Bush and Putin to meet

(It’s been a tricky week for Bush and Putin in Bucharest, so what will you be looking for at their meeting?) The key will be the tone they set. Both of them are trying to set a legacy and neither feel comfortable with the Cold War analogies and they want to create a roadmap for their successors, create a positive twist for their relations. (How are they going to do that with so many disagreements between the countries?) Ideally they could have a breakthrough in one of these areas and there is some hope for the missile defense plan, giving Russia some cooperation in the plan. There’s also some hope to reform the arms control agreement between the two countries. One good breakthrough would change the whole dynamic and make the Bush-Putin period look like a train wreck. (How could that happen when the Russian population agrees with disagreeing with US?) Yes, but at some point Putin needs to show some successes in diplomacy.