Window Seat on the World Page 24
As flippant as Kerry’s comment seemed, it had been preceded by several months of private conversations between United States and Russian leaders about securing Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
President Obama and President Putin broached the idea in June 2012 during the G-20 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico. The two leaders renewed their discussion when they spoke face-to-face on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, just the week before Kerry made his comment in London.
There was good reason for President Obama to deal with President Putin.
Russia is a vast and proud country, as well as a nuclear power. It spans eleven time zones and sacrificed over twenty million of its citizens—more than eight million of them soldiers—fighting against the Nazis in World War II.
By one estimate, over twenty Soviet troops died for each service member from what the United States would label its “Greatest Generation.”303
In a 2005 speech, Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he served as a KGB officer, “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century.304 Despite a dismal economy overly reliant on energy resources, the country had a technical prowess especially evident in its aviation and space industries, the latter shown when the Soviet Union beat the United States and launched the first man into space in 1961. Today, the United States relies on Russia to launch its astronauts to the International Space Station after retiring its space shuttle fleet.
In another measure of national rivalry, the United States labeled its 1980 Olympic hockey victory over the Russians the “Miracle on Ice.”
Analysts said Putin believed the United States got cocky after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and didn’t show due respect to the new Russian Federation. It supported an expansion of NATO on Russia’s border, particularly by seeking to add the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and rebuffed Russia’s post-9/11 efforts to cooperate on counterterrorism. President Putin, after all, had been the first foreign leader to telephone President George W. Bush following the attack.
The trend continued, in Putin’s eyes, with what he perceived to be meddling in 2011 parliamentary elections, his 2012 reelection campaign, and encouragement for a 2014 revolution in another former Soviet republic, Ukraine.
Nonetheless, he and President Obama discussed ridding Syria of its chemical weapons in 2012 and 2013, and Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov had parallel conversations in April 2013 and during the ensuing months.
That didn’t stop outsiders from noting the nontraditional path that ultimately led the two diplomats to the negotiating table.
“While making a case for military strikes in Syria, Secretary of State John F. Kerry became an inadvertent peacemaker this week, and highlighted the risks and rewards of a chief diplomat who loves to talk but does not love the talking point,” Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Anne Gearan wrote about the situation.
The headline above her article read, “Candid Remark from Kerry Leads to Syria Disarmament Proposal.”305
Whoever the instigator and however circuitous the route, Kerry and Lavrov now stood before reporters at the outset of their talks in Geneva.
Lavrov deployed a favorite tactic during his opening: trying to hem in an interlocutor with his own words.
“We proceed from the fact that the solution on this problem will make unnecessary any strike on the Syrian Arab Republic, and I am convinced that our American colleagues, as President Obama stated, are firmly convinced that we should follow the peaceful way of resolution of the conflict in Syria,” he said.306
The foreign minister spoke for fewer than 350 words.
In his own opening, Kerry also tried to pigeonhole his fellow diplomat.
“Expectations are high,” the secretary said. “They are high for the United States, perhaps even more so for Russia to deliver on the promise of this moment. This is not a game, and I said that to my friend Sergey when we talked about it initially. It has to be real. It has to be comprehensive. It has to be verifiable. It has to be credible. It has to be timely and implemented in a timely fashion. And finally, there ought to be consequences if it doesn’t take place.”307
But Kerry’s remarks ran nearly 1,300 words—almost four times as long as Lavrov’s—and his counterpart disagreed with some of what the secretary tried to ascribe to him.
Asking for “just two words” of rebuttal, Lavrov called attention to an op-ed column by President Putin in the previous day’s New York Times. President Putin wrote:
From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.308
President Putin went on to say—despite all physical and anecdotal evidence to the contrary—that while no one disputed chemical weapons had been used in Syria, there was “every reason to believe” it was by opposition forces to instigate a US response.309
His foreign minister told the press corps in Geneva, “I’m convinced that all of you read this article, and I decided not to lay out here our diplomatic position. The diplomacy likes silence.”310
When Kerry complained he didn’t hear the translation of that last part, Lavrov quipped, “It was OK, John. Don’t worry.”311
Kerry replied: “You want me to take your word for it? It’s a little early for that.”312
The laughter that followed was only partly in jest.
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THE TWO SIDES MET into the night at Geneva’s InterContinental Hotel before resuming the next morning at the nearby Palace of Nations and then moving back to the hotel. They ran through a working lunch and a set of staff dinners before ending around midnight.
By 10 a.m. the following day, Secretary Kerry was dressed in a blue pinstriped suit as he strode across the deck around the hotel’s outdoor pool.
It was time to end the negotiation, he felt. He wanted to meet with the foreign minister alone at a teak table and umbrella where the usual conversation centered on whether to order a club sandwich or Caesar salad.
