The Diplomad on Putin, Obama & Ukraine

http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2014/03/cage-fighter-vs-pajama-boy-putin.html

We now see the crisis in Ukraine. A couple of days ago, Obama boldly told us that the invasion of Ukraine had put Putin "on the wrong side of history." Says who? And who writes the history of an era? The winners or the losers? These are the kind of maddening, empty-calorie phrases that sound good and tough and gutsy and erudite coming off of some speechwriter's printer, but sound pathetic and laughable uttered when confronting a guy at the head of a tank column.

Time to face facts. None of Obama's supposed "talents" works when dealing with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the Shining Shooting Tsar of Eurasia--arguably the smartest national leader in the world. Let me back up. "Smartest" might be the wrong word. Yes, it definitely is the wrong one. That word is too loosely defined and too easily pinned on too many. What makes Putin successful and such a formidable geopolitical foe (thank you, Mitt Romney) is not that he is just "smart," but that he is a throw-back to a different era. He hunts and fishes, and doesn't care about the political fashion and sensitivities of the day; pajama boy has no place in Putin's cage fighter universe. Despite his upbringing as a Communist, he is now devoutly religious and wants to see religion restored to Russian life. As the jihadis have discovered, they have in Putin a rival as ruthless and religiously committed as they, and not bound by the conventions of political correctness.

Putin is a man of hard-work, careful preparation, an avid student of potential opponents, willing to exploit opportunities, and, above all, driven by a vision on his mission: restoring Russia to the top ranks of the world hierarchy. He is determined to end what he sees as the world's mistreatment of and disregard for Russia. He saw the condescending manner in which Clinton and other world leaders treated the amiable sclerotic alcoholic Boris Yeltsin, who named Putin Prime Minister in 1999. Putin will not allow that again. He wants his legacy to be the man who restored Russia's greatness and made the world recognize it.

Let's sum up this part of the post:
Putin is a patriot; Obama is not.
Putin has a deep understanding of his country's history and people; Obama does not.
Putin wants his country to be number one; Obama could not care less.
Putin knows that words have meaning; Barack "Red Line" Obama hasn't a clue.
Putin has Lavrov; Obama has Kerry.
Advantage Putin.

There is an old Spanish saying, "Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos." It very roughly translates to "Misery loves company," but more dramatic and evocative, more along the lines of "The misery of the many is the consolation of the foolish." Given that we have a foolish misadministration in DC, perhaps Mr. Obama can draw solace from the fact that he is not the only fantasy player "confronting" Putin. More bluntly put, what's the best place to hide a fool? In a herd of fools. A needle in a stack of needles.

Putin Meets Yankee Oilmen

Here's Kommersant's account of their tete-a-tete at Washington, DC's Madison Hotel:

Ten minutes after the press conference ended, Putin was meeting with oilmen in the Madison Hotel. He announced that meeting while still at the press conference. “We will speak about projects for American participation in the Russian economy, mainly in the energy sphere,” he said.

It was already known that there was only one project, the development of Shtokmanovskoe deposit. ExxonMobil chairman of the board Lee Raymond, president of that company Rex Tillerson, ConocoPhillips president James Malva, Chevron chairman of the board David O'Reilly and LUKOIL head Vagit Alekperov were waiting for the Russian president at the Madison. Alekperov was sitting in the center of the group and center of the conversation. They probably weren't asking how to cozy up to Putin. (It is unclear that Alekperov know the answer to that question.) I overheard that they were asking about how Alekperov found the U.S. market. (LUKOIL has 1400 gas stations in the United States.)

Putin was included in the conversation.

“Welcome to the United States!” Malva greeted him.

It would have been more logical to wish him a safe trip home, since he was leaving the country in an hour and a half, after three days there.

Putin began by mentioning that the U.S. receives only an insignificant portion of Russia's energy resources. “According to various estimates, oil is just over 2 percent. That means that petroleum products are 0.3 percent, and there has just been the first delivery of natural gas. Our potential is huge.”

He went talking about that potential as they moved to another room and left the journalists behind. The conversation lasted ten minutes, and was completely unnecessary. More interesting was that Putin then spoke with each oil executive one-on-one.

Malva and Alekperov went in together to see him. There was ten minutes scheduled for each of three meetings. That first meeting went according to schedule.

Malva recounted, “I told the Russian president about our investment projects in Russia. He approved.”

Malva has learned the rules of the Russian market well. We can be sure that, with an approach like that, ConocoPhillips has a bright future in Russia.

I asked Alekperov if they talked about the Shtokmanovskoe deposit.

“We are not involved with that project,” he said with a shrug. That meant no, obviously.

Tillerson from ExxonMobil spoke with Putin for no less than half an hour. He looked gloomy and refused to comment afterwards, but he might always look like that.

Chevron head O'Reilly, on the other hand, was jubilant on his way out of the meeting. He told Putin, and subsequently everyone else, how much his company suffered from the hurricane, which was practically not at all.

The second topic of their discussion was, finally, the Shtokmanovskoe deposit. “Mr. Putin made it clear that he knows that the Chevron Co. has passed the second stage of the competition, and is one of the five companies still in the running for the development of the deposit,” O'Reilly said.

Then they talked about energy security at the Big 8 summit coming up in St. Petersburg.

“We spoke in general terms about the general topic,” O'Reilly said.

He tried to get away after that, but he was asked if he thought Chevron was closer to developing the Shtokmanovskoe deposit after his conversation with Putin.

“Gazprom should answer that question,” he said, caught short. “Their management will make the decision. I only told the president that we are glad to have been chosen at the second stage.”

The only American journalists there asked who asked for the meetings, the executives or Putin.

“I don't know,” he said heavily. “But the fact that Mr. Putin wanted to meet speaks of his interested in the development of Russia as a country that can become a supplier of both natural gas and oil.”

He made a halfhearted attempt to leave again and was asked about Shtokmanovskoe again.

“It seems to me that you… that is, people, don't understand,” he said, beginning to show his annoyance. “That question will be decided by Gazprom.”

If he really thinks so, he, unlike his colleague from ConocoPhillips, has little future on the Russian market. But he probably isn't as uninformed as that.

I heard from sources in the Russian delegation that the discussion of the Shtokmanovskoe deposit with both O'Reilly and Tillerson was limited to only a few phrases. Putin made believe that he was more interested in how American strategic oil reserves were doing after the hurricane. And they gave him detailed descriptions of the technical specifications that allowed them to weather the hurricane.

That is, Putin is satisfied just to meet those people so far. The intrigue is just beginning.

"Bulls***t Rising"

Here's an extract from Mark Ames' savage--though interesting--review in Exile.ru of Washington Post reporters Peter Baker and Susan Glasser's recent book about Russia, mentioned by Konstantin:

The sheer enormity of their sleaze and deceit is too much even for a lead article. A chapter-by-chapter survey of the duo's book is a good way to become acquainted with their agenda.

