Michael McFaul’s heart likely went out to the Russian opposition, and he soon made public his feeling of pain at his inability to help. But what could he do if his every step was being watched, and if each cent that fell out of his purse was counted and recorded? McFaul clearly knew that he was in a scrubbed atmosphere where such viral infections as an Orange Revolution cannot appear out of the blue.
Political analyst Boris Mezhuev on the proper way to bid good-bye to Michael McFaul
Michael McFaul has announced his intention to leave Russia and return to Stanford University after the Sochi Olympic Games.
McFaul was an unusual choice for the position of US Ambassador to Russia, and he has not become a darling of Russian and American diplomats and officials during his two-year tenure. An academic alternative to bureaucratic traditions and rules, he smiled a lot, was media accessible, gave out business cards to random acquaintances, and liked to communicate with Russians on social networks. He not only symbolized, but seemed to be the incarnation of American openness, people and progress.
Many buttoned-down diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic were shocked by McFaul’s laid-back behavior and gossiped about the completely unacceptable manners of “that upstart,” but only behind his back.
McFaul’s appointment to Moscow in the politically turbulent period of 2011-2012 stirred fears in Russia. Everyone here expected the US embassy to start working with the opposition and to finance NGOs more energetically. But McFaul did not have the ability, or the intention, to stir a revolution, which eventually made many in Russia wonder why he had been sent here at all.
If he was not planning to support the “White Ribbon Revolution,” as the protests that began in 2011 were sometimes called, what was he doing in Russia?
Was his task to boost the nuclear reduction process and the resolution of the Syrian and Iranian issues? If so, any other career diplomat, even one less easy to get on with, would have done better. Career diplomats know more about intrigue and scheming, like one of McFaul’s predecessors, William Burns, who brilliantly conducted secret US-Iran talks last fall.
The White House and State Department’s choice of McFaul, a friend of Moscow liberals and an expert on democracy, could mean that Washington needed a cultural breakthrough in its relations with Russia amid a relative slowdown in economic and security affairs.
However, US-Russian relations took a U-turn during McFaul’s term. Moscow and Washington met each other halfway on several international issues, primarily Syria, but that positive process has not led to a change in the cultural or psychological climate. On the contrary, it was burdened with scandal and painful decisions, such as President Obama’s refusal to visit Moscow because of the Snowden affair and Sochi because of the so-called “gay propaganda” law.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov got on quite well on issues of common interest until Kerry’s statements on Ukraine provoked Lavrov’s outrage. But the most hopeless affair is trying to find common ground between the Kremlin and Obama. They are two different universes, and McFaul could not fill the vacuum between them, in part because even his liberal Moscow friends, who expected him to criticize Putin’s regime at the very first reception at Spaso House, did not understand him.
McFaul’s heart likely went out to the Russian opposition, and he soon made public his feeling of pain at his inability to help. But what could he do if his every step was being watched, and if each cent that fell out of his purse was counted and recorded? Anyone who would have picked that cent up would have been branded a “foreign agent,” which is a four-letter word for bureaucrats. McFaul clearly knew that he was in a scrubbed atmosphere where such viral infections as an Orange Revolution cannot appear out of the blue.
And so he did not criticize anyone, but sang praises to America, and above all, to Russia and Russian culture.
Back in the 1990s, Russians would have been happy with an ambassador like McFaul, because a kind word about Russia uttered by a foreigner – better still an American – was worth its weight in gold at that time. But Moscow of the 2010s does not believe in tears or words, because everyone in this city has already made their choice between the national government and the “global empire” that promised protection in case of trouble.
The members of these two camps, whom I cannot describe as citizens because they lack the civic spirit, are involved in a deadly feud. The nationals of the “global empire” have lost quite a few battles and need powerful external assistance, because soft power has lost its appeal.
What is the bottom line? Who will replace the smiling US academic in Moscow? Will the Olympic Truce, which is not even guaranteed in the official Olympic protocol, be replaced by a global geopolitical confrontation, towards which numerous “friends of Russia” are pushing Barack Obama? At any rate, today we have cause to regret McFaul’s decision to leave. We did not give him a warm welcome, but we should at least bid him a warm farewell. Good-bye, Mr. McFaul, till we meet again.
This article was originally published in Russian in
Известия
newspaper.