The two were soon joined by their deputies—Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, respectively—as well as technical experts.
Within an hour, the parties reached an agreement. Kerry stood up and shook hands with Lavrov and his team. The two took a brief walk alone along the pool deck before reconvening after an hour for a news conference outlining their deal.
Under the terms of the agreement, Syria acknowledged for the first time it possessed chemical weapons. It also agreed to provide a comprehensive list of them within a week to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the UN-based implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention. In addition, Syria said it would allow an initial OPCW inspection of its declared sites by November 2013.313
All weapons had to be removed from Syria and destroyed by June 30, 2014.
“This situation has no precedent,” Amy E. Smithson, an expert on chemical weapons at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said in the next day’s New York Times. “They are cramming what would probably be five or six years’ worth of work into a period of several months, and they are undertaking this in an extremely difficult security environment due to the ongoing civil war.”314
Kerry noted that in addition to creating benchmarks, the agreement called for proving their achievement through verification. He said:
If we can join together and make this framework a success and eliminate Syria�
�s chemical weapons, we would not only save lives, but we would reduce the threat to the region, and reinforce an international standard, an international norm. We could also lay the groundwork for further cooperation that is essential to end the bloodshed that has consumed Syria for more than two years. . . . The United States and Russia have long agreed that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria. It has to be political. It has to happen at the negotiating table. And we, together, remain deeply committed to getting there.315
Lavrov skipped rehashing the agreement, saying everyone could read it for themselves.
One point he chose to highlight, though, was that punishment for any violation of the deal would have to be approved by the UN Security Council—where Russia joins the United States and other Permanent Members in holding veto power.
When a reporter asked a follow-up question about that apparent wiggle room, the foreign minister said: “When we are sure, 100 percent, then we in the Russian Federation will be ready to adopt new resolution of the Security Council to embed the measures to punish the perpetrators of this violation, and it’s nonsense to continue the speculations on the matter today.”316
Kerry noted the agreement called for accountability of violations under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter—which allows for military action to enforce its decisions. When he tried, though, to say that means it “will impose measures commensurate with whatever is needed,” Foreign Minister Lavrov interrupted him.
“Should, should,” he said.
“Should,” Secretary Kerry acknowledged. “And as Sergey knows, under any circumstances, there would be a debate in the Security Council, even now. So there’s no diminishment, there’s no diminution of option.”317
The exchange highlighted one of the Kerry–Lavrov dynamics that would cement itself over the remaining three and a half years of their work together.
Kerry would typically assume the roles of both lead negotiator and chief salesman for agreements, while Lavrov would stay on the sidelines and speak up only when there were opportunities to enshrine the Russian position. Afterward, he’d say only the bare minimum about things to which he had agreed.
And if someone ever tried to put words in his mouth or oversell a Russian commitment, he was quick to stop them.
Kerry’s aspirational wishes for his diplomacy were always grounded by Lavrov’s stark realities.
As much as Kerry sought to foster or maintain personal relationships, and aspire to the better angels of diplomacy for current and future causes, Lavrov stuck to national interests, cold hard facts, and the matter immediately at hand.
A deal was what was written within the four corners of an agreement—nothing more.
The two soon said their goodbyes and Kerry set off to thank the State Department team for an extraordinary week of diplomacy and technical support. His deft work with Undersecretary Sherman was a prelude to their teamwork on the Iran nuclear negotiations.
Afterward, Kerry asked senior aide Jason Meininger and me if we wanted to grab lunch with him. A Swiss member of our protective detail recommended the hilltop Kempinski Hotel in nearby Montreux. It offered a spectacular view of Lake Geneva and the Dents du Midi.
That string of seven mountain summits held sentimental value to the secretary, because he used to look at them through the window of his bedroom while attending boarding school in Switzerland.
We ate and then were on a walk through lesser hills a few miles away when the Boss’s cell phone rang. It was President Obama, calling with his congratulations for the agreement.
As Kerry spoke, I positioned myself behind him, snapping photos. A man stood on a mountaintop, looking out at the horizon, accepting thanks from the leader of the free world for the fruits of his diplomacy.
It was heady stuff. Yet both the president and his secretary of State would soon come back to earth, with plenty of thanks to Russia.
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SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER THE United States and Russia worked jointly on the Syria chemical weapons agreement, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Toria Nuland made an appearance in Kiev, generating headlines far beyond Ukraine.
Clad in a blue down parka, she held open a plastic grocery bag and offered packets of biscuits to activists camped out in Independence Square, also known as the Maidan.
