Obama: No business as usual with Russians

U.S. President Barack Obama said he wants closer working relations with Russia but did not shy away from criticizing the old Cold War foe, saying there is a need for a change in relations.

Speaking Friday from Strasbourg, France, on the occasion of NATO's 60th anniversary, Obama did not hesitate to criticize Moscow.

"We have to send a very clear message to Russia that we want to work with them," Obama said. "But we can't go back to the old ways of doing business."

Obama criticized the Russians for their heavy-handed response in the Caucasus war last summer when Moscow threw its far superior military might into the offensive against Georgia, which was part of the Soviet Union until its breakup in December 1991.

Relations between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Moscow suffered greatly as a result of the war between Georgia and Russia. NATO severed relations with the Russians, and it was only last month that they were finally re-established.

NATO, headquartered just outside Brussels, was formed in the aftermath of World War II. Initially based in Paris until President Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of the military alliance (although the country remained an active partner in the political alliance), NATO was designed to thwart the expansion of the Soviet Union into Western Europe. The Soviet Union had already swallowed up much of Eastern Europe, incorporating the satellite nations into its vast empire that included Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Poland and half of Germany.

Despite the fact that the Cold War was over, officially at least, suspicion between the West and the former Cold War enemy never really dissipated. Additionally, some political quarters in Moscow never quite accepted the fact that Russia lost the Cold War. Adding insult to injury was the fact that several former Soviet republics and one-time members of the Warsaw Pact, NATO's former nemesis, applied for membership and were admitted to the North Atlantic alliance. If that were not sufficient, to upset the Russians and take a stab at their pride, the George W. Bush administration then proceeded with plans to install an anti-missile battery and radar station in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move that Moscow did not at all appreciate.

At the same time, the war in the Caucasus had a negative effect for the Georgians, who Moscow accused of initiating the fight in South Ossetia. Tbilisi's request for admission into NATO was placed on hold as NATO members declared that there was no room in the alliance for members who initiated such risks.

However, although he said some things had to change, Obama's remarks directed at the Russians were not entirely negative. The American president said he wanted to send a very clear message to Moscow to remind the leaders in the Kremlin that there were very clear lines that should not be crossed.

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(Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.)