#12
the eXile
November 1, 2001
Press Review
The Great Game Redux
By Matt Taibbi (taibbi@exile.ru)
Almost from the start, in the first hours after the 9/11 attack, even as the entire world focused its anger on the perpetrators, you could sense a strange kind of secondary, or even parenthetical, hostility toward Russia building in the arena of Western Public Opinion. There was no reason for it; in fact, it was completely counter-intuitive. It was almost as if America was upset that Russia was not guilty in some way or another for the attack, and that its vampirical President, Vladimir Putin, was being, not a monster, but perfectly reasonable in his public behavior in the wake of the incident.
Though only us Russia-watchers were paying attention, the hostility seemed to grow as America prepared its counterattack. First and foremost, there was the embarrassing revelation that the United States would effectively need Russia’s help in securing the air routes it needed to conduct the war. Normally we like to launch our death-missions from bases extracted by force from subject states like Saudi Arabia and trivia-question locations like Diego Garcia island— we don’t like to have to ask for help, particularly not from a country like Russia. But here we were, at our most desperate hour, calling up Putin in the middle of the night to beg for a favor.
Then there was the next problem: Putin himself. While George Bush was being excoriated in the international press (never mind those frequently-published approval rating polls; they doth protesteth too much) for his seemingly cowardly zig-zag across the States in the hours after the attack, Putin was quietly gaining high marks around the world for his "brilliant" foreign policy maneuverings. Not only had Russia secured tacit support for its brutal campaign in Chechnya (the obvious quid that went with the pro quo in the air corridor issue), and not only had Putin bullied Bush spokesman Ari Fleisher into publicly linking bin Laden to the Chechen separatist movement, but Russia had succeeded in getting the United States to shoulder the entire military risk of attacking a Taliban enemy that Russia herself wanted removed— a major coup.
Worse still— worst of all, in fact— Putin traveled to Germany shortly after the attacks and addressed the parliament there in fluent German, drawing a very sincere standing ovation for his thoroughly convincing imitation of a scary, jackbooted Rhone valley dictator. Meanwhile, our own President Bush continued to have difficulty constructing complete sentences in English in his public statements, as both his and Tony Blair’s addresses to their respective nations during this time went down as some of the most uninspired oratory in the history of the human race.
All of this can only partially explain the vicious treatment of Russia in the Western press of late, however. In recent weeks there has been an extraordinary amount of peevish anti-Russian commentary in Western newspapers, extraordinary in the sense that such a thing is normally unheard of when the subject is one’s coalition partner in a shooting war. Take this offering by Rob Cottrell of the Financial Times, from his irritably titled "Russia’s False Promise" of October 23:
"The attack on Afghanistan serves Russia’s interests because Russia fears the rise of militant Islam in central Asia more than any other foreign threat. It blames the Taliban for helping Chechen rebels, its worst domestic threat. By attacking the Taliban, the US is doing what Russia would like to have done itself.
"There is a risk that fighting may spill over into Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. If it does, Russia will feel bound to intervene. There is also a risk that the US, having traded favours with the governments of central Asia to win air corridors and forward bases, may raise its profile permanently in the region and challenge Russian influence there. But those things are outside Russia’s control. For Russia, this has been the easy bit."
Cottrell is obviously mistaken when he writes that Putin’s decision to acquiesce to American requests was the "easy bit"; he’s ignoring history. After all, all of Russia was aghast at America’s behavior during the Kosovo conflict, and at the very least, Putin’s cozying up to the American military was a serious political risk. Beyond that, the issue of allowing the United States to build up a presence in Central Asia has hardly been a non-issue with the Russian people. I myself was interviewed by NTV this past weekend as part of an alarmist report about America’s plans to set up camp permanently in Uzbekistan. Make no mistake about it, for a politician who plays on his credentials as a nationalist during a time of increasing concerns about expanding American influence, Putin was taking a big risk by stepping aside in Central Asia to make way for Our Boys.
