Obama to face off against Putin

By Michael Crowley

The US president will end a year of silence and meet with the Russian leader next week amid tensions over Syria and Ukraine.

After a vigorous internal administration debate, President Barack Obama has decided there is little to lose by ending a diplomatic freeze-out and agreeing to a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the United Nations in New York City next week.
Expectations are low that the meeting will yield much progress on friction points between Washington and Moscow. But with Putin and Obama both in New York early next week, Obama concluded that the cost of talking to the Russia leader is low at a moment of U.S. uncertainty about Putin’s grander foreign policy plans — particularly in Syria, where Russia has stationed troops and dozens of combat aircraft.

“Given the situations in Ukraine and Syria, despite our profound differences with Moscow, the president believes that it would be irresponsible not to test whether we can make progress through high-level engagement with the Russians,” said a senior administration official.
The two men will meet informally on the sidelines of the U.N.’s annual gathering of world leaders, which the White House took care to describe as a meeting sought by the Russian president, whom Obama has not seen in nearly a year.
The Putin dilemma touches on a core question at the heart of Obama’s foreign policy: Is it better to engage America’s adversaries in the hope of changing their behavior, the path Obama generally prefers? Or are punishments, military threats and ostracism more powerful tools, as conservatives often assert Republicans argued the point in their presidential debate last week, where Donald Trump and Rand Paul advocated dialogue with Putin, while Carly Fiorina said she “wouldn’t talk to him at all.”
Perhaps reflecting a divide within his team, Obama has chosen a middle course. Determined to isolate Putin diplomatically as punishment for his aggression in Ukraine, Obama last met with the Russian leader at a November 2014 summit in Asia, and hasn’t spoken with him since a July telephone call after the completion of the Iran nuclear deal.
To some degree the silent treatment reflects frustration with what U.S. officials call Putin’s doublespeak. In recent months, Obama has concluded that talking to his Russian counterpart was doing little to persuade Putin to end his support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who traveled to Sochi for a meeting with Putin in May, has been among the main proponents of maintaining high-level dialogue with Putin. Kerry has sought to enlist Russia in a diplomatic solution for Syria’s civil war, in part after he was encouraged by Putin in Sochi that Russia might support the ouster of Moscow’s ally, Bashar Assad.
Russia’s recent buildup of Russian troops and fighter jets near the Syria port city of Latakia, and Moscow’s bellicose public rhetoric, suggests instead that Putin may be redoubling his support for Assad and has cast doubt on the prospects for Kerry’s diplomacy.
The Russian buildup also has military officials worried about accidental conflict between Russian and American forces operating in the area.
Administration officials are also hoping for a clearer sense of Putin’s intentions in Syria. His military deployment there caught Washington by surprise, and U.S. officials remain unsure of his precise goals, including whether he plans offensive combat operations or is merely providing a backstop in case Assad is on the brink of collapse.
“The meeting is an opportunity to understand” Putin’s plans for his military presence, Celeste Wallander, the National Security Council’s senior director for Russia and Central Asia, said in a briefing for reporters Thursday. “It’s time for clarity and it’s time for Russia to come clear about just how it proposes to be a constructive contributor” in Syria, Wallander added.
But the White House mainly stressed the importance of the Ukraine conflict, particularly ahead of local elections scheduled for late October. Eastern separatists are threatening to undermine the elections by staging their own votes months later. That could derail a shaky February cease-fire agreement struck in Minsk, which officials say Moscow has not fully honored.
“The top item on [Obama’s] agenda will be Ukraine,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday. Washington’s European allies also urged Obama to pressure Putin over Russia’s role in keeping the Minsk deal alive.
Earnest added that Obama will warn Putin against “doubling down” on his support for the Syrian dictator. Obama insists that Assad must leave power, both for moral reasons and as a practical means of ending Syria’s civil war. Putin depicts Assad as leading a valiant war against radical Islamists.
With Washington and Moscow engaged in a propaganda duel at times reminiscent of the Cold War, each capital is already claiming the meeting shows that it has the upper hand. The White House is stressing that Putin sought the meeting and that Obama would take the opportunity to scold him about Russia’s behavior.
The view is different from Moscow, where Putin is keen to show that he is a global leader who cannot be ignored. “Over here I can tell you it is definitely seen as a triumph for Putin,” said Matthew Rojanksy, a scholar at the Wilson Institute currently visiting the Russian capital. In Moscow, Putin is seen as “saving the day in Syria and looking like a winner on the international stage at the U.N.”
Russian officials have said Putin’s Sept. 28 U.N. appearance will focus on the fight against radical groups in Syria, like the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-aligned Al Nusra Front.
“Putin obviously wants to talk about Syria. He wants to change the channel, change the subject, and underscore how useful he can be to the U.S. in other domains,” said Michael McFaul, Obama’s former ambassador to Moscow. “I think the first topic should be Ukraine.”
Obama personally disdains Putin and has been happy to snub him in the past. After Moscow granted asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden in August 2013, Obama cancelled a planned bilateral summit with the Russian president.
Several officials recommended that Obama hold a working meeting with Putin at a subsequent G20 summit in St. Petersburg that September, but Obama overruled that advice and wound up having only a fleeting handshake encounter with the Russian leader.
“The U.S.-Russian relationship is in tatters, and there’s a real danger of it getting worse,” said Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “There’s no practical agenda left now that the Iran deal is done.” (Russia was one of the seven parties to the nuclear talks.)
“It’s very hard to say what the presidents will do except trade talking points, and position themselves for the public debate about who is making concessions and who is showing weakness,” Weiss added. “I think that will overshadow the substance.”