Standing Up To Dictators

Robert Kagan has advice that George Bush will not heed: And there is an even more fundamental reality that the president must face:

A Russian dictatorship can never be a reliable ally of the United States. A Russian dictator will always regard the United States with suspicion, because America's very existence, its power, its global influence, its democratic example will threaten his hold on power.

Finally, there is the matter of the Russian people themselves. Did the United States help undo Soviet communism only to watch as tyranny takes its place? Is that the legacy President Bush wants to leave behind?

Much depends on what Bush does and says in the coming days. No one should imagine there are any easy answers. If Bush denounces Putin, we will pay a price. If he goes further, as he should, and begins taking tangible actions in the economic and political spheres to express U.S. disapproval of Putin's latest moves, we may suffer a loss of Russian cooperation. These are chances we will have to take, however.

Perhaps in the face of global pressure, led by the United States but including Europe, Putin might feel compelled to back down. In any case, President Bush needs to try. He must remain true to his stated principles, both for the sake of principle and for the sake of U.S. interests.

Aside from giving Mr. Bush the benefit of the doubt long after he has ceased to deserve it, Kagan provides, indirectly, a particularized version of the best argument against George Bush's re-election. Namely, the gap between Bush's foreign policy rhetoric, on one hand, and Bush's actual conduct of policy on the other hand, is reflective of, at best, a surreptitious and dangerous repudiation of modal actualism, and at worst, an internationalized form of schizophrenia.