Clinton-Yeltsin talks leave several key areas unexplored

President Clinton’s three days in Russia--two of them part of the regular meeting of the G-7 major industrialized nations--supposedly had nothing to do with President Boris Yeltsin’s underdog campaign for reelection in June. But Clinton’s professed neutrality in that contest, like that of the other G-7 leaders, was less than convincing. Russia’s multi-candidate presidential election is likely to come down to a choice between Yeltsin and the neo-Communist Gennady Zyuganov. The West, with its interest in having a Russian government that will move ahead with economic reforms and a policy of international cooperation, clearly prefers Yeltsin, with all his political and personal faults. The alternative, with its implied regression in both domestic and foreign affairs, could only complicate the policies of the West for years to come. It would be prudent to begin planning for that nasty possibility.

Summit meetings are almost always a triumph of show over substance, and the Clinton-Yeltsin talks proved faithful to that pattern. Clinton, not wishing to embarrass the Russian leader politically, chose not to push Yeltsin on the bloody war Moscow has been waging to suppress secessionism in Chechnya. Indeed, he seemed to justify it with an ill-chosen comparison to the American Civil War. Clinton asked but learned little if anything about the massive and mysterious underground military facility Russia is building in the southern Urals. On the looming issue of NATO’s expansion, there appears to have been neither agreement nor even clear understanding, with Yeltsin at one point seeming to suggest that Russia would have a veto over who might join NATO. All of which indicates that even if Yeltsin wins reelection, the U.S-Russia agenda is sure to contain many points of friction. If Zyuganov wins, look for even more sparks to fly at those points.