dinner in St. Petersburg, most of the leaders challenged Putin on his democratic record. Jacques Chirac did not. He announced that Putin was doing a fine job running Russia, and it was none of our business how he did it. That was nothing compared to what Gerhard Schroeder did. Shortly after the German chancellor stepped down from office, he became chairman of a company owned by Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant.
Putin liked power, and the Russian people liked him. Huge oil-fed budget surpluses didn’t hurt. He used his stature to handpick his successor, Dmitry Medvedev. Then he got himself appointed prime minister.
The low point in our relationship came in August 2008, when Russia sent tanks across the border into Georgia to occupy South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two provinces that were part of Georgia but had close ties to Russia. I was in Beijing for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. Laura and I were standing in line to greet President Hu Jintao when Jim Jeffrey, my deputy national security adviser, whispered the news about Russia’s offensive. I looked a few places ahead of me in line. There was Vladimir. I decided the receiving line was not the appropriate place for heated diplomacy.
I also thought it was important that I direct my concerns to President Medvedev. I didn’t know Medvedev well. In April 2008, just before the change of power, Vladimir had invited Medvedev to visit with us in Sochi, Russia’s equivalent of Camp David. The mood was festive. Putin hosted a nice dinner, followed by folk dancing. At one point, members of my delegation, including me, were plucked from our seats to take the stage. The dance felt like a combination of square dancing and the jitterbug. I’m sure I would have been more fluid if I’d had a little vodka in my system. Curiously enough, I rarely saw vodka on my trips to Russia, unlike in the old days of communism.
I appreciated the chance to spend time with Medvedev, Russia’s first noncommunist leader since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. He had given an impressive speech outlining his commitment to the rule of law, liberalizing the Russian economy, and reducing corruption. I told him I was looking forward to dealing with him president to president. The big question, of course, was whether he would actually run the country. As a way of testing, I asked Vladimir if he would still use the Sochi compound after Medvedev assumed office. “No,” he said without hesitation, “this is the summer palace of the president.”
With Dmitry Medvedev.
I called Medvedev when I got back to my hotel in Beijing. He was hot. So was I. “My strong advice is to start deescalating this thing now,” I said. “The disproportionality of your actions is going to turn the world against you. We’re going to be with them.”
Medvedev told me Saakashvili was like Saddam Hussein. He claimed Saakashvili had launched an unprovoked “barbarian” attack that had killed more than fifteen hundred civilians.
“I hope you’re not saying you’re going to kill fifteen hundred people in response,” I shot back. “You’ve made your point loud and clear,” I said. “I hope you consider what I’ve asked very seriously.”
My biggest concern was that the Russians would storm all the way to Tbilisi and overthrow the democratically elected Saakashvili. It was clear the Russians couldn’t stand a democratic Georgia with a pro- Western president. I wondered if they would have been as aggressive if NATO had approved Georgia’s MAP application.
I called Saakashvili next. He was understandably shaken. He described the Russian assault and urged me not to abandon Georgia. “I hear you,” I said. “We do not want Georgia to collapse.” In the coming days, I spoke out in defense of Georgia’s territorial integrity, worked with President Sarkozy—who was serving as president of the European Union—to rally nations to call on Russia to withdraw, dispatched relief supplies to Georgia aboard U.S. military aircraft, and promised to help rebuild the Georgian military.
At the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, Laura and I were seated in the same row as Vladimir and his interpreter. This was the chance to have the conversation I had put off in the Great Hall. Laura and the man next to her, the king of Cambodia, shifted down a few seats. Putin slid in next to me.
I knew the TV cameras would be on us, so I tried not to get overly animated. I told him he’d made a serious mistake and that Russia would isolate itself if it didn’t get out of Georgia. He said Saakashvili was a war criminal— the same term Medvedev had used—who had provoked Russia.
“I’ve been warning you Saakashvili is hot-blooded,” I told Putin.
“I’m hot-blooded, too,” Putin retorted.
I stared back at him. “No, Vladimir,” I said. “You’re cold-blooded.”
After a few weeks of intense diplomacy, Russia had withdrawn most of its invading troops, but they maintained an unlawful military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Vladimir Putin called me during my last week in office to wish me well, which was a thoughtful gesture. Still, given what I’d hoped Putin and I could accomplish in moving past the Cold War, Russia stands out as a disappointment in the freedom agenda.
Russia was not the only one. I was hopeful that Egypt would be a leader for freedom and reform in the Arab world, just as it had been a leader for peace under Anwar Sadat a generation before. Unfortunately, after a promising presidential election in 2005 that included opposition candidates, the government cracked down during the legislative elections later that year, jailing dissidents and bloggers who advocated a democratic alternative.
Venezuela also slid back from democracy. President Hugo Chavez polluted the airwaves with hard-core anti- American sermons while spreading a version of phony populism that he termed the Bolivarian Revolution. Sadly, he squandered the Venezuelan people’s money and is ruining their country. He is becoming the Robert Mugabe of South America. Regrettably, the leaders of Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador have followed his example.
There are other isolated outposts of tyranny—places like Belarus, Burma, Cuba, and Sudan. My hope is that America will continue to stand with the dissidents and freedom advocates there. I met with more than a hundred dissidents over the course of my presidency. Their plight can look bleak, but it is not hopeless. As I said in my Second Inaugural Address, the freedom agenda demands “the concentrated work of generations.” Once change arrives, it often moves quickly, as the world saw in the European revolutions of 1989 and the rapid transformation of East Asia after World War II. When the people are finally set free, it is often the dissidents and the prisoners— people like Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela—who emerge as the leaders of their free countries.
Despite the setbacks for the freedom agenda, there were many more examples of hope and progress. Georgians and Ukrainians joined the ranks of free peoples, Kosovo became an independent nation, and NATO expanded from nineteen members to twenty-six. Under the courageous leadership of President Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s democracy reclaimed its sovereign territory from narcoterrorists. With support from the United States, multiethnic democracies from India and Indonesia to Brazil and Chile became leaders in their regions and models for developing free societies around the world.
Alvaro Uribe and his wife, Lina Moreno, arrive at the ranch in Crawford.
The most dramatic advances for freedom came in the Middle East. In 2001, the region saw terrorism on the rise, raging violence between Palestinians and Israelis, the destabilizing influence of Saddam Hussein, Libya developing weapons of mass destruction, tens of thousands of Syrian troops occupying Lebanon, Iran pressing ahead unopposed with a nuclear weapons program, widespread economic stagnation, and little progress toward political reform.
By 2009, nations across the Middle East were actively fighting terrorism instead of looking the other way. Iraq was a multi-religious, multiethnic democracy and an ally of the United States. Libya had renounced its weapons of mass destruction and resumed normal relations with the world. The Lebanese people had kicked out Syrian troops and restored democracy. The Palestinian people had an increasingly peaceful government on the West Bank and momentum toward a democratic state that would live side by side with Israel in peace. And Iran’s freedom movement was active after the summer 2009 presidential election.
Throughout the region, economic reform and political openness were beginning to advance. Kuwait held its first election in which women were allowed to vote and hold office. In 2009, women won several seats. Women also held government positions in Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Bahrain named a Jewish female ambassador to the United States. Jordan, Morocco, and Bahrain held competitive parliamentary elections. While it remains a highly ordered monarchy, Saudi Arabia held its first municipal elections, and King Abdullah founded the
