In his interview with Thomas Friedman published on August 8, President Obama gave a convincing explanation of why the United States could not create an effective government in Iraq: "We cannot do for them what they are unwilling to do for themselves," he pointed out, and also explained, "Societies don't work if political factions take maximalist positions. And the more diverse the country is, the less it can afford to take maximalist positions."

The president has identified the central issue, not only in Iraq but also in many of the world's hotspots. In particular, his perception should be applied to guide our policy toward Ukraine and its conflict with Russia. American policymakers also need to pay closer attention to regional power realities and perceived interests than they apparently have in the recent past.

...we should not ignore the fact that their government is unrepresentative of the country as a whole, and that, so long as extensive fighting continues in the eastern provinces, valid representation of Ukrainian citizens there will be virtually impossible.

Kiev's Western friends cannot provide political representation from Ukraine's eastern provinces and Kiev is unlikely to enlist it while fighting goes on in Donetsk and Luhansk. Those who feel that the Kiev government can unify the country by means of a military victory over the separatists are surely wrong. Even in the unlikely event that Russia would permit a complete military victory, the government in Kiev would face the challenge of dealing with festering cancers rather than healthy, functional organs in Ukraine's body politic.

...realistic diplomacy is going to steer the warring parties in Ukraine away from the disastrous course they have chosen. The Ukrainians must understand that they cannot achieve the unity any successful nation-state requires by imposing the will of one part of the country on the rest. The Russians must be convinced that ending support for the rebellion in eastern Ukraine is in their interest and is not a precursor to a NATO-dominated Ukraine. The EU needs to understand that, no matter how well intended its arrangements with the government in Kiev may be, success is impossible unless Ukraine can create a genuine degree of national unity.

Settlement on any terms while fighting continues seems most unlikely, so efforts to stop the fighting and meet the humanitarian needs of the people trapped in combat zones must take priority. Nevertheless, active negotiations to reach an overall settlement must proceed in order to improve the prospects for a cease-fire and the durability of one, if reached. The principles on which the civil war in Ukraine could be brought to an end and a government established that can provide effective rule for the entire country (minus, at least temporarily, Crimea) are well known to those familiar with the area and not blinded by partisan passions. They are, speaking broadly: (1) a commitment, embedded in the constitution, by Ukrainian political leaders to power-sharing that prevents the domination of one section of the country by the other; (2) a federal structure in function if not necessarily in name; (3) acceptance of Russian as an official language along with Ukrainian in regions with a significant number of Russian speakers-ideally in the entire country; and (4) a credible assurance that Ukraine will not become a member of a military alliance hostile to Russia, perhaps by requiring the vote of a supermajority as a prerequisite to joining any military alliance.

Jack Matlock, Jr. is a former professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

This article is part of Carnegie Corporation of New York's Carnegie Forum: Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations. Read more perspectives here.

Selected Comments

smoothieX12, August 27, 2014 7:48 PM

I have a profound respect for Esteemed Ambassador Jack Matlock--he put a bar on the diplomatic art so high, that very few of current American foreign policy officers dealing with Russia will ever reach. Having said all that, I have to disagree on this:

Coverage of events in Ukraine by prominent American and Western European
media, while more accurate and balanced than that in the Russian
government-controlled media, has nevertheless devoted little attention
to the militant right-wing elements in Ukraine's Maidan movement, or to
Kiev's use of unofficial armed militias with ties to countries in the
West

From the get go Western media have become the bullhorn of Kiev propaganda (granted Russia has her own propaganda machine). It manifested itself most dramatically after the tragedy of Malaysian Flight Mh-17. Moreover, already for four + months the so called mainstream media in the West spread disinformation (which is not surprising when one relies on the Kiev "sources") about the real state of the affairs on the ground in Donbass and Luhansk. I don't remember, I simply can not find, ANY competent military (operational and strategic) analysis of the events on the ground in English. None, zilch, nada. Could it be that media are so incompetent that they cannot even find a proper professionals? Highly likely, in fact, it is a fact, but not only that. What this crisis in Ukraine has shown is that from the get go all those so called "Russia experts" and "Moscow sources" got it all wrong all along. Virtually, no real expertise on Russia's foreign policy, military or economy (forget about culture) remains today inside the "political elites" in the US, just same old nauseating "Russian narrative". It is especially striking against the background of people of such scale as Ambassador Matlock, but then again, it was a different time and Jack Matlock served the US which was a very different country then.

P.S. Would Ambassador Matlock, who knows full Evgenii Onegin in Russian, the feat very few Russians can accomplish, stand for such people as Jenn Psaki being the face of US Foreign Service?

