By Jonathan Spyer
President Bashar Assad of Syria began a trip to Russia this week. Russian news agency RIA Novosti has quoted the Syrian Information Ministry as confirming that the trip will last two days.
According to the statement, the purpose of the trip is to discuss bilateral relations and the latest world and regional developments, particularly relating to the Middle East peace process and to Iraq.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Russian President Putin’s goon-squad is using “’scorched-earth’ tactics” in Georgia, has promised to annex territory (South Ossetia and Abkhazia), and now is threatening to attack Poland. This is pure madness, but look at the reaction from Europe (or, should I say, lack thereof?), as described by the brave Russian soul, Garry Kasparov:
~by E.D. Kain
“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”
~WInston Churchill
The Russians are tricky. They have suckered the world into thinking that they are a more peaceful, progressive nation than they were during the Soviet era. We have been duped into believing this over the years, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Now, as Georgia burns, and the world wonders whether a ceasefire will hold or whether Putin’s puppet Medvedev will simply (as the Russians so often do) say one thing and do another…
By Douglas Farah*
I am not a Russia expert and defer to Robert Kagan and others to paint the macro picture of what Russia’s incursion into Georgia means.
But there are several issues, outside of these, that need to be looked at in terms of Russia in the greater world, and our relationship to Russia, particularly in counter-terrorism and weapons proliferation issues.
By Canadian Coalition for Democracies
Ottawa, Canada - Russia’s invasion of Georgia has made public the brutal face of the Russian bear. Again, Russia has set out to crush independence, undermine sovereignty and mock the democratic aspirations of its former vassal states. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had set back the Russian bear only momentarily, its weakness and lies exposed. But the Russian bear has returned menacingly and turned the clock back to 1968 when it crushed the Prague spring as it is doing today in Georgia.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
I’ve often wondered why Russia freed itself from communism, only to slide back to the paternalistic ways of authoritarian rule (e.g., Putin). Even though there’s been obvious vote rigging, and squelching of the media, it’s probably fair to say that the major of Russians voted for Putin because he makes them feel secure. While skimming some headlines this week, I finally found some insight into Russia’s love for paternalism — literally.
Recently, a Russian judge threw a woman’s sexual harassment case out of court on the grounds that, “If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children.” Huh? Read the statistics — and weep. From the Telegraph:
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Apologizing for terrorism is completely indefensible. Have people forgotten MLK and Gandhi’s teachings? Have people forgotten the Velvet and Singing Revolutions in Eastern Europe against the Soviet/Russian Empire?
The Soviets murdered millions, deported millions to Siberia, bugged telephones, banned books, outlawed native languages, encouraged Russians to emigrate to occupied nations to dilute the indigenous cultures, assassinated and jailed dissidents — it was the Orwellian horror come true.
by Dmitry Shlapentokh*
Chechnya has been at war with Russia for generations. By 1999, when the second Chechen war broke out, two resistance groups had emerged: nationalists and jihadists. While long simmering below the surface, the schism between the two camps erupted publicly in 2006 on the Internet after Akhmed Khalidovich Zakaev, the moderate foreign minister of the shadow Chechen government, argued that the goal of the Chechen resistance should be an independent Chechen state modeled after Western democracies and integrated into the global community. Movladi Udugov, a jihadist and editor of Kavkaz Center, the best-known online resistance publication, vehemently disagreed and declared that for real Muslims, spiritual bonds should be more important than blood ties. He argued that he would rather embrace ethnic Russians who had converted to Islam than Chechens who had strayed from their religion. There was no point modeling society after Western states, he contended, because all non-Muslim states, or those that are Muslim only in name but not in essence, are corrupt. Instead, Chechens should fight for the establishment of a global caliphate.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Russians spent 70 years under the thumb of communist apparatchiks, enjoyed a brief period of relative freedom, only to end up with another commissar/czar, Vladimir Putin. Today’s news out of the Motherland reminds me of the Soviet “elections” where communist party candidates always received 99% or greater of the “vote.” From the AP:
Russian workers told where, how to vote
With the Kremlin determined to see a high turnout in Sunday’s election, many Russians say they are being pressured to vote at work under the watchful eyes of their bosses or risk losing their jobs.