Several thousand people had congregated there in early December 2013 to call for the resignation of Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych. They were mad he reneged on a promise to sign an agreement aligning Ukraine with the European Union.318
It would have established a free-trade zone and deepened political and other ties between Ukraine and the European bloc. President Putin strongly opposed the move, and President Yanukovych agreed in mid-December to strengthen ties with Russia after Putin offered $15 billion in loan assistance and the delivery of cheaper natural gas.319
The Euromaidan protestors cheered when the police initially abandoned their efforts to dismantle their camp in the public square, but things turned violent in January 2014 when President Yanukovych’s supporters in Parliament passed laws aimed at repressing the protests.
Rioting broke out in mid-February when police cracked down on the protestors just hours after Russia delivered the first $2 billion of its promised $15 billion in aid.320
At one point, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev mocked President Yanukovych by saying he needed to stop behaving like a “doormat.”321
He also said further loan installments would be withheld because of concessions President Yanukovych was making to the protestors, including promising amnesty in exchange for their surrendering occupied government buildings.
Yanukovych’s government responded by initiating a brutal crackdown on February 18, 2014. Security forces opened fire with rubber and live ammunition on protestors; they responded with Molotov cocktails and cobblestone pavers pulled from the street.
By the following day, the government conceded eighteen protestors and ten police had been killed; but on February 20, 2014, the death toll skyrocketed after at least thirty-four more protestors were shot and killed by the police. In some cases, the police were perched on surrounding rooftops, like snipers.322 The protestors set fires to try to obscure their view and stop further killing. In all, more than one hundred died in the protests.323
The violence subsided on February 21, 2014, when three visiting foreign ministers—Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Laurent Fabius of France, and Radosław Sikorski of Poland—negotiated a settlement between President Yanukovych and the main opposition leaders.324
The president called for two days of national mourning, but the protestors continued to demand his ouster and introduced an article of impeachment in Parliament.
President Yanukovych dropped out of public view on February 22, 2014, and protestors stormed his gilded Presidential Palace when security forces abandoned their posts.325 The president eventually resurfaced in Russia, reportedly after flying there on a Russian military jet.
As the events unfolded, I remember watching the excitement in Assistant Secretary Nuland. As former US ambassador to NATO, she had a long experience with Russia and was under no illusions about dealing with President Putin.
She felt the former KGB agent was a strongman and untrustworthy, and she was concerned that Foreign Minister Lavrov took advantage of Secretary Kerry’s good nature and eagerness to engage with him.
She was openly enthusiastic to see Ukraine—a former Soviet republic—move toward the West. And she was thrilled opposition figure Yulia Tymo-shenko had been released from prison on February 22, 2014, and another favored opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was on the cusp of transitioning to the new national leadership.
Nuland was no stranger to the spotlight she garnered with her handout of foodstuffs. In addition to having formerly served as NATO ambassador, she was finishing up a stint as State Department spokesperson when Kerry took over from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Nuland presided over the
Daily Press Briefing, earning her a following in the international media and near-celebrity status when we landed overseas. She was, in many quarters, the face of the State Department.
She also was highly regarded within the Department itself, especially by younger women. They reveled in her rise from Ivy League student to member of a Russian fishing boat crew before she used her diplomatic skill and Russian language command to rise to the rank of ambassador. Now she was one of six regional assistant secretaries of State. And she did all that as a working mother.
Many of her supporters saw her as a potential replacement for Wendy Sherman as undersecretary of state for political affairs should Clinton be elected president in 2016.
But Nuland also tended to bend rules and protocol, especially when she was trying to achieve a political end. She publicly called John Kerry the more chummy “Boss,” not the honorific “Mr. Secretary” virtually everyone else in the Department used in his presence. She also liked to jump uninvited into his limousine or buttonhole him while he was walking into a meeting, giving her the final say over other advisers.
While Kerry respected Nuland’s energy, smarts, and unyielding advocacy, and promoted her from spokesperson to assistant secretary, the Russians didn’t share his feelings for her. What came off as misogyny factored into our diplomacy with them.
President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov disliked Nuland. Each had monitored her press briefings and routinely complained about her remarks. Lavrov, in particular, was known to make sexist jokes in the presence of her or other women in our delegation.
Both Russians harbored similar feelings toward Secretary Clinton, who famously began her term at the State Department attempting a fresh start with the Russians. Relations had plummeted following the Russian invasion of independent Georgia in August 2008, at the tail end of the Bush administration.
Clinton made a good-natured attempt to reach out when she held her first meeting with Lavrov on March 6, 2009, in Geneva.
With cameras rolling, she presented her dinner companion with a mock Staples “Easy” button labeled with Cyrillic Russian lettering that ostensibly read, “Reset.” The foreign minister publicly corrected her by explaining the letters actually translated to “Overcharged.”326