Bush may scrap nuclear deal to punish Russia

Western countries continue to look for ways to react to the Georgian conflict in a way that punishes Russia and not the West. The most recent suggestion certainly does not meet that criterea.

According to the International Herald Tribune, Bush is now preparing to boot Russia from a civilian nuclear cooperation project that depended in large part on Russia’s participation.

The imminent collapse of the nuclear deal, once a top Bush priority, represents the most tangible casualty so far of the deteriorating relations with Russia after its brief war with neighboring Georgia. Vice President Dick Cheney is heading to Georgia next week, and Bush is poised to announce about $1 billion in economic aid to the country, the officials said.

The agreement would have reversed decades of bipartisan policy and allowed extensive commercial nuclear trade, technology transfers and joint research between Russia and the United States. It also would have cleared the way for Russia to import, store and possibly reprocess spent nuclear fuel from U.S.-supplied reactors – a lucrative business for Russia and a way for the United States to build nuclear plants while keeping radioactive waste out of less reliable hands.

President Bush broached the deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2006, and the two nations signed it on Putin’s last day in office.

Although Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and Vice Presidential Nominee Joe Biden has proposed a resolution approving the deal, few in Congress believe it will pass.

“Even before Georgia, there were real issues,” House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman said. “This came along, and there’s just no appetite for it now.”

This deal had once been what administration insiders considered one of the few saving graces of Bush’s foreign policy legacy. Now it will go down the same way all the rest of his would-be achievements have: with arrogance, belligerence and heavy-handedness.