They say they also are being told to provide lists of relatives and friends who will vote for United Russia, the party of President Vladimir Putin.
United Russia is expected to win handily. But Putin has turned the parliamentary elections into a plebiscite on his rule, and the Kremlin appears to be pushing for nothing short of a landslide. …
By Andrew L. Jaffee
… On Saturday Other Russia leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov was arrested during a rally in Moscow. …
Activists holding white flowers met near the headquarters of the liberal Yabloko party, and headed to the site of the unauthorised rally. …
Chess players and people holding flowers: this is what Russian dictator Vladimir Putin fears… Quite natural paranoia for a former KGB goon who has surrounded himself with other KGB goons. Not too long, and we’ll be back in the USSR. From the BBC:
Russian police have broken up an opposition rally, arresting activists for the second day running.
Police detained about 150 people in St Petersburg, including opposition leader Boris Nemtsov - who was later freed.
The protest was organised by the Other Russia, a coalition of anti-Kremlin groups. They accuse the government of crushing dissent ahead of elections.
On Saturday Other Russia leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov was arrested during a rally in Moscow.
Mr Kasparov was jailed for five days for leading an unauthorised march. …
Unauthorized?!? Actually, words like “apparatchik” (аппаратчик) or “politburo” come to mind. Now that Putin’s exhausted his term as Russian president, he’s eyeing the position of prime minister so he can keep ruling for life.
by Michael Rubin*
Last week, the United States turned to the United Nations in an attempt to increase pressure on Iran. The U.S. wanted to expand sanctions against the budding nuclear power.
Neither China nor Russia would go along. And faced with the prospect of one or the other vetoing sanctions at the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice punted. She put off further action against Iran until at least November.
It’s hard to see how much will change in a month. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is firm in his opposition to sanctions. “Interference by way of new sanctions would mean undermining” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as it puts pressure on Iran, he said.
The Economist on how Putin and his goons are destroying Russia’s future:
…[They] have shown they can squash opposition, suborn the courts and stay in charge. But, as in all autocracies, they are acutely nervous about the future. Mr Putin’s popularity will not easily transfer even to a hand-picked successor. More generally, as ordinary Russians get richer, they may grow dissatisfied with their present masters, especially when they see them stealing and mismanaging the economy. Russia has huge problems: crime, poor infrastructure, secessionism and chaos in the north Caucasus, appalling human-rights abuses and a looming demographic catastrophe. To counterbalance these woes, the new elite may resort to even wilder forms of nationalism; and that nationalism could turn into a monster that even its creators cannot control.
In truth, the biggest threats to Russia’s future stem not from its “enemies” but from internal weaknesses, some of them self-inflicted. For a Russian ruler, or ruling class, to accept that truth would take real courage–and real patriotism.
by Daniel Pipes*
One of the great enigmas of the modern Middle East is why, forty years ago next week, the Six-Day War took place. Neither Israel nor its Arab neighbors wanted or expected a fight in June 1967; the consensus view among historians holds that the unwanted combat resulted from a sequence of accidents.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Despite being decriminalized, homosexuality is still widely despised in Russia.
- AP
Now isn’t that special? Russia sure is uptight: pushing around chess players (political dissidents); picking on little countries like Estonia; and now going after gays, whom Moscow Mayor Luzhkov described as “satanic:”
Police detained gay rights activists, among them European lawmakers, as they tried to present a letter to Moscow’s mayor Sunday in a demonstration that also attracted a hostile crowd of people who punched and threw eggs at the activists. [Continues below…]
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Russian President Vladimir Putin has prevented political dissidents from attending summit talks with the EU. He’s afraid of a former chess player? Such a tough guy, pushing around tiny nations like Estonia. Vladimir has surrounded himself with other former KGB goons, so in the Kremlin nowadays, “influence stems from the former Soviet organs of repression.” Back in the USSR? From the Beeb:
A number of leading anti-Putin activists, including the former chess champion Garry Kasparov, had passports confiscated and were detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.
The authorities said they had false travel documents.
Several foreign journalists were also reportedly prevented from traveling.
False? Yeah, if you’re KGB/NKVD…
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