The wave of criticism of Russia by western governments and the western press has become a tsunami after the Georgian affair. Yet this criticism ignores two fundamental realities.

The first is the role of the Russian people and its leaders in the liquidation of one of the most oppressive tyrannies of human history - the Soviet communist state. While there were many reasons and causes behind the collapse of the Soviet system, the role of the Russian people in that collapse is paramount. Not only did Russia's population and government manage in a few short years to deconstruct three generations of communism, they also managed it with minimal strife and bloodshed. By contrast the elimination of Nazi and Japanese totalitarianism required all of WWII, followed by military occupation of both countries.

Instead of giving Russia credit for this extraordinary achievement, the West seems bent on castigating and punishing the Russians on the grounds that they did become, in the space of half a generation, a perfect democracy - ignoring in the process the extreme difficulty of such a task. It is certainly easy to write a western-style constitution, and Russia has done a fairly good job of that. But practice is another matter. The fact that the Soviet Union collapsed 17 years ago means that all Russians above forty today have spent their formative years within the communist system. Asking them to forget everything and start from scratch is, to say the least, impractical. Some transition time is needed, and the progress made since 1991 is, on the whole, remarkable.

Instead of providing support and collaboration in the areas where progress has been made, the US seems intent on treating Russia like a dangerous convict that somehow managed to get parole. The Russian policy under the current administration has been, on one hand, to cut off all possible Russian influence beyond its borders through the support of pro-western (and anti-Russian) regimes in former Soviet republics; on the other, to ring Russia with military bases established in the same territories.

Whether a "democratic" Russia agreeable to western policies can be fostered by this type of military pressure is open to question. Given, however, that, most members of the Russian ruling class still have a solid Soviet upbringing (as mentioned earlier), it is much more likely that they will react in the opposite way: by stiffening up and playing hardball in return. In that case our policies are motivating Russia to indeed regress to a position closer to its communist past. And this brings up the second major disregarded fact.

America's justification for its policies in the ex-Soviet world is the establishment of "democracy and freedom" - to which could be added the fostering of economies open to western penetration. It is doubtful, however, that such policies will be ever more than peripherally successful if Russians remain hostile. Russia is, after all, the core and principal power of the entire ex-Soviet region. No regional policy in that area will succeed unless Russia is agreeable. If we win Georgia, the Baltic States and even the Ukraine and lose Russia in the process, our "success" is likely to prove both ephemeral and extremely expensive.

The risk of failure is all the more weighty as the US is now vastly overextended. It has no strategic reserve to speak of (as the Georgian example amply illustrates). Its European allies are addicted to Russian oil and gas and their economies dependent on exports to the Russian Federation. There are also other problem areas - particularly Iran - where no real solution can be reached without active and willing Russian participation. If a serious crisis occurs in the Middle East, Russian oil and gas production, by their sheer size, could become extremely important to western economies.

Prudence would require scaling back our current anti-Russian offensive.  Achieving stability in Eastern Europe and western Asia would require us to abandon our current Russian policy, and seek a more amicable modus vivendi with Moscow, so as to consolidate the gains made since the end of the Cold War.