Chapter 1, "Fifty-two Hours in Beslan." The brutality and incompetence described in this account of Beslan are shocking and, admittedly, well written. But without some perspective -- namely, the Yeltsin regime's response to the hostage crisis in Budyannovsk in June, 1995, when special forces shot and killed dozens of hostages in bungled attempts to storm the hospital, and again the brutality and incompetence of the Pervomaisk hostage crisis a year later, with similar bloody results. Beslan may have had a higher and more grisly kill-count, but it differed little in substance. By omitting the fact that the Chechen Wars, both 1 and 2, were Boris Yeltsin projects designed to keep him in power and protect his interests, Baker-Glasser manipulate history and throw the entire blame on the bad guys -- Putin, the KGB, and anyone not sufficiently pro-American (Yelstin was our tool, so therefore, the authors do their best to simply leave his name out.).

Another interesting omission is the eerie similarity between Putin's m.o. and Bush's. For example, they take him to task for linking the war in Chechnya to Al Qaeda and international terrorism, observing, "at its root, the Chechnya conflict had little to do with Al Qaeda." With Bush linking the war in Iraq to Al Qaeda, and Blair blaming the London Underground bombings on Al Qaeda, you'd think that Baker-Glasser, whose newspaper was one of the strongest cheerleaders for war in Iraq, would be a little more humble. Wrong. "Rather than resolve the underlying political grievances and remove the popular mandate for the rebels, [Putin] had demonized, victimized, and consequently radicalized an entire people." What's grossly wrong here is that the Chechens were already pretty damn radicalized after Yeltsin's war, having kidnapped (and in some cases beheaded on video camera) some 3,000 Russians during their period of independence from 1996-9, introduced Wahabbi-style Sharia law, and finally they invaded Russia in the summer of 1999. I repeat: they invaded Russia! These facts are given little play, however, making their account of the Chechen war as duplicitous as if someone were to report on the rampant terrorism in Iraq today without mentioning that it first arose with the American occupation.

Chapter 2: "Project Putin." The description of Chubais, a man hairline-deep in the largest corruption scandals in human history: "a tall, red-haired reformer who had orchestrated the largest sell-off of state assets in world history..." Wildly deceitful description #2: "With Yeltsin's permission, Putin dispatched troops to [Chechnya]." That would be like saying, "With Hitler's permission, General Walther von Brauchitsch dispatched troops to the Soviet Union for Operation Barbarossa." The whole purpose of the Second Chechen War was to create popularity for Putin, thereby securing the Yeltsin clan's power, loot and immunity. Stepashin was fired by Yeltsin because he didn't have the balls to launch the second war on behalf of the Yeltsin clan; Putin was brought in specifically to head that war. Saying Yeltsin "approved it" is about as bone-white a whitewash as you can get. Omitting this is incredibly sleazy, yet it is necessary in order to create the Kremlin Villain which is central to Baker-Glasser's pitch.

Chapter 4: "The Takeover Will Be Televised." Here the omissions and whitewashings reach fever pitch, and the revisionism turns to outright lies. Commenting on Putin's takeover of NTV in 2000/2001, they write, "The showdown at Ostankino had been building ever since [NTV's] Igor Malashenko had refused to help the Kremlin install Vladimir Putin as the next Russian president in the summer of 1999, saying he could not trust a KGB man." He sounds like a good guy, right? Except that the real reason Malashenko didn't support Putin was because his boss at NTV, oligarch Vladimir Gusinksy, backed a rival senior KGB operator, Yevgeny Primakov, who, had he won, would have shut down ORT, the TV station that backed Putin. Meanwhile, Gusinsky's rise to power is whitewashed this way: "One venture led to another until finally he was able to put together a bank in 1989." This kind of explanation-by-omission is so cheap, it recalls Ash's attempt to take the Book of the Dead: "Klatu...Veratu...one-[cough]-venture-[cough]-another... Okay, then, we described it. Everything's cool." In one of the most violent, corrupt countries, one wonders what this "one venture led to another" business was all about -- but if explained, it might seriously undermine the dichotomy setup that is crucial to this book. Later in the chapter, Mikhail Kasyonov is described as "pro-market" and "respected in the West as a formidable international-debt negotiator and seen as a reliable promoter of capitalism -- so much so that some had questioned whether he was profiting personally on the side." Note how they slyly avoid mentioning what everyone in Russia associates with Kasyanov -- his nickname, "Misha Two-Percent," supposedly the fee he charged on every single corrupt international debt deal he oversaw -- by arguing that he was so darned good at being a pro-Western capitalist that certain unnamed enemies (and we can all guess who they are) jealously smeared him. No halfway professional journalist could possibly spend four years in Moscow during Kasyonov's reign, and fail to mention his nickname, or how he earned it -- not unless it's part of an agenda. Which of course it is. Kasyanov is a good guy; therefore, any bad news about him is both omitted and dismissed as mere jealousy. Lastly, in this chapter, Baker and Glasser's larger hatred of Russia spews into the open: "While the intelligentsia was outraged at the loss of NTV, the vast majority of the public was not, so long as they continued to get foreign movies and other high-quality entertainment they had come to expect from the channel." To prove their point about the innate savagery of the Russian masses, they compare their reaction to that of America's most reliable lickspittles, the Czechs: "By coincidence, around the same time, more than one hundred thousand people protested in the much smaller Czech Republic against the appointment of a new state television director they considered insufficiently independent." Gee, why not just compare Russian apathy to America?...

* * *

Every chapter of Kremlin Rising is thereafter packed with increasing numbers of glaring omissions and grotesque whitewashings combined with terrifying fear-mongering that would have made Tom Ridge proud. Meanwhile, they constantly fawn over anyone rich and pro-West, while either ignoring the horrible poverty, or blaming the Russians for their own wretchedness. They described the collapsed health care system, which worked better at least before "whiz-kid" Gaidar got his hands on the budget, as the fault of "a rigid system [that] refused to help itself" while making the astonishingly patronizing claim that "many Russians did not even realize hjust how poor the care they were receiving was." This is just a flat-out lie -- all you ever hear about is how poor their health care is, and how much worse it has gotten under Western-backed post-Soviet reforms.

The horrible truth about the Putin regime is that it is largely an extension of theYeltsin regime. It was under Yeltsin that all of the problems and evils described in this book -- from the wars in Chechnya to the destruction of democracy and free speech, the corruption, indifference and cruelty they describe -- began. It has clearly gotten worse under Putin, particularly on the things that matter most to Westerners when we judge other countries. But what matters most to most Russians is making enough money to eat, and hopefully staying alive a little longer than 57 years. This desire to get paid, eat and live a bit longer is of no interest to Baker-Glasser, however, not unless it can somehow bolster their argument that Putin is a scary guy. Of all the omissions in this book, the most glaring is the omission of the economic boom under Putin. Whether or not he hasanything to do with it, at least under his reign, workers get paid, something that often didn't happen under Yeltsin. Baker and Glasser aren't interested in this -- or about the destruction of the labor movement, for example -- because poor people just get in their way. Indeed they are the anti-Michael-Moore: fear-mongering, propagandizing while claiming objectivity, fighting on behalf of the plutocrats against the downtrodden masses.

