NUMBER ONE GO-BETWEEN

After British Premier Tony Blair announced the success of his initiative this week, aimed at inviting his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and President of the Palestinian Authority Yasir Arafat for talks in London early this May, only most careless analysts would discuss Britain as a new go-between in the Middle East. There is one aspect which seems to rule out the British Premier’s intermediary ambition. Mr. Blair made it perfectly clear that the British role in this region could only be supplementary to that of the United States, and that the British initiative could only be kept in the US vein there. In other words, allegations such as “Blair initiative will complicate the Middle East game, adding yet another go-between contender” seem premature (it suffices to recall the futile attempts of France and Russia in this direction).

There is no denying the fact that the United States is leader of the world, mediation included (albeit not successful always and everywhere). Remarkably, it was thanks to US intervention that several of Kyiv’s foreign policy problems were effectively solved, like the case with the Ukrainian-Russian-US talks on nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory, when Kyiv won good reimbursement terms (e.g., nuclear fuel for Chornobyl in return for giving up warheads). It was also thanks to US pressure on Moscow that Ukraine’s northern neighbor agreed to restructure Ukraine’s foreign debt. There is no doubt that if Ukraine had succeeded in securing US backing when struggling to solve the strategic bombers issue (perhaps by making it part of some “large nuclear package”), no TU aircraft would be rusting now on two Ukrainian airfields and Kyiv would have been in a position to adequately respond to the Russian game of “Yes, we’ll buy; no we won’t; yes, we will...”

With US help (and Americans make no secret of their interest in a stable and strong Ukraine), Kyiv could have solved a number of other problems. Those in the know are aware that the United States is behind most of the loans received by Ukraine from international financial institutions, despite failing to honor all of the attached commitments, because America wanted Ukraine to have this money.
Borys Tarasiuk’s appointment as Foreign Minister is obviously designed to enhance the Kyiv-Washington line, for by doing so other positions may be strengthened (e.g., Ukraine-NATO, even Ukraine-EU, to much surprise in certain quarters). It is through Washington that Ukraine could find a short cut to the World Trade Organization.

Incidentally, the US also deserves credit for raising the Ukrainian-Polish relationship to the level of genuine strategic partnership, and with Romania to that of a friendship treaty. The Poles are tired (so their diplomats say) of convincing the Americans, in response to pressure from Washington, that Warsaw is the true motive force of Ukraine’s movement toward Europe. The Americans were the first to tell Bucharest that Romania’s admittance to NATO would never be seriously considered without a treaty with Ukraine. (Incidentally, it is anyone’s guess which course last year’s NATO summit in Madrid would have taken for Romania if its leadership had taken Washington’s hint six moths or a year, rather than several weeks prior to the date.)
On a visit to Kyiv, the late ex-President Richard Nixon said that America would have to choose between Moscow and Kyiv sooner or later. The same is obviously true of Ukraine. The time will come to choose between Washington and Moscow, for all its “multivector” balancing act.