Playing the Angles: Russian diplomacy before and during the war in Iraq
Date
2003
Authors
Katz, Mark N.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Abstract
In the lead-up to and during the
American-led intervention in Iraq this
year, the Putin administration had
several goals:
- To work in partnership with other nations,
especially France and Germany, to prevent
the United States from acting unilaterally,
to create a "multipolar" world in order to
prevent American intervention in the first
place, and (when this tailed) to prevent the
United States (along with the United
Kingdom) from determining Iraq's future
without U.N. Security Council approval.
- To work in partnership with the United
States, especially in the wake of 9/11,
against terrorism and in pursuit of common
security, and economic goals.
- To finally cash in on the contracts that
Russian oil firms and other enterprises had
signed with the Saddam Hussein regime
(and as many as possible of those that
were initialed or just discussed) after it was
ousted and U.N. Security Council sanctions
were lifted.
- To preserve the contracts Russia had
gained under the U.N. Security Council's
oil-for-food program in post-Saddam Iraq.
- To finally collect the $8 billion in Saddamera
Iraqi debt owed to Moscow.
- To prevent events in Iraq from damaging
Russia economically and from hurting the
Putin administration politically.
Some of these goals contradict each
other. In this paper. I will examine two
questions: To what extent did Russia
achieve each of these goals (and to what
extent does it seem likely to)? And how
successfully did Russia resolve the contradictions
among these goals?
Description
The definitive version of this document can be found at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com This document was created using OCR technology, and may contain minor discrepancies from the published document.
Keywords
Russia, Iraq, Putin, Diplomacy, International affairs