Putin: Trading Ukraine & Georgia for Israel & Palestine

That's the gist of this analysis on the not always reliable DEBKAfile, Putin's Mid East Visits Signpost Unfolding Russian Penetration. As Debka points out, Putin conversed freely with Palestinian leader Mohammed Abbas in Russian, since Abbas was educated in Moscow (and the PLO was set up by Moscow in the first place). What values do Moscow-educated Arab communists, Ba'athists, and former communists share with Israelis? A strong antipathy to Islamist fundamentialism, for one thing. Remember, the US, through the CIA and USAID is still trying to "make nice" with Islamist terrorist sympathizers in Chechnya, Central Asia, and elsewhere, continuing the pro-Taliban strategy employed in Afghanistan pre-9/11. This makes American enemies out of modernizers, socialists, communists, and the rest. The Russians can move to take back this traditionally pro-Moscow constitutency.

So stay tuned. If Putin's strategy works, the US may have gained Eastern Europe only to lose the entire Middle East, including Israel. Debka's conclusion is that Russia is being very cunning:

Put together, these connections add up to a quiet political and military Russian penetration of Middle East forces close to the fringes of power in a way that will not arouse too much attention in Washington, but will at the same time provide Moscow with an inside track to regional developments and jumping-off points for broader penetrations.

This careful balancing act was aptly illustrated just before the Putin trip in an announcement by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia would begin withdrawing its troops from Georgia by the end of the year. This step came after a long period in which the Kremlin ignored demands from Washington and Tbilisi to eliminate the Russian military base in the former Soviet republic. But, when combined with a Russian initiative to gain a stronger foothold in the Middle East, this step signaled a tit-for-tat deal whereby Moscow would pull back from a key Caucasian region in Washington's favor while pressing forward in the Middle East. This deal will most certainly figure high on the agenda of the Bush-Putin summit next month.

In the war on terror, cooperation between Moscow and Jerusalem is more sparing than Israel would like. The Russians command a rich fund of intelligence on the Arab world, the Palestinians and al Qaeda's activities in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf and Iraq. Moscow has cut Israel out of its counter-terror loop for a reason. Gone are the days of late 2001 and early 2002 when, in the aftershock of the 9/11 attacks, Putin collaborated fully with Bush on data that helped the American-led coalition successfully invade Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda. These days, the Kremlin plays its cards very close to its chest. Jerusalem's bid for intelligence-sharing with Moscow was rebuffed in early 2004 when the Russians indicated they were open only to one-way traffic from Israel, but offered nothing of value in exchange.

Another important dimension of Putin's Israel visit comes from his attitude to the ex-Russian community. While most Israeli institutions and media treat Russian citizens as new immigrants to be absorbed in the overall fabric of society like all previous waves of newcomers, for the Russian president they are not ex-Russians but expatriates, exemplars of Russian culture, art, sport, language and education. Putin does not see a million Russian-speaking Israelis, but the largest Russian minority in the Middle East, which must be fostered, protected and sponsored. He is personally in regular contact with several Israel-Russian business figures and he rates these connections as highly as any political ties.

Putin is saying that only Russia can guarantee peace in the Middle East. If the US continues to make trouble in the former USSR, supporting Islamist terrorists who want to break up the country, then Russia can make trouble for the US in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Palestine. Is this Debka analysis correct? I think so.

Actions speak volumes. It appears Putin isn't afraid to visit Israel, while Bush is, since the US President hasn't been in the Holy Land since 9/11. Perhaps it's time for Bush to drop in to Sharon's ranch, for a change?

"We're With Putin!"

Yesterday, while trying to cross Tverskaya Street (formerly Gorky Street), to meet our friend Alice--who has braved the Russian winter to visit us from New York, and is now staying in Alla Pugachova's apartment building (Muscovites are like New Yorkers when it comes to having the best address, it seems)--we found the perehod was zakrit. A militiaman pointed out the large demonstration which had closed down Tverskaya. Indeed, there were some 30,000 people with Russian flags, and banners reading "We're with Putin!", "Stability," and the most persuasive, "Putin--Our President!" It was a march organized by the United Russia party, Putin's own answer to America's Republicans, dedicated to the preservtion of the Russian federation from disintegration.

The march took place at the exact same moment that Russian truckers were closing down the ring road with a "go slow" protest about pensions and benefits--especially fuel prices. The evening news covered the pro-Putin march, thus displacing news of protests. Thus marches on the "Babushka Revolution" sparked by benefit cuts to elderly pensioners, and used by the communists as a very effective anti=Putin organizing tool.

Putin's popularity has plunged over 20 points in the last few weeks, and more and more protesters are taking to the streets--not all of them on the Government payroll. As more and more people are less and less afraid to voice their opposition, Putin's carefully crafted siloviki revival stands a chance of stalling. The danger, unfortunately, is that the Communists--old, unreconstructed, and openly anti-semitic as well as anti-America--are the only opposition force well-organized enough to take advantage of the situation.

What Russia needs is a "loyal opposition" like those in Western democracies, as a safety valve, a feedback mechanism, and an alternative to yet another bloody revolt in Russia. Reform, not revolution, will be the key to progress here, and to a peaceful country with a growing economy.

Henry Kissinger and Citibank Chairman Sanford Weill (they have branches here) were photographed meeting with Putin in the papers today. This is all part of the runup to the US-Russian summit in ten days. It is certain that Bush and Putin will have a lot to discuss in Bratislava. If Putin wants to make a better impression on Americans, he might order the release of Khodorkovsky, Yukos's founder, from prison -- as a gesture of progress, prior to the meeting...

After Helsinki's Trump-Putin Summit, The Russia Card is Still America's Trump Card

The recent Helsinki Summit between Presidents Trump and Putin, and subsequent media controversy, reminds me that it is still the case that the Russia Card is America's Trump Card, as I wrote in a 2017 post for this blog. For Russia has been a constant factor in American electoral politics for the last few decades. 

I thought of this background as I watched the Helsinki press conference.

However, what I saw in the video did not match most media reports in the United States. 

Instead of Putin besting Trump, as pundits declared, I saw a strong and confident President Trump towering head and shoulders over a shorter and suppliant President Putin.

This reality is reflected in the official Kremlin photo to the left. Trump is much taller, and much bigger, than Putin. Indeed, even his tie is bigger than Putin's.

In my opinion, in Helsinki Russia seemed to be asking for a "reset" of its own, a counterpoint to Hillary Clinton's failed initiative in the Obama administration.

