Global Policy Forum

By Michael Wines

With some deft diplomatic maneuvering in Berlin and Paris, President Vladimir V. Putin has vaulted Russia this week into the unexpected position of being the potential swing vote in a looming United Nations debate over military action against Iraq. Now comes something far more difficult: deciding which way to swing.

Days before Friday's scheduled report by weapons inspectors to the United Nations Security Council, Mr. Putin used a four-day trip through Europe to align Russia with Germany and France solidly against any quick American-led attack on Iraq.

But in an uncharacteristic blitz of newspaper and television interviews and news conferences, Mr. Putin was also at pains not to rule out tougher action against Iraq, including military strikes. The key, he said, was that any American action be approved by the United Nations in advance.

"We are in contact, of course, with our American partners, and I don't think it's right to whip up some kind of anti-American sentiments in connection with events related to Iraq," he said on Sunday at a news conference with Chancellor Gerhard Schrí¶der of Germany, the leading European opponent of military action.

"We agree that pressure must be exerted on Iraq," he said. "But we must understand what the international inspectors lack in order to effectively carry out their work. And after receiving their report, we will make a decision in the Security Council of the U.N. on what to do next."

He was referring to the report Friday by Hans Blix, the co-chief weapons inspector, on Iraq's compliance with United Nations demands to disarm. Mr. Blix's report is expected to set the stage for a climactic debate over the shape of any new demands that Baghdad reveal and destroy weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Putin's European visit appears to leave Russia in a powerful position to influence both critics and supporters of an Iraq war when that debate begins next week. As a staunch backer of the United States war on terrorism — and a skeptic on the need for an American attack on Iraq — Russia occupies the middle ground among the five Security Council members who wield vetoes. Its vote holds the potential to leave either side in the uncomfortable position of being a minority in a fateful international decision.

A senior United States official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in an interview this week that Mr. Putin "hasn't ruled anything in, and he hasn't ruled anything out." "The United States is the key relationship for Russia at this point" the official said. "Putin wants to get this right."

At first blush, it may not sound like that. In France this week, Mr. Putin delivered his bluntest warning to Washington of the entire Iraq crisis, telling French television that Russia could use its veto in the Security Council to block approval of military strikes before other means of uncovering Iraq's weapons stocks have been exhausted.

He also joined Germany and China in backing a new French proposal, apparently bound for the Council, to expand weapons inspections greatly as an alternative to war.

The Russian Foreign Ministry later said it planned to issue a government analysis this week of the evidence against Iraq that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented to the United Nations last Wednesday. The official analysis is highly unlikely to undercut the public arguments of Russia's president. And Mr. Putin said in Berlin this week that while arms inspectors should review Mr. Powell's accusations, he saw nothing to justify the use of force.

But experts here and abroad say Mr. Putin is juggling an array of unknowns in determining Russia's position. They include the content of Mr. Blix's report on Iraqi compliance, the prospect that the United States will offer Russia additional damning intelligence on Iraq in private meetings, the odds that an attack on Iraq will set off a wider Middle East war and more terrorism, and the chances that war will wipe out decades of Russian political and business alliances in Iraq.

And there is another calculus, some said: Mr. Putin must consider the extent to which a snub of either European doves or American hawks will set back his own agenda to bind Russia more tightly to the West. On that question, there is little doubt, said Alexander G. Rahr, a longtime Russia scholar at the Kí¶rber-Foundation and German Council on Foreign Relations, who talked with Kremlin officials during Mr. Putin's Berlin stopover last weekend.

"They said, `If we play the European card, we play on a very small field — in Europe,' " Mr. Rahr said. By contrast, both Russia and the United States need each other in the Far East, where the Korean nuclear crisis is heating up on Russia's border; in South Asia, where India and Pakistan flirt with war; in the Middle East, where the Americans and Russians both have important stakes; and in the Caucasus, where both are fighting terrorism.

Not only has Europe no significant stakes or influence in those areas, Mr. Rahr said, but also the debate over Iraq has left in shambles Europe's own supposedly growing unity on the most basic matters of foreign policy and defense. "The decisive question," he said, "is what to do — to confront America, or to play with America? Schrí¶der chose the very dangerous path of alienating Germany from the United States. Russia is not doing that."

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