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Volume aaa, Number 7 |
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Bush, Putin, and the Chechen war
KATHERINE CRANE
COLUMNIST
Isn't it strange how terrorist attacks always seem to help George W. Bush? September 11 sent his approval ratings sky-high, and even the possibility of terrorism in the distant future was enough to convince Congress to let him start a war in Iraq. And now Bush's old friend Pooty-Poot, who just a few weeks ago was refusing to support him, has rejoined the team.
On Monday, Putin declared his own war on international terrorism. Of course, Putin didn't really mean it, any more than Bush meant it when he talked about being at war with all the countries that harbor terrorists. For one thing, the guerrillas who seized a Moscow theater and took the audience hostage Wednesday night were not international terrorists; they were Chechen rebels with a legitimate grievance. But Putin is clever-quite a bit cleverer than his American counterpart-and he seems to have reached the conclusion that what worked for the United States can work for him.
So far, the threat of terrorism has served a double purpose for Bush. By making a vague and probably fictitious link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, he has somehow wangled himself the power to attack Iraq. By turning the entire nation's attention to Iraq just when the economy was tanking, he has managed to keep his approval rating from going down with it. In other words, Bush has used the specter of international terrorism to pursue his own agenda, and at the same time deflect criticism at home. That is just what Putin is trying to do now, and it looks as if he will succeed.
Like Bush, Putin wants to deflect public attention from something; in this case, the mysterious and dangerous gas that Russian commandos pumped into the theater, possibly keeping the building from exploding, but also killing 116 hostages. Putin has refused to answer questions about the type of gas used, and he certainly doesn't want attention focused on the inadequate medical care given to people severely affected by it. If Putin keeps people furious at the foreign terrorists who plotted to kill hundreds of civilians, they won't have time to wonder why Putin chose to risk all those lives when he could have saved them all by ending the war in Chechnya.
Like Bush, Putin wants a war. Or rather, he wants to continue the war that is already going on against Chechnya, and has been for the last three years, though the conflict is much older than that. The original war between Russia and Chechnya began in 1851, when Russia began annexing the Balkan states along its borders, and Chechens have never considered the war to be over. Over the course of the past 150 years the Chechens have been attacked, suppressed, exiled, liberated, taken over and attacked again, and it is not entirely surprising if they have little attachment to Russia.
In fact, there is no conceivable reason, other than national pride, why Russia would not be glad to be rid of Chechnya. National pride can be very strong, though, and when a very large country goes to war against a very small country, which then keeps the war going for 150 years, it is fairly embarrassing for the large country to admit defeat. When Putin chose to perform a high-risk rescue operation rather than listen to the pleas of the hostages and end the war, he made it very clear to the people of Moscow that he would rather see them dead than see himself embarrassed.
That is why it is so important to Putin that foreign terrorists be blamed for the attack. If Putin joins the United States in making a stand against international terrorism, his dangerous act of stubbornness becomes a courageous refusal to give in to the forces of evil. Bush, who needs all the foreign support he can get, certainly won't object.