Le Devoir
Tuesday 27 November 2007
A figurehead for the opposition to Vladimir Putin, Garry Kasparov, copped a prison term, while another adversary of the autocrat, and not the president of Russia, was apprehended. They and their companions in misfortune dared to demonstrate their disapproval by marching in the street, while they had been issued a permit to assemble and to remain ... immobile only! Six days away from the legislative elections, this episode highlights Putin's fierce desire to erase any criticism of his policies from the country's political horizon.
Not content with having transformed the television networks into so many propaganda vectors, or with having turned judicial power to his own ends, or with having eliminated the designation of governors and mayors by citizens, Putin is sending out signals that many observers interpret as follows: the Master of the Kremlin is getting ready to twist the meaning of the Constitution with the goal of running for election another time. As it is written, the fundamental law prohibits anyone from serving three consecutive terms.
Putin - through the intermediation of television - justifies this recourse to the methods used during the Communist winter by asserting that Russia is a country under siege by the United States. According to him, the velvet revolutions effected in Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia and Montenegro were conceived and conducted by CIA agents. Also according to him, NATO enlargement to the Baltic republics, Hungary and other satellites of the former Empire of the Soviet Union is proof that the American government is maneuvering to prevent any resurgence of Russia Everlasting.
Undoubtedly, the posture Putin has adopted draws from the pool of vexations observed after the fall of the [Berlin] Wall. In an article published in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, academician Dmitri K. Simes emphasizes that from President Bush senior to Bush junior and by way of Bill Clinton, American leaders have committed an enormous error in judgment. All believed and still believe that the end of the Soviet Union is to be credited to the United States. According to Simes, that is not the case.
In fact, the various American administrations have far underestimated the significance of Mikhail Gorbatchev's actions. The principal actor in the disintegration of the Soviet Empire was Gorbatchev, not Reagan or Bush senior. Convinced of the opposite, the White House residents have made the mistake of considering Russia the way their predecessors once considered Germany and Japan. That is, they considered Russia a defeated country, even though not a single American soldier was ever sighted in the Kremlin's environs.
The consequences of this American evaluation of the Russian situation were a series of refusals to requests Moscow formulated for financial aid. Those acts of rejection sharpened the payback feeling that Vladimir Putin personifies today, with the risk that Russia may rejoin the ranks of United States adversaries.
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