what will happen when the payment stops.

CBear
Care Bear | 03.01.09 – 6:43 pm | #

——————————————————————————–

BROOKS SUNDAY GLOBAL REVIEW, 2.15.09

Dr. Ariel Cohen

Brooks Sunday Global Review, 2.15.09 – Dr. Ariel Cohen, a Russia and Central Asian expert with the Heritage Foundation, discusses President Obama’s foreign policy options for a resurgent Russia.

Brooks Sunday Global Review Kicks Off With a Look Inside Putin’s Russia House

Center for New Politics and Policy Senior Fellow Webster Brooks in Moscow

Brooks Foreign Policy Review
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2009

Hartford, Connecticut –On Sunday, February 15, 2009, Brooks Sunday Global Review–a new weekly foreign policy talk show will debut with an inside look at Russian foreign policy. Dr. Ariel Cohen, a Russia and Central Asian expert with the Heritage Foundation will discuss President Obama’s foreign policy options for a resurgent Russia. Webster Brooks will host the Sunday Review.

The special two-part series on Russian foreign policy continues with a look at Russia-Ukrainian relations with Nicolai Petro, former U.S. attache to Russia (Moscow), and Professor of Politics at the University of Rhode Island. On March 8, Brooks Sunday Global review shifts gears and focuses on Iran with Dr. Hooshang Amirahmahdi, President of the American-Iranian Council.

The new weekly Sunday Review broadcast will be available on the Brooks Foreign Policy Review webpage and the Center for New Politics and Policy website. Brooks said “We hope to provide the public with an in-depth and behind the scenes look at critical foriegn policy developments each week.” Mr. Brooks can be contacted at wbrooks@newpolicycenter.org or publicrelations@newpolicycenter.org and by phone at 866.290.6032.

Iraq’s Successful Provincial Elections Auger Well for Obama’s Troop Withdrawal Plan

FOR PROVINCIAL ELECTION RESULTS AND PROVINCIAL MAP CLICK ON IRAQ 2009 ELECTIONS CENTER LINK ON THE MENU BAR TO THE RIGHT

Iraq’s critical January 31 provincial election wars are over. With the Iraq Election Commission reporting 90 percent of the vote, the stunning results have far reaching implications for the upcoming referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), December’s parliamentary elections and President Obama’s proposed U.S. troop withdrawal plan. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s “State of the Law” coalition emerged as the big election winner. The advocates of stronger central government gained substantially against Kurdish and Shiia demands for more provincial power, and the Sunni minority participated broadly for the first time in three national elections. The surprisingly peaceful and fair elections were marked by contentious intra-group campaigning as Sunni Awakening Forces challenged the dominant Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, and four Shiia parties (Maliki’s DAWA Party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the Sadrists and the Fadhila Party) battled across Southern Iraq for electoral supremacy. Despite a lower than expected turnout of 51 percent, seven million Iraqi’s voted for 14,000 candidates vying for 440 provincial and local offices.

Nouri al Maliki, the once weak Prime Minister who controlled little more than Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and a rump parliament, led the “State of the Law” coalition list to victory in seven provinces in predominantly Shiia southern Iraq. Maliki’s coalition captured a plurality of 38 percent in Baghdad and 37 percent in the strategic oil port city of Basra, where he directed the Iraqi National Army drive to oust Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi army in the summer of 2008. Maliki’s even scored a narrow two point victory in Najaf, the center of Iraq’s Shiite religious movement and stronghold of Dawa’s rivals, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and the Sadrists.

The keys to Maliki’s success are instructive. Eschewing his DAWA Party’s religious themes, Maliki’s coalition ran on a platform of restoring law and order. He played to the Iraqi masses fatigue with sectarian conflict and argued that violence had been reduced to a minimum. Maliki trumpeted his leadership in signing the Status of Forces Agreement requiring all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by 2011, thereby muting the SIIC and Muqtada al Sadr’s rhetoric as the guardians of Iraqi nationalism. Next, Maliki maneuvered to divide his Shiia opponents by teaming with the SIIC and the Iranian government to subdue Muqtada al Sadr’s militias in Basrah and Baghdad last July. Then Maliki sided with the weakened Sadr forces in the elections to curb the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council’s push for a nine-province Shiia super state in Southern Iraq, which runs counter to both their interest in a strong central government. Maliki also took advantage of the splits among Sunni and Sadists forces to secure electoral and military alliances. Finally, as the only major player in Iraq without loyal armed forces to back his writ, Maliki cobbled together a patchwork army. Maliki secured the loyalty of two divisions of the Iraq national army in Bagdad to control the capitol city and began paying tribal chiefs across Iraq to form “tribal council” militias to battle other militias and maintain order.