Another frequent theme in the Western press lately is the impugning of Russia’s anti-terrorist credentials. Cottrell puts the issue as follows:
"Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria, for example, are all countries viewed by the US as state sponsors of terrorism. Russia views them as friends...Russia’s ties to the rogue states are based partly on political calculation. By cultivating such countries, Russia shows independence and gains influence. But hard cash is also a big factor. The rogue states and the rest of the developing world are potential markets for Russia’s arms and nuclear technology."
This small passage reveals a lot about Western attitudes toward Russia. When America deals with terrorist states, this is totally acceptable politics, but when Russia does it, it is either out of sinister calculation or out of economic necessity brought on by its shameful poverty (note the pitying reference to "hard cash"). Cottrell fails to note that the U.S. itself made overtures to Iran, Syria and Libya in the weeks leading up to the attack in Afghanistan. He also ignores the fact that, from a Russian point of view, America has been equally guilty of sponsoring terrorist states hostile to Russia over the years. In the 1980s, with the aim of overturning Soviet influence in the area, the U.S. massively funded the Islamic extremist "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan that eventually became the Taliban and the groups loyal to bin Laden.
These groups have been a headache to the Russians through the present day; not only have they created havoc on the southern border of the C.I.S., but Stinger missiles and other weapons that the U.S. gave to these groups have been observed in action in the battles in Chechnya. The U.S. (George W. Bush’s father, to be exact) also traded arms with Iran in order to fund "freedom fighters"— terrorists in the eyes of many outside of the U.S.— in a Russian client state in Nicaragua.
And yet, Russia now has to listen to criticism of its government for selling arms to places like Iraq and Iran, which before the U.S. deemed them terrorist states were regular recipients of U.S. support.
There have been other criticisms leveled at Russia; that its stonewalling in the ABM matter is proof of its reluctance to combat rogue states (this despite the fact that the 9/11 incident hideously exposed the Missile Defense Program as being irrelevant in this kind of warfare), that its "loose" domestic intelligence capability may make it a haven for terrorists (this despite the fact that the Russians pioneered the police state, are still fairly strong in this area, and thoroughly kicked the American intelligence community’s ass for decades after World War II), even for its "insincerity" in providing assistance to the U.S. in the attack against Afghanistan.
As bad as Cottrell’s piece was, it doesn’t even begin to compare to the extremely bitter essay written last week by one David Plotz (what the hell kind of name is Plotz?), the Washington Bureau Chief of slate.com. The piece covered in one 1500-word essay all the main themes of the recent anti-Putin movement, and features the baldly unambiguous title, "Russian President Vladimir Putin: Why is he on our side?" From the get-go the piece is oddly vicious and abusive:
"For the last several years, Russia has been the world’s troll-lonely, ugly, unloved, untrustworthy. It’s had hardly an ally in the world. It has been reduced to snuggling with Slobodan Milosevic and signing a "friendship" treaty with China, a country it detests and fears-all the while glaring enviously at the United States and Europe. (The West has responded with a fake smile-an "of course we’re pals, you have 6,000 nukes" kind of grin.)"
I can’t imagine a Russian political analyst coming out in the first sentence and calling the United States that many names in such a short space. A troll? Ugly? Unloved? Untrustworthy? First of all, many of those words don’t even fit. Russia has certainly been loved enough to receive billions of dollars in aid from the West, and considered trustworthy enough that that aid kept coming even after certain members of its government got caught stealing $50 million of it or so. As for "cozying up" to Slobodan Milosevic, this isn’t quite true, either. After all, it was Russia that effectively sealed our victory in Kosovo by announcing to Milosevic its intention to shut off natural gas supplies to Serbia if it did not surrender. As for the friendship treaty with China, a country it "detests and fears", this fact is certainly no stranger than that of the arch-capitalist United States granting the same communist China Most Favored Nation trading status.
On the contrary, it is the United States that is increasingly isolated in the world— in the military action in Afghanistan, for instance, only our faithful lapdog, Great Britain, has entered the hostilities with us, and even countries like France have hesitated to support our "coalition".