Voltaire -> smoothieX12

Good morning Smoothie

Re our Jen Psaki, I love this stand up humour...she should be a groupie for some punk rocker...that is about her level....or running the State Department nursery...

http://freebeacon.com/national...

She is apparently so stupid that she does not realize that most of the time she is giving us our daily vaudeville ...and she even blushes like a high school girl when she lies (which is most of the time especially on Ukraine and the Middle East)

Voltaire

Ambassador Jack, welcome,

As we would expect from you, a sane and knowledgeable voice in a sea of shameful US/UK Russophobic hysteria

You recommend (in general) what Henry Kissinger, Zbig (before his ancestral anti-Russian feelings overtook him) and most serious Europeans, like myself, who know the situation and background, have been saying since the Putsch on February 21

Keep up your good work, and I hope that Mrs Merkel and the Europeans can sort this before it becomes a real Cold War with devastating results.

But I am afraid deep and lasting damage has been done to relations with Russia through all this infantile, shameful and counter-productive Russophobic propaganda from US/UK media...which can only be the result of the US administration's deliberate and orchestrated policy to smear and blacken the latest "bogeyman"...the opposite of the way a great power should behave...

I, for one, cannot think of such a disgraceful campaign since the media blitz surrounding the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and I will never trust a US administration again...

tdilla -> Voltaire

In this spirit of balance, it is imprudent to lambast "Russophobic propaganda" without giving due service to Russia's own propaganda. The US government is quite good at giving the well-timed press release that news outlets gleefully re-hash with little critical thought given; however, Russia's own news networks are a constant parade of "news" attacking not only the policies of Western nations, but the very fabric of their societies.

Mr. Matlock's suggestions are poignant and practical, but they are impossible to implement so long as there is an absence of clarity regarding what is happening in every involved capital.

ApqIA

This view of the broader realities is essential.
The US and Russia urgently need to cooperate on matters ranging from destroying ISIS to settling the Iranian nuclear energy controversy.
Ukraine is a sideshow, an irrelevance.
Time to back off, cut the explosive rhetoric, tell the NATO pot-bangers to focus on ISIS and restore some semblance of order to US-Russian relations.
Russia will no more back away from Ukraine than the US would back away from trouble being stirred up in Mexico.

smoothieX12 . -> ApqIA

The US and Russia urgently need to cooperate on matters ranging from destroying ISIS

Why? How can one cooperate with the enabler of ISIS?

http://www.theamericanconserva...

Russia does her part by providing Su-25s and, now, Mi-28s and 35s to Baghdad. Probably, some military advisers on the ground.

tdilla -> smoothieX12

If you're really determined to assign blame for the genesis of ISIS, you would be wise to look at the root of the issue for the past 1,500 years: religion.

Washington's desire to see Assad fall (and subsequent enabling) is a byproduct of a fantasy world where American policy makers believe removing a tyrant will allow democracy to flourish. The reality, as has been constantly reiterated for centuries now, is that for as long as the majority of your population believes in a religion that advocates the execution of blasphemers and non-believers, the only way to maintain some semblance of order is to have a very strong centralized government keeping the lid on things.

RMThoughts

Ukraine's troubles began when the US State Department toppled the elected president in February and replaced him with a compliant stooge who agreed to follow Washington's directives. The new "junta" government quickly launched a full-blown war against Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east which split the civilian population and drove the country to ruin. The plan "pacify" the East was concocted in Washington, not Kiev and certainly not Moscow.

Moscow has repeatedly called for an end to the violence and a resumption of negotiations, but each request has been rebuffed by Obama's puppet in Kiev leading to another round of hostilities. Washington doesn't want peace. Washington wants the same solution it imposed on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, that is, a chaotic failed state where ethnic and sectarian animosities are kept at a boiling point so forward-operating bases can be established without resistance, so resources can be extracted at will, and so a formally-independent nation can be reduced to a "permanent state of colonial dependency." (Chomsky) That's the basic gameplan wherever Washington goes. The same rule applies

Barack Obama has pushed Ukraine to the brink of political, economic and social collapse. Now he wants to blame Russia for the damage he's done. It's absurd. Moscow is in no way responsible for Ukraine's descent into anarchy. That's all Washington's doing, just as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria were Washington's doing. If you want to blame someone, blame Obama.

Knowing that, we can see the real culprits in the formation of ISIS are the Gulf States and Turkey. That's the short-term answer. The long term answer is the remove Islam, and all religious zealots, entirely through science and education.