Given the correlation of forces, it would be a mistake of historic proportions, in my opinion, to not to "give peace a chance" by attempting one more time to negotiate a "New Deal" between Moscow and Washington. If anyone can negotiate such an agreement, it would be the author of "The Art of the Deal." America has no better negotiator in our bullpen.

Indeed, the election of President Trump provides an opportunity for improved relations which in many ways mirrors the election of President Yeltsin in 1991, for in many ways Trump is America's Yeltsin.

At the time of Yeltsin's accession to power, there was bipartisan support from both Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican Leader Bob Dole for improving relations with Russia to help Yeltsin move the country into the modern world. 

Although the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and subsequent breakup of the formerly "nonaligned" state, provided a thorn in the side to mutual relations, both the United States and Russia made great progress on many fronts, from nuclear non-proliferation to our joint space launches. 

President Yeltsin toured the USA to great applause, and American firms were welcomed into the former Soviet Space. Yeltsin even visited farms in Kansas with Senator Dole.

That this Golden Age of sorts turned sour, was perhaps inevitable, based on mutual misunderstandings and miscalculations. At the time, the balance of power was so unfavorable to Russia, that resentful accommodation by Moscow replaced negotiated mutually beneficial agreements --which could probably have been worked out, had Washington not labored under ideological delusions of "The End of History" and "The Unipolar Moment." 

If Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" had been the guidebook instead, President Clinton might have worked out a Yalta 2.0 which favored American interests such that NATO might have become unnecessary--for Russia could have served as an American ally to balance the rise of China.

Unfortunately, NATO expansion, pressures from the EU, the Arab world, and domestic American political calculations made that deal un-doable in the 1990s. By 2001, relations were raw once again.

The 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks presented another opportunity for a new deal. President Putin, convinced that Al Qaeda was the same enemy he had fought in Chechnya, assisted President Bush with American anti-terrorism efforts, opened Russian supply routes to Afghanistan, sold Russian helicopters, and invited President Bush to V-E Day ceremonies in Moscow--which he willingly attended no doubt to send a signal of resolve to Osama Bin Laden. 

Yet again, obstacles surfaced, as disputes over former Warsaw Pact states appeared impervious to negotiation, flared into violence in Georgia and Ukraine, as "color revolutions" began to dash renewed hopes of a rapprochement. Russia was stronger than in the 1990s, but had not rebuilt her military or economy. Another opportunity for a deal more favorable to the United States had been missed.

The election of Barack Obama, twice over more anti-Russian candidates McCain and Romney, opened yet another opportunity to make a deal.

By 2008, Russia was stronger than at the turn of the millennium, but still not in full form. Once again, there was a chance for a "reset," symbolized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's  now infamous button gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

As many remember, Obama had mocked Romney's anti-Russian attitude, with a memorably dismissive zinger in a 2012 debate:

Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat. Because a few months ago, when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al-Qaida. You said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because, y’know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

However, Obama's "Arab Spring," overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yankuovych, and support for anti-Putin protests by "Pussy Riot" and Alex Navalny in Moscow did little to improve relations, much less reset them. Russian annexation of Crimea and American passage of the Magnitsky Act added fuel to the fire, which erupted into hot proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, eventually leading to relations so unfriendly they were immortalized in a Putin-Obama "stare down" at the 2016 G20 Summit.

Sadly,  in the aftermath of the Helsinki Summit, opponents of President Trump have made the Russia Card an obstacle once more... by accusing him of everything from "failing to stand up to Putin" to "treason." 

Perhaps, though, this third time may prove a charm for President Trump, for the Russia Card cannot be understood out of context. For the Russia Card is about a great deal more than Russia--it is the flip side of the "Muslim Card" which Trump deployed very successfully against Hillary Clinton and President Obama during the 2016 election. Attacks on Russia are often diversionary tactics designed to steer attention away from Islamic terrorism.

This pattern seems to be repeating itself in media coverage of the Helsinki Summit. Buried in the noise about pledging faith in the intelligence community is news that President Trump and Putin discussed joint efforts to fight Islamic terrorism. President Trump mentioned cooperation in this regard at the July 16th joint press conference:

The President (Putin) and I also discussed the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism.  Both Russia and the United States have suffered horrific terrorist attacks, and we have agreed to maintain open communication between our security agencies to protect our citizens from this global menace.

Last year, we told Russia about a planned attack in St. Petersburg, and they were able to stop it cold.  They found them.  They stopped them.  There was no doubt about it.  I appreciated President Putin’s phone call afterwards to thank me.

I also emphasized the importance of placing pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions and to stop its campaign of violence throughout the area, throughout the Middle East.

As we discussed at length, the crisis in Syria is a complex one.  Cooperation between our two countries has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  I also made clear that the United States will not allow Iran to benefit from our successful campaign against ISIS.  We have just about eradicated ISIS in the area.

We also agreed that representatives from our national security councils will meet to follow up on all of the issues we addressed today and to continue the progress we have started right here in Helsinki.

Today’s meeting is only the beginning of a longer process.  But we have taken the first steps toward a brighter future and one with a strong dialogue and a lot of thought.  Our expectations are grounded in realism but our hopes are grounded in America’s desire for friendship, cooperation, and peace.  And I think I can speak on behalf of Russia when I say that also.

Interestingly, Russophobes who hated the Trump-Putin summit also tend to oppose fighting Islamic terrorism, or even calling it "Islamic terrorism." 

Among them are Trump critics like former CIA Director John Brennan, reportedly a convert to Islam when he served in Saudi Arabia, as well as a declared supporter of Communist  Presidential candidate Gus Hall in 1976.

People like Brennan, or Hillary or Obama, tend also to oppose President Trump's travel ban, "extreme vetting," or efforts to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the list of terrorist organizations. 

Likewise, they expressed little public objection to the foreign connections Huma Abedin, whose parents were active in the Muslim Brotherhood, and had alleged links to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, serving as a top aide to Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, nor to the Clinton Foundations ties to repressive Islamist regimes. Nor did they object when the so-called "Arab Spring" installed Islamist governments in the Middle East.

They take advantage of lingering resentments among Republicans who are still anti-Russian because Russia was once Communist. When these Republicans see Putin, they see him a Communist commissar, a former KGB officer,  a "thug." When they see Russia, they see it as if it were still the Soviet Union--even though Russia voluntarily withdrew from its former Soviet satellites, allowed some of them to join the EU, and dissolved the USSR.

On the other side, leftist Democrats have lingering resentments that Russia rejected Communism. They are as strongly hostile to Putin as Stalin was anti-Trotsky. When they look at Putin, they see a turncoat KGB agent who sold out to capitalism, suppresses LGBT causes on behalf of Russian Orthodoxy, and who encourages the very Russian nationalism that the USSR suppressed with its "Friendship of Peoples" doctrine (Soviet multiculturalism), therefore another kind of "thug" (like Cuba calls its refugees from Communism "gusanos"--worms).

