Russia, along with France and Germany, has thus far led the international opposition to the Bush administration's relentless drive for the armed ouster of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. This opposition helped frustrate the US attempt to secure a United Nations Security Council endorsement for military action in Iraq.
This confrontational Russian stance exposed divisions within the country's policy community. A significant number of Russian commentators and policymakers opposed the country's Security Council position, arguing that a head-on collision with the United States raised unacceptable risks to Russia's interests. For many, however, the desire to maintain cordial relations with Washington is not rooted in affinity for the United States, but more out of concern over the Bush administration's perceived arrogant and arbitrary behavior.
Russia's dilemma is not a "choice between the US and Iraq," Alexander Bovin, a liberal political commentator and Russia's former ambassador to Israel, wrote in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily. "It is a different choice
Editor's note:
Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1988-1997; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 1995, and a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York, 2000. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey.
