July 25, 2022
Two of the biggest international crises confronting the US today are Russia’s war in Ukraine and the comatose renegotiations of the nuclear agreement with Iran. From an American foreign policy perspective, nothing could be more desirable than reform in the leadership of those two countries. But both Russia and Iran have, in the past, offered the US the reform it desires. And in both cases, the US undermined those attempts and destroyed what it most desired.
Putin, until recently, was never anti-West. Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at Kent, who has written extensively on Putin, has called Putin “the most European leader Russia has ever had.” Putin continued in a recent line of reformers who sought partnership in a "greater West" and who, Sakwa says, attempted “to forge a closer relationship with the European Union.” Stephen Cohen, who was Professor Emeritus of Russian studies and politics at Princeton, has pointed out that Putin “long pursued negotiations with the West over the objections of his own hardliners.”