Compounding the problem has been the taboo on public discussion of Islamist terrorism in both Europe and the United States (there is no such taboo in Russia). Since discussion of the actual enemy has been repressed, it is my belief that anti-Russian sentiments have actually been symptoms of psychological displacement--unable to criticize the actual enemies of the United States, the public has been licensed to oppose imaginary enemies, such as Russia, "Global Climate Change," Israeli treatment of Palestinians, and "White Privilege."

Yet good relations with Russia could change the dynamic of international relations in our favor, given the manifest failures of America's pro-Islamist foreign policy. With Russia as a full and equal partner in American foreign policy, the West could make short work of Islamic terror. Russia has a proven track record of success, little discussed in the USA--in Chechnya, of all places, where Putin ground Islamists to dust on the orders of Boris Yeltsin. The same sort of Russian tactics are working in Syria...just as they worked against Hitler during World War II.

It is clear from the failure of American policies since 9/11 that only an alliance with Russia can defeat Islamic terrorism. 

Helsinki presents America with that opportunity—an opportunity which supporters of Islamic Terror are apparently desperate to torpedo by any means necessary. For almost two decades the United States has struggled and failed to respond to 9/11 while simultaneously fighting Russia in Ukraine and Syria. All President Trump is doing is prioritizing the struggle against Islamic Terrorism as the most important fight of our times. It is common sense, which is why Putin and Trump can agree to work together. 

They realize that past policies have failed, and want to try something new that might work—given the record of Russian-American cooperation in the past, which includes Nunn-Lugar de-nuclearization, joint space missions, the peaceful transition of the USSR from Communism, and victory over the Nazis during World War II. 

If one looks clearly at what is happening in Great Britain or the European Union today,  the lesson is clear:

We must accept Russia as an ally in the struggle against Islamic terrorism, or surrender to an Islamic Caliphate.

Prof. Stephen Cohen on Ukraine

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/debating-moscows-military-moves-crimea/

On the PBS Newshour, last night:

GWEN IFILL: And now we get the perspective of Stephen Cohen, a professor of Russian studies and history emeritus at New York University and Princeton University.

What — why are — why are we in this position tonight, Professor Cohen? What is Putin’s endgame here?

STEPHEN COHEN, New York University: I don’t know where to begin, because I have just listened to two statements of the official American position, the position about where we are today and how we got here.

I think they’re fundamentally wrong. What we’re watching today is the worst kind of history being made, the descent of a new Cold War divide between West and East in Europe, this time not in faraway Berlin, but right on Russia’s borders through Ukraine.

That will be instability and the prospect of war for decades to come for our kids and our grandchildren. The official version is that Putin is to blame; he did this. But it simply isn’t true. This began 20 years ago when Clinton began the movement of NATO toward Russia, a movement that’s continued.

And even if we just go back to this November, just a few months ago, when the protesters came into the streets in Ukraine, Putin said to Europe and Washington, why are you forcing Ukraine to choose between Russia and Europe? We’re prepared with Europe to do a kind of mini-Marshall Plan to bail Ukraine out. Let’s do it together.

And that was refused by Washington and Brussels. And that refusal led to the situation today. And one last point. The worst outcome, you asked Michael, and he didn’t say, but he said what he didn’t want. The worst outcome, because we hear this clamor in Washington and we hear it in Europe, is a movement in response to what Putin’s done in Crimea to move NATO forces to the Polish-Ukrainian border.

We do that, Putin will certainly bring troops in from Russia itself. The troops in Crimea seem to be troops that were based at the naval base, not the troops in Russia. I’m not sure.

STEPHEN COHEN: And then you will have a real confrontation.

GWEN IFILL: Is this something that Putin has already made up his mind to do, or is there room for a negotiated settlement, a go-between, perhaps Angela Merkel from Germany?

STEPHEN COHEN: Yes.

I mean, Merkel is a key player in this, because Putin doesn’t trust Obama, doesn’t consider him a strong and resolute leader. He likes Merkel. They have got their problems. He speaks German together. They speak German together.

But, I mean, the fundamental issue here is that, three or four years ago, Putin made absolutely clear he had two red lines. You remember Obama’s red lines in Syria. But Putin was serious. One was in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. NATO and NATO influence couldn’t come there.

The other was in Ukraine. We crossed both. You got a war in Georgia in 2008, and you have got today in Ukraine because we, the United States and Europe, crossed Putin’s red line. Now, you can debate whether he has a right to that red line, but let’s at least discuss it. Let’s discuss it.

GWEN IFILL: Well, that’s kind of the question. That’s kind of the question, isn’t it?

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, let me turn it back to you, because it — what I hear is in the American commentary is, Russia has no legitimate national interests abroad, not even on its borders, as though we don’t care what happens in Canada and Mexico.

I mean, if you come to that point — and we never said that about the Soviet Union, by the way. We recognized the Soviet Union had national interests. If the position is, there are no legitimate national security interests that Russia can defend, then we are where we are. If we acknowledge those interests, there are ways to negotiate out of this crisis, though I’m not sure Obama can do it.

GWEN IFILL: Well, can Kerry do it?

STEPHEN COHEN: No.

GWEN IFILL: That’s the one who is headed tomorrow to Kiev.

What should he be trying to do at the meeting?

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I don’t think Kerry is going to Kiev for the reason he’s giving. He says he’s going to find out what this so-called government in Kiev wants.

It’s an extremist government with no constitutional or international legitimacy. It’s unelected. I think what Kerry is doing is going to Kiev to chill out that government, which has been issuing provocative anti-Russian statements. What Kerry and Obama should do is beg Merkel to keep talking to Putin, because he trusts her, for better or worse.

GWEN IFILL: Why is any of this important to anyone who is not in Russia or Ukraine?

STEPHEN COHEN: I told you at the top. I mean, you and I are old enough to have lived through divided Europe in Berlin.

And we were lucky, they say, that we survived it. Now imagine that on the borders of Russia. I mean, just imagine what that means, the possibility of provocation, the possibility of misunderstanding.

And let me mention one other thing. You want to talk about Russia’s ties to Ukraine? There is simply much more primary. Tens of millions of Russians and Ukrainians are married. They are married. They are conjugal. They have children together.

You want to divide — put a new Iron Curtain or whatever you call it right through that biological reality? This is madness. It’s gone too far.

GWEN IFILL: Professor Stephen Cohen of the NYU and Princeton, thank you very much.

Will Russia Tilt Towards Israel?

