Let's leave a lot of problems behind and move forward. Find a way to make things work. That, according to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, should be the big takeaway from the extended meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
The two leaders spoke in a positive spirit. They got along well, built a rapport. Commentators were initially giving Mr. Trump much credit for opening the session by raising the thorny issue of Russian meddling in the U.S. election. The other big news was that the two sides agreed to collaborate on a ceasefire in southwestern Syria.
That ceasefire, like ceasefires in the past, may not last. As for Russian election meddling, Mr. Putin denied it, as he had in the past. Mr. Trump pushed back, according to Mr. Tillerson. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, on the other hand, said Mr. Trump accepted the denial.
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So while there was a lot of comfort over the opening of a dialogue, not much was resolved. If the Trump team could claim it was a good day, how about the Kremlin? How nice for Mr. Putin that he was not harshly confronted on election meddling, on Ukraine, on support for the Assad regime in Syria. How nice for him that, as Mr. Tillerson said, the two sides want to focus on the future and not the past.
Mr. Trump, for reasons we still don't really know, has never wanted to take on Mr. Putin, and clearly he still does not.
The Russian leader, 17 years at the helm, is savvy. Leaders have been misled by him before. Many remember when president George W. Bush in 2001 said he had looked into Mr. Putin's eyes and "got a sense of his soul," suggesting he could trust him. He learned later that he couldn't, that Joe Biden probably was closer to the truth when he said on the subject of souls that he didn't think Mr. Putin had one.
Because he sounded skeptical previously on a Russian role in the U.S. election, Mr. Trump got plaudits for bringing it up right away in Hamburg. But as Washington's former UN ambassador Thomas Pickering put it, "he could do no less." Given that the U.S. intelligence community is unanimous in its verdict on Kremlin interference, there would have been outrage had the President remained silent. Since Mr. Trump's campaign team is being probed for possibly having had a hand in the Russian meddling to help tilt the election in the Republicans' favour, it's no surprise if Mr. Trump agreed to not pursue the matter in an aggressive manner going forward.
The meeting lasted more than two hours, far longer than the allotted time. Aides interrupted, trying to get them to halt the discussions, and so did first lady Melania Trump. But to no avail. While campaigning for the presidency, Mr. Trump made a major point of wanting to develop close relations with Moscow – and with good reason. He could point to how fellow Republican leaders Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush developed close ties with Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to the close of the Cold War. He could point to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger bringing about detente with Russia.
In his first meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy was browbeaten. No harmony developed. The Cuban missile crisis ensued.
Friday's meeting will help soothe fears that relations with this Kremlin could get out of hand. Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with a solid national-security team, not given to the volatility the President himself is noted for.
As Mr. Tillerson said, the range of issues with Moscow is broad and complex and needs much work. The two leaders didn't get around to talking much about the Islamic State or nuclear-arms reductions or other important controversies. But given the rapport they established, it's likely there will be many such Putin-Trump get-togethers to come. Given how the Russian leader fared in the first, he will not object.
Lawrence Martin