Rice wanted her talks this week with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to "halt a dramatic slide in U.S.-Russian relations." After all, Washington still claims it wants Russia to be friendly and, moreover, strong.

The Kremlin and Rice have expressed their mutual readiness to discuss embarrassing issues. The United States is at loggerheads with Russia over a host of issues, including U.S. plans for a European-based missile defense system and the possibility of Russia vetoing the independence plan for Kosovo. The two countries largely agree on the Iranian issue and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

But the Moscow talks had to deal with the concept of bilateral relations now that the second presidential terms of Putin and George W. Bush are running out. Washington and Moscow want each other to be a strategic partner that will meet the overwhelming sentiments of voters in their respective countries. However, it is the governments that mold these sentiments.

So, it was not the agenda of Rice's talks with Russian officials that mattered, but the background for them. It was the first Moscow visit by a top-ranking U.S. official after Putin's February speech at the security conference in Munich, where he accused the United States of trying to create a "one-boss world." After that speech, the U.S. mass media showered Russia with accusations of all mortal sins, above all a decline into autocracy.

Putin's speech in Red Square on Victory Day -- May 9 -- was not challenging at all. He only expressed regret that some countries still laid claim to "global exclusiveness and diktat." He could have been referring to Tehran or Pyongyang, but Washington, acting on Freudian prompting, decided that the phrase was meant for it.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow asked and received from the Russian Foreign Ministry an explanation, according to which nobody in Russia equated the Bush administration with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

Although the issue seemed to be settled, Rice used her testimony in the Senate to speak about backslide from democracy and an alarming concentration of power in the Kremlin.

"I think everybody around the world, in Europe, in the United States, is very concerned about the internal course that Russia has taken in recent years," she said.

Rice may sincerely believe what she said, but the U.S. federal budget points in the opposite direction. Its allocations on developing democracy in Russia have been cut from $43 million in 2006 to $26 million in 2007. Washington no longer wants to spend funds on assistance to all kinds of pseudo-independent funds and NGOs in Russia. Why is that?

The most probable reason is that Washington is more or less satisfied with Russia's progress towards democracy, as Daniel Fried, U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, admitted on May 9.

Speaking at the Berlin conference on "Rethinking Europe" he said, "Russia even today is freer than under the Communists, and arguably freer than at any time under the Tsars."

The problem is not only in different interpretations of democracy. There are some things Russia discusses frequently and freely, which the United States tries to avoid. To understand the point, the United States only needs to put itself in Russia's shoes. What would the Bush administration think and do if the Kremlin tried to reopen its electronic intelligence center in Cuba, sent 5,000 troops to Mexico and Venezuela -- the United States has dispatched such forces to Bulgaria and Romania -- and in general resumed a deterrence policy vis-a-vis its "strategic partner"?

Rice faced such questions in Moscow, so she should have prepared her answers in advance.

Vladimir Simonov is a political commentator for RIA Novosti. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the RIA Novosti editorial board.

United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.

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