The big loser in the elections was the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, led by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim. The SIIC went into the elections with the most seats in parliament and majority control of the nine southern Iraq Shiia provinces. Their party list, Al-Mihrib Martyr List didn’t win a single province, but managed second place finishes in six provinces (Najaf, Qadisiyaya, Basra, Wasit, Muthana, Babil, Maysan and Dhi Qar). The SIIC platform called for more power to the provinces, the formation of Shiia Islamic super-state in Southern Iraq and expansion of an Islamic state. Ridiculed by the Sadrists for agreeing to the SOFA, falling into disfavor with southern Iraqi’s for not securing essential government services, and labeled as agents of their Iranian sponsors, SIIC will need to retool its organization and message for the upcoming Parliamentary elections to maintain its national power.

One of the most critical election battles took place in Anbar Province. Sunni Awakening forces who led the fight to defeat al Queda, challenged the dominant Sunni parliamentary party, the Islamic Iraqi Party (IIP). The Awakening and National Independent List finished in second place by one-half a percentage point behind the independent Sunni parliamentarian Salih al-Mutalk. The Islamic Iraqi Party came in a close third. The Awakening forces threatened to drown Anbar province in blood if the Islamic Iraqi Party finished first. Although neither the IIP nor the Awakening forces won, the results were so close that a recount was ordered, and the government imposed an immediate curfew in Anbar to impose order. The situation in Anbar remains tense.

While provincial elections in the Kurdish controlled provinces of Dohuk, Suleimaniyah and Erbil were suspended until the Iraqi government and the United Nations agree on a plan on the status of Kirkuk, the Kurds had a great deal at stake in two bordering provinces with large Kurdish populations. The Kurdish Alliance ran second in Ninevah with 25 percent of the vote and second in Diyalah with 17 percent of the vote. The loss in Ninewah to the new Arab nationalist Al Hadbaa List (38% of vote) was a big setback. Although Arabs in Ninewah are the majority the Kurds gained control of the provincial government when Sunni Arabs boycotted the 2005 election. Al Hadbaa has not only launched attacks on the Kurds, but is vehemently opposed to expansion of the Kurdish Region.

As the final results of Iraq’s provincial elections are sorted out over the next two weeks, the struggles will begin to divide provincial governance assignments, local offices, and expenditure of provincial revenues. With not a single party list winning more than 50 percent of the votes in any of Iraq’s 14 provinces, the winners will have to divide provincial offices with their adversaries, and the other minor parties. In most cases this will be a fractious process. In Anbar and Ninewah provinces, the potential outbreak of violence is very real. In order to preserve the gains that Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki made in the elections and to consolidate order across Iraq, he will need to respond appropriately with prudence to any flashpoints of contention.

Despite the difficult hurdles the Maliki government must clear going forward, the Iraqi provincial elections were a big success for the Obama administration. Had the elections been marred in violence and fraud, Iraq’s fragile peace could have been plunged in chaos and Maliki’s regime severely undermined. The defeats of the dominant Shiia “Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council” in southern Iraq and the Kurdish setbacks in Ninewah and Diyalah provinces, has significantly slowed the momentum for federalism and a hard partition of Iraq. Moreover, the rising support for secular parties among the Shiia, Sunni and Kurds is an encouraging sign that polarizing sectarian-leaning parties may be on the decline. The parliamentary elections in December will be even more crucial in the re-alignment of national power sharing.

The victories scored by Maliki’s State of the Law list gives President Obama a stronger maximum leader across Iraq and a powerful proponent for approving the Status of Forces Agreement in the June 2009 national referendum. More importantly, these developments open a wider path of relative stability in Iraq that President Obama desperately needs to begin his proposed 16 month troop withdrawal plan.

Obama’s Foreign Policy Takes Flight-The First 14 Days – Video