The Russians, to start with, have never been all that enthralledwith the Obama phenomenon.
Barack Obama often seems to have much of the planet at his feet in rapt attention to his every word. But the president as global oracle is about to meet his stony match –in the vast and barren place that proved a graveyard for Napoleon andthat has an ingrained suspicion of foreigners as an abiding quality ofits cultural DNA.
That place, of course, is Russia, which Obamaplans to visit this month. The president will find a Kremlin amenableto doing business with him on traditional diplomatic matters likereducing nuclear weapons stockpiles, so long as Moscow is convinced thedeal is an even one.
But if Obama, more ambitiously, hopes towin over the hearts of the Russian people — along the lines of hisrecent Cairo address, pitched over the heads of the governments of theIslamic world and straight at their citizenry — he can expect to leavedisappointed.
The Russians, to start with, have never been all that enthralledwith the Obama phenomenon. On the eve of his inauguration, a 17-nationpoll conducted by the BBC World Service found that in every countryexcept two, a majority of the people believed his presidency would leadto an improvement in relations between the United States and the restof the world.
The two nations feeling otherwise were Russiaand Japan. And a poll just released by the Levada Center in Moscowfound that only 23 percent of Russians feel confident that Obama will”do the right thing in world affairs.”
One reason for thisattitude is that the Russians do not quite share Obama’s sense ofglobal priorities. For Obama, as for so much of the planet, globalclimate change is a serious and even urgent concern. But as the BBCpoll found, this is not a priority for Russians, and neither is makingpeace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, another big agendaitem for Obama and his allies.