Obama’s praise of Putin only sour note in Russia

President Barack Obama traveled to Russia with the intention of building a new relationship with America’s decades-old rival. He appears to have done that.

“It is difficult to forge a partnership between former adversaries, but I believe on the fundamental issues that will shape this century, Americans and Russians share common interests that form a basis of cooperation,” Obama, who has completed his first six months in office, said during the two-day visit.

The reaction from President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who many believe is still calling the shots in Russia as he did when he was president, was positive and encouraging.

Medvedev, who took office in May 2008 after winning election in March, joined the American president in pledging to negotiate a new nuclear arms treaty by year’s end. The pact would slash both nation’s arsenals by one-third.

In addition, Medvedev agreed to let the United States deliver arms shipments to American troops in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban through Russia. That arrangement will save time and money,

In his meeting with Putin, who hand-picked his successor for the presidency, Obama used laudatory language to break the ice that had formed when Russia went to war in 2008 with the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

“I am aware of not only the extraordinary work you have done on behalf of the Russian people in your previous role as ... president, but in your current role as prime minister,” Obama said to Putin.

In response, the prime minister told the president, “With you we link all our hopes for the furtherance of relations between our two countries.”

Putin’s record

All well and good, but Putin’s record isn’t as extraordinary as Obama suggested. Indeed, looking at his eight years as president, it is clear that the former colonel in the Soviet Union’s secret service is not as forward-thinking as he may appear. Indeed, Obama, prior to arriving in Moscow, said that Putin had “one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.”

That observation was definitely on the mark. Not only did Putin orchestrate the war with Georgia, but he delivered a crushing blow to democracy in Russia by cracking down on his political opponents, dismantling the free press and nationalizing major businesses.

He used his nation’s oil and gas reserves to bully former Soviet republics and other energy starved European countries. He restored the power of the Kremlin to levels that had existed during the Communist heyday, and in so doing rendered parliament, the courts, regional governors and even the media subservient to the power brokers.

It isn’t known whether Obama raised the issue of Putin’s heavy-handed governance during their private meeting, but his public comments could not have gone over well with those Russians who want to see the nation’s economic might pave the way for greater political freedom.

Now that Obama has opened the door to better relations between the U.S. and Russia, he should make it clear to Medvedev that the preservation of democracy in Russia is much preferred to the old ways of doing things.

While the president’s characterization of Putin ignored his apparent aversion to democracy, at least he didn’t follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who: “ ... looked the man in the eye” and found him trustworthy.

“I was able to get a sense of his soul,” Bush said in 2001. Some sense.