US President Barack Obama has been "exceedingly pragmatic" about his dealings with Russia and it would not be wise to return to the cold war era, a top presidential adviser said today.
"We have to be very pragmatic. And President Obama has been exceedingly pragmatic about our dealings with Russia. There are areas where we can cooperate with them. There are areas where we disagree bitterly with them," National Security Advisor Susan Rice told the NBC.
The US, she argued, has been able to reach a new and very important arm control agreement with the Russians -- the New START Treaty, she noted.
"We've been able to cooperate on Afghanistan and Russia's role in enabling us to move our equipment and personnel in and out of Afghanistan has been very important," she said. "On Iran, we've actually been working together on the effort to use diplomacy to see if we can't obtain a nuclear agreement. They have been cooperative in that."
"On the other hand, we differ bitterly over issues of human rights. We differ over Syria. We differ over their treatment of LGBT persons, and we differ over a number of issues.
And the fact of the matter is, we should cooperate where we can. Where we can't agree and where we don't agree, we should be very plain about that and stand up for our interests, which we do," she said in response to a question.
Obama, she said, is very plain and very forceful in his dealings with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. "But it's not necessary, nor is it in our interests to return a Cold War construct that is long out of date and that doesn't reflect the realities of the 21st century," Rice said.
Rice said she views the US as the leading and most important global power because of the power of its economy, the power of values, the power of its military.
"We are and will remain the most important country in the world. And without our leadership, which we exercise every day actively from Africa to the Middle East to Asia, the world would not be nearly as stable and as prosperous as it is."
"Now, it is complicated. There's setbacks and there are different circumstances, but look at what the United States is doing around the world. We're actively working to try to bring a negotiated resolution, finally, to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians," Rice said.
"As difficult and fraught as that is, we're making progress -- because of the US' leadership, we have the prospect of resolving the Iranian nuclear programme through diplomacy. We don't know that it will succeed, but we're closer to that goal than we have ever been," Rice said.
