Anatol Levien: Stop Bashing Russia

From The Los Angeles Times (ht Johnson's Russia List):

To ordinary Russians, Western-sponsored "democracy" meant watching helplessly while "liberal" elites looted the country and transferred vast fortunes to Western banks, to the profit of Western economies.

Harvard University, for example, is very belatedly investigating the conduct of professor Andrei Shleifer, who allegedly profited corruptly from a U.S. government-sponsored Russian privatization project on which he was an advisor. Shleifer was long protected by Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who as President Clinton's Treasury secretary himself helped push Russia's monstrous variant of privatization. If U.S. scholars are — rightly — outraged by the Shleifer case, imagine how ordinary Russians feel.

Because Putin is seen as having ended the post-Soviet decade of chaos, looting and national humiliation; because he has presided over rising living standards; and yes, because he has stood up to the West, he currently has the support of a large majority of Russians.

By contrast, the Russian "democrats" Washington favors have no chance whatsoever of winning a free election. Moreover, the more ardently we support them, the more unpopular they become. Excessive Western criticism of Putin, far from strengthening Russian democracy, angers ordinary Russians and risks driving them further toward chauvinistic nationalism.

Yet Washington still seems to not understand the consequences of its disastrous Russia policies of the 1990s. Hypocritical and extreme anti-Russian attitudes are not confined to old-style Cold Warriors such as Cheney but are widely held among the nation's foreign policy elite. They are on display in a report on the U.S.-Russia relationship just issued by a bipartisan task force of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 76 pages of hectoring criticism of Russia, there is not one suggestion that any U.S. action toward Russia has been in any way wrong or harmful.