The culprits this time are the folks at the Foreign Policy Initiative, the successor to another famous neocon think-tank, the Project for the New American Century (which basically drafted the outline for George Dubya's foreign policy). They've drafted a letter to Obama demanding that when the two leaders meet, he lecture President Dmirty Medvedev on Russia's human rights record.
So rather than trying to build better relations with Russia, to try to reach an agreement on some important issues like Iran, North Korea or Afghanistan (where Russia just announced they'll allow the transport of Afghanistan-bound US/NATO military supplies across Russia), they want Obama to treat Medvedev like a misbehaving schoolboy, and to do so on his home turf no less. Great strategy guys…
Granted, Russia's recent track record on issues like political expression and freedom of the press leaves a lot of room for improvement, but if we're going to be dishing out human rights lectures, maybe we ought to start with China - where there's no free press (and if they have their way, Internet either), opponents of the government regularly find themselves in labor camps, and Beijing is engineering the cultural genocide of both the Tibetans and the Uighurs. Maybe, while we’re lecturing, we could even remind our friends in the European Union that there's more to ‘minority rights’ than making sure Gallic and Catalan is taught in schools, it also means protecting the rights of less-popular groups like the Roma and Russians (in the Baltic countries) as well, something the EU has seemed reluctant to do.
If we care about human rights in Russia, then we'll repair the strained US-Russian relationship first - concern from a friend is usually better received than criticism from a rival. Urging Obama to launch into a pro-rights tirade against Medvedev will do more harm than good.
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