PRESIDENT George W. Bush's waning influence on the world stage is encouraging Russia's show of military force in neighboring Georgia and move to recognize two rebel regions there as independent states. With less than five months left in the White House, Bush is entering the “lame duck” period of his presidency facing new foreign policy challenges from both Russia and North Korea as he continues to struggle with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The fact that it's a period of transition in the US certainly makes it easier for the Russians to act provocatively,” said Jeff Mankoff, adjunct fellow for Russian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Several foreign affairs experts agree the Bush administration failed to give Russia enough attention almost from day one, and then gave contradictory signals. For example, Washington has tried to get Russia on board in doing more to help ensure Iran does not become a nuclear power while at the same time angering Moscow by moving ahead with a missile defense system in Russia's backyard in Eastern Europe. Russia's growing desire to regain its superpower status, badly eroded in the 1990s, was of course the major factor behind the mid-August military occupation of Georgia and Moscow's declaration on Tuesday that the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were now independent states. So was Russia's interest in capitalizing on its new role as an oil exporting powerhouse. But some analysts say the US political calendar, as well as good summer weather, helped Russia's gambit in Georgia. As the Nov. 4 US elections draw nearer, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his Democratic opponent Barack Obama are becoming important voices on the future of US foreign policy. “There was this narrow calculation of the American political calendar” by Russia, said Leon Aron, director of Russian studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington. Aron's scenario goes like this: with his influence sapped by the Iraq war, Bush “will not be able to muster much of a response” to Russia's actions in the final months of his presidency. By the time McCain or Obama takes office on Jan. 20 as the next US president, Russia's bold move against Georgia “will be old news, fait accompli.” If Moscow had decided to wait and move its tanks and troops into Georgia early into the new US president's term, Aron said, Obama or McCain possibly would have had to act more forcefully than Bush. “Russia correctly believes that a new president tends to be under pressure to show a certain amount of toughness in foreign policy” at the beginning of his term in office, Aron said. Andrew Grotto, a national security analyst for the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, downplayed US political factors in Russia's moves against Georgia. “Part of it lies in (Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin's personality. He's a former KGB guy, very cold, very pragmatic. He sees opportunities to seize gains and he takes them. That's what happened with Georgia. The whole episode has emboldened Russia,” Grotto said. As Bush condemned Russian recognition of the two rebel regions of Georgia, his advisers faced a new headache with North Korea announcing that it would stop disabling its nuclear facilities and consider restoring the Yongbyon reactor. Grotto did not see this as Pyongyang's snub of a lame duck president, but as part of a regular back-and-forth with Washington as North Korea tries to get off of a US list of states that back terrorism. “The North Koreans look at Bush and say, ‘If there's any president we can make a deal with, it's this guy.' His hard-line credentials are unassailable,” Grotto said. – Reuters __
