Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is in Paris on a state visit. It has all the earmarks of a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” event, with the French now selling an advanced warship to Russia (the Mistral) and the Russians offering France a stake in its Nord Stream natural gas pipeline and an increase in supplies of gas starting in 2015.
I’ve written about the unprecedented nature of the Mistral sale elsewhere. However, what was most striking about yesterday’s exchange between Medvedev was the sophistry of French President Nicolas Sarkozy—not that sophistry and French presidential rhetoric are anything new. According to the New York Times, “Mr. Sarkozy said that Russia was ‘a partner,’ no longer an enemy, and that it was ‘time to turn the page’ on the cold war. ‘How are we to say to Russian leaders—”We need you for peace, like on Iran,” but then say: “We don’t trust you?” That would be totally inconsistent,’ Mr. Sarkozy said.”
These are lines that Sarkozy and his government have been repeating over and over as the sale of the Mistral has drawn closer. But repeating them doesn’t make them any more true. The problems we have with Russia today are not the product of residual “Cold War” attitudes. No, it is Russia’s increasingly violent autocratic rule, its bullying of neighbors, its willingness to threaten allies and, lest we forget, its invasion of Georgia in 2008. It’s today’s Russia that’s the problem. The fact that Paris would pretend otherwise is all the more remarkable given that it was President Sarkozy who orchestrated the cease-fire between Tbilisi and Moscow but which Russia violates daily.
Nor is it the case that we have to “trust” Russia in order for it to work with the U.S. and allies in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Russia will only do what it considers to be in its interest. In the past that has meant very little help. Could that change? Of course. But it will be because Putin, Medvedev, and company have decided that Tehran having nuclear weapons is not in their best interest. It definitely won’t be because Moscow feels more love from Paris.