This letter is an appeal to Democrats, now a congressional majority, to propose a ore positive, constructive relationship between the United States and Russia-less for Russia than for the United States.

At virtually any point between 1947 and 1991, if any serious thinker had proposed that we could form a strategic relationship with Russia but should refuse to do so, he or she would have been considered misguided at best and slightly deranged at worst. Yet that has happened today...

In recent months two developments on the U.S. side stand out. First is the policy of the Bush Administration, largely promoted by Vice President Richard Cheney, to adopt a confrontational stance toward Russia...

Second, more surprisingly, is an unreflective reaction among foreign policy elites, particularly the Council on Foreign Relations ("Russia's Wrong Direction", March 2006), to endorse this policy...

Still, no argument is given to justify this animosity. Whatever the reason-lingering nostalgia for the Cold War's relative clarity, desire for a tangible nation-state opponent in a world of stateless terrorism-it should be set forth.

Numerous Russia experts, including Stephen Cohen at New York University, Anatol Lieven at the New America Foundation and Graham Allison at Harvard's Kennedy School, have challenged what they perceive as a concerted effort to alienate Russia from the West. It would astonish any objective observer that the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, a 1974 measure denying most favored nation trading status (now called normal trade relations) to Russia as leverage to liberate dissidents and refuseniks, is still official U.S. policy. Its repeal would represent an excellent beginning point in putting U.S.-Russian relations on a more productive track...

For the complete article, please The National Interest website.