WASHINGTON
(AP) — As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton basked in a diplomatic
"Moscow Spring," seizing on Vladimir Putin's break from the presidency
to help seal a nuclear arms-control treaty and secure Russia's
acquiescence to a NATO-led military intervention in Libya. But when
Putin returned to the top job, things changed.
Clinton,
the Democratic presidential nominee, has vowed to stand up to Putin if
elected, drawing on her four years of ups and downs as the public face
of President Barack Obama's first-term "reset" with Russia. By
comparison, her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has rung alarm bells
in Washington and Europe with his overtures to the authoritarian Russian
leader.
But
Clinton's wrangles with Russia led to mixed results. And her fortunes
dipped dramatically after Putin replaced Dmitry Medvedev as president in
May 2012.
Just
weeks later, Russia outmaneuvered her in negotiations over a
complicated Syria peace plan, dealing her what was arguably her worst
diplomatic defeat. While Clinton hailed it as a triumph, the war only
escalated. And while her aides still insist she came out on top, the
blueprint effectively gave Syria's Moscow-backed president, Bashar
Assad, a veto over any transition government, hampering all mediation
efforts still.
"There
is no doubt that when Putin came back in and said he was going to be
president, that did change the relationship," Clinton said in a
Democratic debate last year. "We have to stand up to his bullying and
specifically, in Syria it is important."
Clinton's history with Russia is significant given the surprising role Russia has played in the U.S. presidential campaign.
Clinton
and her supporters say she would be far tougher on Moscow than Trump,
whose unusual foreign policy statements include musings about NATO's
relevance and suggestions that he could accept Russia's annexation of
Ukraine's Crimea region. Russia's reported hacking of Democratic Party
email accounts also has led to charges that Putin's intelligence
services are meddling in the election, and Trump aided that perception
by publicly encouraging Russia to find and release more of her emails.
Clinton's
first encounters in Russian diplomacy began on much more hopeful note.
Meeting Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in 2009, Clinton initiated the
effort to repair years of bitter relations, punctuated by a Russian war
with neighboring Georgia a year earlier. Offering a large red reset
button, Clinton outlined a broad agenda of cooperation.
The new policy paid dividends.
With
Putin focused on domestic matters during a four-year stint as prime
minister, Medvedev opened up a new corridor for U.S. forces and materiel
heading to Afghanistan. The two nations sealed their most ambitious
arms control pact in a generation. Washington and Moscow united on new
Iran sanctions. Years of trade negotiations culminated in Russia's entry
into the World Trade Organization.
But it was perhaps Clinton's unlikeliest diplomatic breakthrough that began the downward spiral: Libya.
As
America's European allies sought a military intervention against Libyan
dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Clinton played the role of skeptic, refusing
to jump aboard. When she finally did, it proved critical in persuading
Russia to abstain. The rebels overthrew Gadhafi five months later.
Returning
as president in May 2012, Putin was immediately confronted with Syria's
Libya-like escalation from Arab Spring protests to full-scale civil
war. He played his cards differently than Medvedev, hinting to Obama
that he could drop his support for the Syrian leader while shielding
Assad from any U.N. pressure or foreign action that might chase him from
power.
Seeking
Russia's cooperation, Obama and Clinton avoided any talk that might
threaten Russian equities in Syria, including a large naval base there.
Their message was clear: The U.S. wouldn't try to pull a future
post-Assad government out of Moscow's orbit.
It
didn't matter. When the U.N. proposed a peace plan that involved
ushering Assad out of power and included penalties for noncompliance,
the Russians balked. Faced with stalemate, the U.S. and Russia arrived
at a formula for a new government comprised of individuals chosen by the
"mutual consent" of Assad and the opposition.
Although Clinton claimed credit for the June 30, 2012, compromise in Geneva, it appeared to be Russia's objective all along.
Assad is still president.
Clinton
has acknowledged her frustration with an increasingly hostile Russia on
Syria and other matters as her time in office wound down.
In
her final months, Russia ordered the end of all U.S. Agency for
International Development programs in the country. It approved a new law
constraining the work of Russian and foreign non-governmental
organizations. It banned U.S. adoptions of Russian children.
In
December 2012, Clinton accused Putin of trying to "re-Sovietize" its
region. And just before leaving, she wrote a memo to Obama urging him to
finally suspend a reset that ended once and for all with Russia's
military incursions in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014 — well
after Clinton had left government.
"Strength
and resolve were the only language Putin would understand," Clinton
wrote in her memoir "Hard Choices," published shortly afterward.
It's a lesson she could say she learned firsthand.
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