On 16th November the lower house of the US Congress voted overwhelmingly in favour of adopting the so-called Magnitsky Bill. Since the passage of this bill is linked with the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which will finally normalize US-Russia trade relations, a reluctant President Obama has no choice but to sign it into law. With Moscow already promising retaliation, US-Russia relations are clearly headed for fresh turbulence.
Given the precarious state of the US economy, the turmoil in the Middle East, the persistent menace of terrorism and the relentless rise of China, it seems odd that Congress was able to find the time to pass legislation which is focused on the internal affairs of Russia and, which, moreover, risks further destabilizing the international system.
It is even odder that US legislators, normally averse to effective consensus on vital domestic issues, have nevertheless demonstrated strong bipartisanship on the Magnitsky Act (it passed with a majority of 365 to 43).
Indeed, as Edward Lozansky of the American University in Moscow has pointed out, we are witnessing a unique situation in which both sides of the US political spectrum, as well as most media, consistently maintain a strong anti-Russian stance and consider Putin's regime virtually as evil as that of the Soviet Union. Such unity was rare even during the Cold War.
Why the US is behaving in this way cannot be satisfactorily explained by thestandard analytical tools of geopolitics. Rather, we need to reach for the toolbox of psychology. America's political class understands that the "sole superpower" and its Western allies are in relative decline, having brought upon themselves an intractable economic and moral crisis.
It also understands that, with the rise of China and the other BRICs, the end of incontestable Western domination looms ever closer. In the face of this development, the mere presence of a doggedly sovereign "Putin's Russia" is seen as an unacceptable affront. Moreover, not only does Moscow dare to flaunt its independence; it also entertains big geopolitical ambitions by aiming to restore (without Western "permission") its historical influence in strategically important Central Asia.
The Magnitsky Bill is not about democracy and human rights; if it were, how could the US political class be comfortable with such medieval-like outrages in its own camp as Saudi Arabia's persecution of women whose only "crime" is campaigning for the right to drive cars? Above all, it is about the following three things:
America's inability to come to terms with the limits of its power;
• Its failure to grasp that a functioning democratic system can evolve from the ashes of totalitarianism without being "implanted" there by the West and without Western supervision;
• And its reluctanceto strike a strategic partnership with a resurgent Eurasian superpower on the basis of genuine equality, mutual respect and due regard for each other's interests.
Today we are witnessing the emergence of increasingly prosperous and democratic superpowers (countries that are deemed by the West to have "lost" the Cold War) which do not need and which, in fact, reject, US "guidance" and security guarantees. Welcome to the new world for which America is not yet equipped and in which it is still struggling to find its place.
