Whatever Joffe wrote was carefully calibrated to appeal to those who hold – or have influence over those who hold – the purse strings at the foundations and the think-tanks. Nowhere is this meticulous attention to the sensibilities of people with power more evident than in his recent article in the New York Times. On the face of it, Joffe was saying something eminently sensible. If the United States wants to maintain its global primacy, it should try to do so by leading rather than bullying. Yet, in his desperate attempt not to give offense to his patrons, Joffe produced a staggeringly dishonest piece of writing. He begins with last week’s meeting in Berlin of Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and their commitment to forge a "strategic partnership." It was indeed an event of some magnitude – the first step in the possible emergence of a gigantic European power from the "Atlantic to the Urals," in de Gaulle’s famous phrase (one much favored by the Russians). This is not simply old-fashioned "balance of power" politics, Joffe correctly warns, whereby "[n]os. 2, 3 and 4…seek to balance against Mr. Big." There is real resentment at work here. And what is this resentment all about? The global tyranny of the United States perhaps? No, apparently, it is directed exclusively at our proposed Missile Defense System. "Both Europe and Russia intensely dislike the American missile defense project, and for good reasons. If it works (which it won’t for many years, if ever), the ‘Son of Star Wars’ will further magnify American dominance by devaluing the nuclear arsenals of Russia, China and Europe. No wonder Mr. Putin and Mr. Schroeder together trained their guns on the anti-missile bubble in the sky."

Joffe is being very calculating here. He knows that the "left-liberal" foreign policy types he aims to curry favor with do not think much of the Missile Defense System. The trouble is, both Bill Clinton and Al Gore also support Missile Defenses. So Joffe pulls off a piece of legerdemain. He blames everything on Congress. "Congress has come down a long way from the days of Senators Arthur Vandenberg and J. William Fulbright. Now, it is obliviousness with a dollop of yahooism. Why else would Congress have foisted Star Wars, the Sequel on President Clinton – without looking at the feasibility (low), the costs (very high) and the toll on American leadership (soaring)." Europe’s elites – as ignorant and parochial as their American counterparts – invariably blame anything they do not like about the United States either on "Congress" or on a "know-nothing" American public. On this issue at least, the elites of the two Continents are of one mind. Needless to say, neither Congress nor public opinion has ever had the slightest influence on US foreign policymaking. Clinton’s apparent blamelessness for Missile Defenses is analogous to the way he has succeeded escaping censure for supporting the death penalty. He only does it for opportunistic reasons. So that’s all right then.

Joffe, as it happens, is right about the Missile Defense System. While the project may have made sense during the Cold War, going ahead with it now would waste resources and antagonize just about every country under the sun. But German and Russian resentment at the United States is about a lot more than the return of SDI. Joffe does not dare to go into this lest he upset his US patrons. Let’s start with Kosovo. The Germans were unhappy about being bullied into taking part in last year’s bombing of Yugoslavia. They were annoyed at the way their various attempts to negotiate a "ceasefire" were brusquely dismissed by Washington. The Germans are unhappy about US plans to build its Embassy right in the center of Berlin, thereby preventing the public from having proper access to the Brandenburg Gate. The Germans were unhappy at the high-handed way in which the Clinton Administration rejected their choice of IMF head to succeed Michel Camdessus. The list goes on and on.

Russian grievances go back even further. The Russians were unhappy about the privatization program, sponsored by Washington, which led to the widespread looting of the country’s resources. The Russians were unhappy about the expansion of NATO, pushed through by the Americans, in flagrant violation of commitments made at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Russians are unhappy about NATO’s continuing aggression against their longtime allies, the Serbs. The Russians were unhappy about NATO’s use of their former satellites last year to prevent them from reinforcing their troops in Pristina. They are unhappy about NATO’s violation of its promise to give them a zone of occupation in Kosovo. The Russians are unhappy about the endless criticisms of their actions in Chechnya even though – as they see it – they are behaving no differently from, say, the British in Northern Ireland.

Then there is the case of media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, arrested recently for alleged "embezzlement." The Russians, perfectly understandably, feel insulted when other countries, following the lead of the United States, assume they have the right to intrude into the workings of their legal system. The tirelessly yapping William Safire cries: "Trumped up charges!" But he has no idea that this is so. When it comes to Russia, however, for Safire and many others insult and invective is de rigeur. Clearly there is a case against Gusinsky. As President Putin pointed out, Gusinsky "is not accused as a representative of the press. He is not a journalist but a businessman. He takes loans all the time from different banks and rarely pays them back…According to the press, he has already borrowed a billion dollars. Last week Gusinsky was due to repay 200 million dollars. He didn’t do so. The money was guaranteed by Gazprom. Yet another time, Gazprom repaid the money for him in return for shares. Every time Gazprom repays hundreds of millions for him, he gives shares." These are facts, which even his supporters do not deny. Whether he did anything criminal is a matter to be resolved in the Courts, not on the floor of the US Senate or in the gaseous ravings of our ignorant hacks.

The Russians do not complain about Waco, or the murder of Turks in Germany, or the record number of prisoners filling up America’s prison cells. So why do they have to put up with these self-righteous lectures? Is it any wonder that the Russians have turned to a nationalist leader who promises to restore dignity to the nation and to stand up to American bullying. Needless to say, there is nothing about any of this in Joffe’s piece. It is much safer to waffle on about the Missile Defense System. Joffe does not discuss the most recent example of American high-handedness, as reported in the New York Times: the proposal to allow Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to leave office with guarantees for his safety and savings. It is entirely typical of our media – forever yearning to be a pillar of the State – that their discussion of the removal from power of an elected leader of a sovereign country should be exclusively preoccupied with how NATO’s creature, the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague would feel about this. The wishes of the people of Yugoslavia are neither here nor there.