Plotz goes on to sound the familiar theme of a bitterly envious Russia wanting nothing more than to be allowed to tug at the coattails of its white masters in Europe and the U.S. Here he does so with the aid of seeming-Langley operative/talking head Ariel Cohen:
‘"He wanted to belong to The Club, to sit down with his friends Tony and George and Gerhard. And now he does," says the Heritage Foundation’s Ariel Cohen. That is surely psychologically satisfying for Putin.’
This sentence should have a laugh track to it— the idea of the reptilian Putin deriving "psychological satisfaction" from palling around with "Tony, George and Gerhard" is so improbable as to be ridiculous. Only an American could possibly write such a sentence with a straight face— believing that Putin, a master criminal who robbed, stole and intrigued his way to the top in the world’s most ruthless political environment, would actually derive satisfaction from a friendship with George Bush, an utter moron who was handed the throne without having to lift a finger himself, and who could not navigate a chair-lift without outside help. As politicians, they are not even in the same league, and Putin obviously knows this.
For about eight years now, these "Whither Russia" articles have tended to follow one general pattern. On the one hand, the Western journalist makes a series of patronizing generalizations about Russia’s desperate desire to Westernize; on the other hand, it blasts Russia for being unable (either economically or, in some way, genetically) to part with its old, primitive, failing ways. Here Plotz addresses Russia’s chances of getting into the WTO:
"Russia has a decent opportunity to join the WTO, but Putin is loath to undertake the economic reforms needed for entry. He doesn’t dare alienate the bankers, farmers, and other interest groups who can’t stomach foreign competition. Russia wants to belong, but doesn’t want its economy pried open."
First of all, Putin just passed a new land code, which allows for the sale of land (although not agricultural). Even the sinister conservative Ariel Cohen called the changes "revolutionary." Secondly, Russia certainly can’t be accused of not liberalizing its economy fast enough... it went from a completely closed economy to its current state faster, probably, than any other country in history. And every time Russia opened its doors in the last ten years, some kind of disaster has befallen the country— for instance, when prices were freed under Gaidar. It’s a lot to expect of the country to let foreigners come in and buy anything they want, particularly when, in the case of something like agricultural land, which would be priced so low that the entire Russian land mass would be within the budget of most Western countries, there is something of a national security issue involved. But beyond that, look at the progression of this article. In the first paragraph, Plotz is calling Russia an ugly troll; later, he’s laughing at Russians for wanting to sit at the table with Western hot shots; but then, later still, after all these insults, Plotz is telling the "troll" that it has to open its gates to let foreign capital run amok. What balls!
Plotz and Cottrell weren’t the only ones to publish articles like these. Editorials in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major papers all reiterated that Putin’s offer to cooperation has to be taken with a grain of salt, that he might be driven by all sorts of unpleasant ulterior motives. Another favorite theme is the "Russia is too shitty a country to be a valuable ally" line of reasoning. What all of these pieces have in common is the odd feature of discounting and even expressing dissatisfaction with a a war ally whose behavior with regard to us, so far, has been unimpeachable. The obvious question is: why?
It seems to me that if this war were taking place in, say, Iceland or the Phillipines, there would be no negative press towards a Russian ally whatsoever. The aggravating factor here is clearly Russia’s status in the Central Asian region as a dominating geopolitical influence. A conflict between the United States and Russia for ascendancy in the region— a revival of the centuries-old "Great Game" jousts between Russia and Britain in the area— is clearly already underway and about to heat up even further. Even as we’re cooperating with Russia now, we’re already looking ahead to the post-war fight for the rights to keep military bases in the area and, more importantly, to control a Caspian sea oil pipeline which may or may not be routed through post-Taliban Afghanistan. We are going to need a reason to build the pipeline in a direction away from Russia’s territory and spheres of influence in Armenia and Azerbaidjan, and it seems as if our journalists are working out some possible reasons already.
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