Liberals and neoconser-vatives have come together in an unlikely alliance in Washington. Driven by shared concerns over the erosion of democracy in Russia, both camps are piling the pressure on President George W. Bush to take a tough line at his meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia today.
Yet within Mr Bush's own party the issue has once more exposed fundamental foreign policy differences, with several prominent Republicans urging him to adopt a tempered approach, lest he damage vital strat-egic US interests.