Mark Katz thinks so, writing in Middle East Quarterly, and says Chechen terrorists are one reason for Putin's move:

But what has motivated Putin to make this choice? Putin's history indicates a deep, emotional commitment to defeating the Chechen rebellion. He denies that the Chechen rebels have any legitimate basis for complaint against Moscow and refuses to negotiate with them. Putin does not appear to doubt the rightness of his hard-line policy toward Chechnya, even in the face of international outrage. Sunni Islamists see Russia as being as much of an enemy as the United States and Israel. European leaders criticize Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya. Even at the height of Russian collaboration with "Old Europe" to block United Nations approval for the U.S-led intervention in Iraq, French president Jacques Chirac raised the issue of Russian human rights violations in Chechnya while hosting Putin at a Paris banquet. After the September 2004 Beslan tragedy, the Russian foreign ministry "reacted with outrage" at the implied criticism of Moscow's policy in an EU statement asking "the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened." Very few have given the unequivocal support for Putin's Chechnya policy that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has.

Sharon, who is fluent in Russian, has established a genuine bond with Putin. Both share a similar mindset about their Muslim opponents: they are terrorists with whom there can be no negotiation. Both Putin and Sharon use force against opponents they believe undeserving of sympathy, and both share a bond formed by their resulting vilification in the West.

While Sharon is not the first or only Israeli official to express sympathy for Russia's Chechnya policy, Sharon's key role in the improvement of bilateral relations is suggested by the improvement under his watch. Prior to Sharon's accession, Putin was content to leave the Israeli-Palestinian issue in the hands of the strongly pro-Palestinian Russian foreign ministry. Only after his first meeting with Sharon in September 2001 did Putin's pro-Israel tilt emerge.

Walter Russell Mead in The American Interest on Putin, Obama & Ukraine

http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2014/03/06/russia-blows-past-obamas-off-ramp/

Looking at the bigger picture, Putin probably also thinks the United States needs him more than he needs us at the moment. The Obama administration, he likely believes, is desperate to avoid further trouble in the Middle East. In Syria, in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and in the Iranian negotiations, it is out on a limb, engaged in very high stakes diplomacy where the odds don’t favor it. Russia can’t do a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but it can probably spoil the Iran negotiations and make Syria an even more horrible diplomatic and political problem for the Obama administration than it already is. Indeed, Samantha Power is now stating that Syria is dragging its feet in negotiations over the destruction of chemical weapons facilities. The U.S. should not expect any help from Russia as it searches for progress in Syria.

Putin can therefore inflict a great deal of pain on President Obama and American diplomacy if he chooses, and one suspects that he likes that. It’s possible that in happier times there were people in the Obama administration who believed that Putin would help them out diplomatically either because Russia and the US have common interests win Syria or over the Iranian issue or because he would prefer to help liberal, presumably more dovish Democrats consolidate power in Washington rather than making them look bad and easing the path for Republicans back into the White House.

Putin, however, doesn’t look at things that way. He appears to believe that under its dovish rhetoric the Obama administration was trying to detach Ukraine from Russia—a mortal threat to Russia’s vital interests as the Kremlin sees them. The Obama administration’s human rights rhetoric and its habit of making irritating though not genuinely wounding gestures (like sending gay delegates to the Sochi Olympics) angered the Russians without weakening them, and we can be sure that Putin believes in his gut that if some kind of Kiev style protest movement rose up in Moscow to drive him from office, that the United States would give it as much help as we dared.

From a Russian point of view, there already was a cold war between Moscow and Washington, and the West’s effort to snatch Ukraine last fall was a unilateral escalation of that conflict and an existential threat to the foundations of both the Putin government and the Russian national project. Putin believes he is fighting back and it looks as if his interest in punishing Obama over Ukraine is greater than his (limited and conditional) desire to keep working with Obama on issues like arms control.

From Putin’s point of view, there is much less difference between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans than narcissistic westerners might think. He sees the whole United States as his geopolitical arch-rival and sees differences between liberals and conservatives as arguments about the best sauce to cook Russia with. Reagan brought the Soviets down and George H. W. Bush reunified Germany and anchored it in NATO, but the Clinton administration rammed NATO expansion down a weak Yeltsin’s throat and Obama was ready to scoop Ukraine into the western swag bag if Russia hadn’t stopped him.

Just as Jimmy Carter did not understand that his human rights advocacy ruined his hopes for a new era of detente and arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, the Obama administration’s policy makers don’t seem seem to understand that their Ukraine policy (which they don’t ever seem to have thought much about one way or the other) contradicted their reset policy in a way that would alienate and enrage the Russians. Now, from the Kremlin’s point of view, it may be the Obama administration that has fallen into a trap. Domestic political pressures are meshing with the President’s own sense of legality and morality in international affairs to push the United States towards trying to make it look as if our sanctions and other responses are imposing. In fact, they will and must be fairly ineffective, and Russia can use its influence over events in Syria and Iran to cause more pain to Obama and more damage to America’s international standing.

Putin Hoisting Bush By "Democracy" Petard

RIA Novosti Russian news agency reports that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is using "democracy" against President Bush--and inviting Hamas leaders to Moscow for consultation:

"Today, [we] must recognize that Hamas came to power via legitimate, democratic elections in the Palestinian National Authority, which is why we must respect the choice of the Palestinian people," Putin said at a news conference in Madrid, where he is on official business.

This can't be a surprise to US officials, despite public claims to the contrary. Russians see the US as trying to weaken Russia, using "democracy" as a tool.

Russians are still angry over what they see as Western support for Chechen Islamist extremists--whom Russians believe are tied to Al Qaeda--support justified by calls for "self-determination." Likewise, Russians are angry about Western support for Islamic movements in the former Yugoslavia, and in the former Soviet Republics. No doubt, feeling that turnabout is fair play, the Russians have decided that two can play the "democracy" game. Hamas's victory gives Russia the opportunity to hassle President Bush. Putin can cause problems for the US, in the same way that Russians believe the US has been causing problems for Russia. And with Russian support for Syria, Venezuela, and now Hamas, Putin will be in a stronger position to get the West to back off any further moves to destablize Russia.

It has long been said that Russians play chess while Americans play poker. But it seems that the Hamas victory is an Ace in Putin's poker hand, which he intends to play with a poker face against President Bush.

One might also remember that the USSR was instrumental in the establishment of the PLO in the first place--as well as in the establishment of the State of Israel, funnelling arms through Czechoslovakia to the Jewish State in 1948. By embracing Hamas, Putin is re-inforcing Russia's role as a "player" in the Middle East, a Great Power whose national interests can no longer be ignored.

This is a natural consequence of an American two-track policy which encourages confrontation with Russia, rather than full partnership in the war on terror. Bush's mistakes have now given Putin leverage to veto any American initiatives in the Middle East. Which means that unless Bush makes nice to Putin, Ehud Olmert's Israeli government may need to shift its focus to the Kremlin--and Russia may find that its historical quest for a "warm water port" ends when the Russian Navy is based in Haifa...

