Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Don’t ’Reset’ With Putin, Crack Down on Him

Bloomberg

As Secretary of State John Kerry visits Moscow today to try to shore up fraying relations, the show trial of the dissident Alexey Navalny also should be on the agenda.

The anti-corruption campaigner led demonstrations against Russian President Vladimir Putin after last year’s elections; he now faces a judge who has convicted 130 people and acquitted none in the past two years.

These days, friction between Putin and the West is the norm, and with good reason. Russia-U.S. relations don’t need another “reset.” Instead, the U.S. must carry out an honest recalculation of what it can expect to obtain from Putin — and at what price.

Conventional wisdom holds that Russian cooperation on a range of issues is so valuable — and U.S. leverage over Putin so minimal — that antagonizing officials in Moscow over human rights isn’t worthwhile. The U.S. should rethink that assumption, not merely because Putin’s approach to democracy and human rights is even worse than expected, but also because he has failed to deliver on critical national-security issues, such as Iran, North Korea and Syria.
On Iran, Russia voted for United Nations sanctions in 2010, but has since cozied up to the Tehran regime.