DISSING AMERICAN DURAKS IN RUSSIA

Durak is a popular card game throughout Russia.  The loser among the players is dubbed the "durak" – idiot or fool in Russian.  The Kremlin enjoys playing it with Hillary Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton was in Russia this week, hoping to "reset" relations with the Russians which, she said, had been damaged by the policies of George W. Bush.

Last March, as a token of the Obama administration’s intentions, Ms. Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a large, red "reset" button when they met in Geneva.

But instead of the Russian word for "reset" (perezagruzka), Ms. Clinton used on her mock button the word "peregruzka," which means "overcharged."  The Russian press had a field day.

That gaffe was a harbinger of things to come.

Ms. Clinton had hoped during her visit to meet with the real power in Russian politics, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.  He thought a trip to Siberia and China was more important than spending time with the American secretary of state.

But Mr. Putin wasn’t too busy to pull the rug out from under the sole Obama administration foreign policy "triumph" to date.

In September, President Obama unilaterally abrogated missile defense treaties with Poland and the Czech Republic in order to appease Russia.  Conservatives — myself emphatically among them — denounced this as a betrayal of our allies, and as an enormous concession without a quid pro quo.

To counter this criticism, the New York Times reported that at the opening of the UN General Assembly Sept. 23, Mr. Obama had wrung "a concession from Russia to consider tough new sanctions against Iran."

"With a beaming Mr. Obama standing next to him, (Russian President Dmitri) Medvedev signaled for the first time that Russia would be amenable to longstanding American requests to toughen sanctions against Iran significantly if, as expected, nuclear talks scheduled for (October) failed to make progress," said reporters Helene Cooper and David Sanger.

"White House officials could barely hide their glee," Ms. Cooper and Mr. Sanger said. "Privately, several administration officials did acknowledge that missile defense might have had something to do with Moscow‘s newfound verbal cooperation on the Iran sanctions issue."

As expected, the Iranians offered no concessions on their nuclear program at their meeting Oct. 1 with the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany). 

So Wednesday (10/14), while Mrs. Clinton was busy in Moscow unveiling a statue of poet Walt Whitman (you can’t make this up), Mr. Putin was in Beijing telling reporters that sanctions on Iran were "premature," and could be "counterproductive."

"There is no need to frighten the Iranians," Mr. Putin said.  "We need to look for a compromise."

Mr. Putin’s Chinese hosts agreed, with premier Wen Jiabao announcing that China will strengthen co-operation with Iran and oppose sanctions.

"Putin’s supposed concern for Iranian fearfulness — a quality they have not manifested in six years of openly developing nuclear weapons — is really a veiled way of ridiculing the naïveté of U.S. officials in a fashion that Putin is sure they will not understand," said David Satter, a Russian expert with the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

The day before (10/13), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Ms. Clinton to her face that Russia was taking back its apparent pledge to support sanctions.

"At the current stage," all forces should be thrown at supporting the negotiating process," Mr. Lavrov said.  "Threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive."

So the Obama administration did sell out our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic for nothing.  And now they look like duraks for doing it.

"This episode captures Obama’s approach to international affairs and underscores its dangers," writes Peter Wehner.  "The president is weak and flaccid when it comes to our adversaries, and unreliable and unsteady when it comes to our allies.  America‘s enemies don’t respect us, and our allies increasingly don’t trust us."

Mr. Wehner was a speechwriter for President Bush, and could be expected to be critical.  But New Republic Editor Martin Peretz was one of Mr. Obama’s most prominent supporters.

"Mr. Obama hasn’t reset the relationship with Russia," Mr. Peretz said.  "He was taken for a ride.  Maybe his vanity won’t let him admit it.  But believe me, the Russians know they have taken him (and us) for a big ride, indeed."

"Unilateral concessions by Americans and the absence of criticism (of Russian duplicity) will be treated by the Russians as a sign of weakness and an invitation to new adventures at the expense of persons they do not respect," Mr. Satter warns. 

Dissing the American Duraks – it’s become Russia‘s favorite game.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.