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American sanctions never last the course, say Russian analysts

The United States had to ''eat humble pie'' whenever it imposed sanctions against another nation, say Russian foreign policy experts, backing their country's opposition to sanctions against India.

Citing a number of occasions where the US had retraced its steps after strident reactions, they say India is too big a country to suffer any humiliation.

''The US will not like to lose its existing and potential markets and embarrass its friends,'' foreign affairs experts Alexander Scherbatsky, Andrei Leonov and Ivan Kudratsev commented during a television channel discussion on Friday night.

''Money does not stink,'' they said, recalling the famous advice of V I Lenin to his envoys in Scandinavian countries who had declared a virtual boycott of its communist neighbour and refused to sell badly-needed railway engines.

''Give them money and they will sell whatever we want,'' Lenin had told his officials.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter imposed tough sanctions against the erstwhile Soviet Union, including banning sale of grains, but had to backtrack when its farmers who faced bankruptcy turned hostile against their own government.

Soon after he was elected US president, Ronald Reagan's first task was to persuade his Russian counterpart Leonid Brezhnev to come to the rescue of American farmers.

UNI

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