Mr. Putin Goes to Washington

For some inexplicable reason, I haven't yet received my invitation to cover the White House meeting today between Presidents Bush and Putin, so have had to cover it from The Washington Post, which has been pretty good so far. Here's my two cents, informed by living in Moscow and Central Asia as well as Washington, DC...

It is sure to be a significant meeting, for right now, believe it or not, Putin is in a stronger position than Bush, so is negotiating from strength, an old Ronald Reagan tactic.

Russia's GDP is growing faster than the US economy, the new Russia-China military alliance pretty much balances the US technological edge with millions of "boots on the ground," and Putin is at 70 percent approval in Russian public opinion polls, while Bush is at the lowest ebb of his career. To add insult to injury, today's Post reports that the US space program is now dependent on Russian technology, in the wake of the space shuttle tragedy.

Bush has egg on his face not only from shuttle screw-ups, but also from the dismal stalemate in Iraq, the pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina, and his weakness in the face of North Korea and Iran's nuclear threats. The Ukrainian and Kyrgyzstan "color revolutions" have bogged down into partisan infighting. Georgia is a basket case, totally dependent on American aid. The former Yugoslavia remains under NATO military occupation, and the Kosovo situation has not been resolved. Not to mention the Middle East, where American-backed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas--educated in Moscow--has not yet managed to rein in Islamist terrorists.

Bush needs some friends now, and will have to bend a little to get them. It is in his interest to have Russia as a friend, rather than an enemy.

So, what does Putin want? It's pretty clear from his UN speech that he wants to be an equal partner to the West, rather than an adversary. And he wants the fight against terrorism--read Islamist terrorism--to become the new common cause of the UN Security Council. Since the Council was formed in WWII, and represents the Allied Powers of Britain, America, Russia, China, and France, he's basically trying to restore the WWII, pre-Cold War relationship between the Great Powers. Here's the money quote from Putin's UN speech the other day, with my interpretation in brackets:

I am convinced that today, terrorism represents the main danger to the rights and freedom of mankind, and to the steady development of states and peoples. [Forget "democracy-building," free markets, development, and all your other trendy priorities]

In connection with this, the UN and the Security Council should be the headquarters for coordinating international cooperation in the struggle against terror --Nazism's ideological successor.[Revive the WWII Alliance (my emphasis)]

They must also help coordinate the settlement of deep-rooted regional conflicts on which terrorists and extremists of all kinds breed by using the historical baggage of religious, ethnic and social inequalities. [Chechnya, Palestine, Kashmir, Central Asia, et al.]

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is necessary to use not only states' ressources but, most importantly, the large opportunities offered by civil society, mass media, cultural and educational cooperation, and interconfessional dialogue to oppose ideologues that preach a clash of civilisations, and terrorist agression. [Shut down Islamist mosques and madrassahs, bankrupt Islamist charities]

Who if not the UN can take on this coordinating and organising role? Here it can base itself on the support of all member countries, on the cooperation of influential international organisations, and on regional integration associations. [If you try and go around the UN, we will fight you. No more NATO interventions in Yugolsavia]

Russia intends to increase her participation both in the international reaction to crises, and in assistance for development and progress. Next year, within the framework of Russia's membership in the G8, the CIS, and the Council of Europe we will continue to work together on this major issue. [Let us into your clubs as a full member, and we will help you. Keep us out, and we will hurt you]

Putin clearly wants the United States to end its support for Islamist guerilla movements in Chechnya and Central Asia, in exchange for Russian support of American positions perhaps vis-a-vis Iran and Iraq. I don't think it sounds like a bad deal. While perhaps Russia can't "deliver" Iran or Iraq, they still have considerable influence in the Middle East and as recent events have shown, are able to make trouble even if they can't defeat the West.

However a genuine full partnership with Russia would mean less hanky-panky by the CIA and its cut-outs in the former Soviet bloc, perhaps in exhange for Russia pulling back in Latin America--where Venezuela and Cuba now enjoy Russian support in the same way Ukraine and Georgia are American outposts.

While not exactly another Yalta, a partnership with Russia might mean that the UN could become an effective instrument for ending the threat of Islamist terror, just as the Allies crushed the Nazis through the UN. The UN's effectiveness, that has been hampered by US-Russian tensions, could be turned against a common foe.

That is Putin's strategy, I believe. It is why he wanted Bush at the V-E day celebrations in Moscow. And at this point, I think it seems reasonable to consider seriously Putin's approach to the war on terror as a credible alternative to that offered by American neoconservatives, realists, or isolationists. That means America has to drop the Cold War stuff and, as Bill Clinton liked to say, "focus like a laser beam" on defeating terrorism.

With Russia as a full partner, Osama Bin Laden and his Islamist supporters will no longer be able to play "divide and conquer" games. My guess is that a true alliance of the UN Security Council could crush the Islamists very quickly indeed--but Bush and his cronies might not be able to count on post-Administration payouts from their Saudi friends...

On the other hand, with Russia now rolling in petrodollars, perhaps Putin could offer to put Bush Senior (and Clinton for that matter, since they are doing a doubles act these days) on the board of his newly-reorganized Yukos?

Nina Khrushcheva: Putin is Bush's Doppleganger

On the eve of the G8 summit, Khrushchev's granddaughter writes in the Guardian (UK) that US and Russian leaders present mirror-images of one another (ht Johnson's Russia List):

Next week's G8 summit will probably be the last such meeting for Presidents George W Bush and Vladimir Putin. Seven years ago, at their first meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Bush looked into Putin's eyes and somehow spotted the soul of a Christian gentleman, not that of a secret policeman. Next week, they shouldn't be surprised if they see a mirror of each other, because both men have exemplified the arrogance of power.

Bush and Putin both came to power in 2000, a year when their countries were scrambling to regain international respect: Russia from the chaos of the Yeltsin years and the US from the failed impeachment of President Clinton. Each country thought it was acquiring an unthreatening mediocrity. But both men, on finding themselves in positions of authority, ruled from their default positions: Bush as an evangelical convinced that God was on America's side, and Putin as a KGB graduate convinced that all power comes from intimidation and threats.

And what was the result? Convinced that he is right, and incurious to hear contrary arguments, Bush felt free to undermine the rule of law in America with warrantless domestic surveillance, erosion of due process, and defence of torture, in addition to misleading the public and refusing to heed expert advice or recognise facts on the ground. From the tax cuts in 2001 to the war in Iraq, Bush's self-righteous certitude led him to believe that he could say and do anything to get his way.

The damage that Bush's self-confidence and self-delusion has inflicted was magnified by his gross overestimation of America's power. Quite simply, he thought that America could go it alone in pursuing his foreign policy because no one could stop him. While his father lined up world support, and troops from over a dozen countries, for the first Gulf war, the son thought that allies were more hindrance than help; except for Tony Blair, he did not care to have them. Four years later, Bush's arrogance and mendacity have been exposed for the entire world, including the American public, to see.

Putin also succumbed to the same arrogance of power. Buoyed by high oil prices, he now seeks to bestride the world as if the social calamities that bedevil Russia - a collapsing population, a spiralling Aids and tuberculosis crisis, corruption mushrooming to levels unimagined by Yeltsin - do not matter. At a high-level security meeting in Munich this February, Putin, who usually draws on the secretive, manipulative, and confrontational cold war paradigm of what constitutes Russian diplomatic behaviour, lashed out at the US with the sort of language unheard of since Khrushchev said "We will bury you". American actions were "unilateral," "illegitimate," and had forged a "hotbed of further conflicts".

Putin's assessment of US unilateralism (if stripped of its overheated rhetoric) may be correct; the trouble is that he lacks the credibility to extol moderation in foreign policy. High oil prices have helped him rebuild and centralise the "strong state" that was his goal from the outset of his presidency. But his recent attempts to use Russia's energy resources for political coercion in Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere have exposed Russia as an unreliable partner, unnerving even the Chinese, who do not wish to see a reconstituted Russian empire on their border.

The State of Russian-Israeli Relations

An analysis by Robert O. Freedman, from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Russia has a number of interests in Israel. First, on the economic front, there is extensive trade which crossed the $500 million mark in 1995 (although it would later dip because of Russia's 1998 economic crisis), making Israel Russia's second leading trade partner in the Middle East after Turkey. Second, on the diplomatic front, a close relationship with Israel enables Russia to play, or appear to play, a major role in the Arab-Israeli peace process. Third, with almost 1,000,000 Russian-speaking Jews now living in Israel, Israel has the largest Russian-speaking diaspora outside the former Soviet Union, and this has led to very significant ties in the areas of cultural exchange and tourism. The fourth major interest is a military-technical one as the Russian military-industrial complex has expressed increasing interest in co-producing military aircraft with Israel, especially since many of the workers in Israel's aircraft industry are former citizens of the Soviet Union with experience in the Soviet military-industrial complex.

From the Israeli point of view, there are four central interests in relations with Russia. The first is to maintain the steady flow of immigration, which has provided Israel with a large number of scientists and engineers. The second is to prevent the export of nuclear weapons or nuclear materials to Israel's Middle East enemies, including Libya, Iran, and Iraq. The third goal is to develop trade relations with Russia, which supplies Israel with such products as uncut diamonds, metals, and timber. Russia is also the site of numerous joint enterprises begun by Israelis who had emigrated from the former Soviet Union. Finally, Israel hopes for at least an even-handed Russian diplomatic position in the Middle East and, if possible, Russian influence on its erstwhile ally, Syria, to be more flexible in reaching a peace agreement with Israel.

Several months after Barak's election, Putin became Russia's prime minister and quickly became deeply involved in the war against Chechnya -- a development that was to positively affect Russian-Israeli relations. While Putin was not to be responsive on the issue of arms to Iran, he was far more forthcoming in denouncing anti-Semitism than Yeltsin was (although he did not go as far as some Russian Jewish leaders wanted).

The issue of greatest importance to the relationship, at least from the Russian point of view, was Israeli support for Russian actions in Chechnya, with one Russian official stating that "Israel helps us break the Western information blockade of Russia over Chechnya." Israel also helped Russia by sending medical supplies to the victims of the Moscow apartment house bombings, claimed by Putin to have been perpetrated by the Chechens, and also gave medical treatment to wounded Russian soldiers.

Israeli help to Moscow over Chechnya was to pay diplomatic dividends when the Al-Aksa intifada broke out in late September 2000, when Putin took a very different position than did Primakov during similar crises in the 1996-1999 period. Unlike the Russian position under Primakov, Putin's Russia was not only evenhanded, he even seemed to tilt toward Israel as the crisis developed. Thus, then Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Ivanov, who was later promoted to defense minister, linked the violence on the West Bank and Gaza to the Taliban's increased activities in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and to extremist activity in Chechnya, a position also espoused by Putin's adviser, Sergei Yastrzhembsky. The Russian Duma, unlike its anti-Israel and anti-Semitic predecessor that went out of office in December 1999, voted to blame not Israel but "extremist forces" for the escalation of the conflict.

Despite Putin's shift to an evenhanded position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and Russia's important diplomatic, economic, and military ties with Israel, there are countervailing pressures in Moscow preventing too close a Russian-Israeli alignment. These include:

Pro-Arab elements in Russia's Foreign Ministry and in the increasingly influential secret police who hope to restore the close ties Moscow had in the Arab world in Soviet times.

Anti-Semitic forces who are also anti-Israel. They are primarily found in Russia's communist party and among Russia's ultra-nationalist politicians.

Russia's arms sales agency, Rosoboronoexport. The new arms sales agency has been given a high priority in Putin's efforts to revitalize the Russian economy. Indeed, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has stated that the proceeds from the arms sales are to be invested in the development of new technologies for the economy. What makes this problematic for Israel is that Russian arms sales to Iran, an enemy of Israel, are already a matter of major concern. Should these be followed by arms sales to Syria (assuming Saudi Arabia is willing to pay for the arms -- a possibility if the intifada escalates and draws in Syrian forces), a deterioration in Russian-Israeli relations could well result. The situation would worsen even more if the UN sanctions on Iraq were lifted, or if Russia decided to break them unilaterally (both unlikely prospects at the current time), because in the past Moscow had been a major weapons supplier to Baghdad.

Russia's Muslim community. Approximately 20 percent of the Russian population, they are still rather quiescent politically. Nonetheless, the Russian leadership must take their views into consideration, given the dangers of radical Islam not only in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus and the Russian Federation, but also in Central Asia.

Putin Blasts Dutch Chechen Stance

On a state visit, the Russian president took on the EU's pro-Chechen foreign policy:

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende had raised concerns about respect for human rights in Chechnya in talks with Putin.

But Putin likened Russia's problems in the region to attacks by Islamic militants in Europe, such as the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh exactly a year ago by a Dutch-Moroccan.

"It was a terrible event that is, of course, a sign of a much broader problem called international terrorism," Putin said at a televised joint news conference with Balkenende in The Hague.

"We are fighting very cruel people -- beasts in the guise of human beings who do not and do not want to understand in what time and world they live. Our response must be equal to the threat they present to modern civilization," Putin said. . . .

. . . Putin said terrorists would seize upon any sign of weakness and chastised Western Europe for what he said were overblown concerns about abuses against Muslims in Russia.

"Sometimes it seems to me that certain European leaders want to be more Muslim than the Prophet Mohammed," Putin said.

"My opinion is that in the Caucasus and in Chechnya, we are protecting both our and your interests. If we allow terrorism to raise its head in one region, the same will happen in other regions of the world," he said.

Countries need to work together to combat terrorism effectively, Putin said, adding that cooperation with the Netherlands and the European Union on this issue was one topic that he and Balkenende had discussed.