Someone at Room Eight claims that the following article was written by the Republican State Senate candidate David Storobin back in 2008. The sin is supposed to be that Storobin spoke well of the russian leader Putin, but it is always good to remember that Bush and Obama both showered Putin with praise in the last decade or more. Here is part of the article:
When George W. Bush needed native Afghani help, Putin facilitated contacts between the Northern Alliance and American military and intelligence. Russia’s help in Afghanistan was so indispensable that without it the war would’ve been delayed until after the winter, giving Taliban several months to prepare. It is also indisputable that without the help of the Northern Alliance and Russian human intelligence (which Washington lacked completely because Clinton ended all such operations in the Taliban-led country), the Afghan War would’ve resulted in thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of additional deaths by NATO forces.
Of course, Russia was concerned about Islamist radicals long before America, and benefited from the destruction of Taliban, which it could not bring about on its own without the aid of the American military might.
But Putin’s Russia also became more assertive in promoting its interests, rather than just being America’s little lap dog. First, Putin implemented fiscal reforms that improved his country’s economy, such as the flat tax of only 13% that doubled tax revenue in just three years by creating an economic boom and eliminating the incentive to cheat. [Russia's flat tax example was later followed by much of Eastern Europe with similar success] More ominously, Putin took on the wealthy so-called “oligarchs” who controlled industries that the President felt he could use to promote Russian interests, often by bullying others, such as when he reduced energy flow to Ukraine and the EU.
During the Ukrainian elections in 2004, Americans tried not only to promote Viktor Yuschenko, but to turn him into a “candidate of the West” to the point where some have even traveled to Kiev. Unlike in Kosovo a half decade earlier, this time Russia fought back with all the vigor of a cornered bear, the same way Washington would fight an attempt to establish a pro-Russian, anti-American regime in Canada. The result was Moscow’s first major victory on the international scene in at least 20 years. While Ukraine still elected Victor Yuschenko, but he did not radically alter the country’s links to Russia, and was brought into line by Putin when he tried. With wind behind his sales, Putin realized that he is now a major global player. The economy was no longer in shambles. Chechnya was defeated. The nationalist feelings of Russia’s other minorities were kept below the surface. It was now Moscow’s time to branch out of the borders of the former USSR.
At times Russia is fighting just for the sake of fighting. Like a picked-on school boy who just took a self-defense course, Moscow felt the need to assert itself by poking the West in the eye as a show of strength.
Putin realized that no country will choose to ally with Russia over the United States if they have a choice. He thus made a decision to embrace the enemies of the West such as Iran, Syria and Venezuela. In the United Nations, Russia made things difficult for the United States in order to show that it is a country that must be paid attention to. At the same time, he made Kremlin a key player in the nuclear negotiations with North Korea (and tried to inject Russia into the Israel-Arab peace process).
This Russian alliance with the enemies of the West is unlikely to hold for a long time, however. While some countries, such as Venezuela, are of no long-term importance to Moscow and could be either a friend or an enemy, Iran is Russia’s natural enemy. America has no necessary reason to fight with Iran, and in fact, neither does Israel. The present quarrels are with the Ayatollahs currently in power, but when the Shah was in power, he was a close ally of the US, Israel and the West. I maintain contacts at least on some level with members of all the Iranian opposition groups and see no reason why they would be enemies of the West. Most Persians I’ve met are pleasant, generous and bright, and do not wish ill to Americans. Considering the geographical distance between the United States and Iran, there aren’t any natural conflicts between the two countries such as territorial disputes. Russia, on the other hand, has natural conflicts built-in with Iran. For one, Iran is so close to Russia that it would be immediately threatened by Tehran’s nuclear weapons, far more so than the far-away America (or even Israel would be if the radical Ayatollahs lose power). Long term, Iranian nukes are a greater threat to Russia than to anyone else.
Kremlin also has a dispute over the oil under the Caspian with Iran, where Moscow is arguing (correctly) that the Caspian is legally defined as the world’s largest lake (which would grant Russia the right to most of the Caspian oil) and not a sea, as it is commonly called, which would grant the right to much of the Caspian oil to Iran and Muslim countries in the south of the former Soviet Union. Russia also has been challenged to its south in six Muslim countries where Iran (and Turkey) tried to promote an Islamic alliance dominated by Tehran (or Ankara) at the expense of Russian interests there.
Kremlin pretends to help Tehran inside and outside the United Nations only to play Washington for a fool. Americans are paying Russians to do exactly what they want to do anyway, while at the same time making Moscow seem like a major player on the world scene. Thus, just as in Afghanistan, in Iran too Moscow’s interests are in line those of Washington.
Where Moscow’s interests diverge with Washington’s is once again in Kosovo. But this time Russia is no longer a weak state, with a dysfunctional military and a destroyed economy that face a real threat of disintegration like 10 years ago. Rather than the joke it was in the late 1990s, Putin’s Russia of 2008 is a country that matters. It matters in terms of global economy, oil and gas, United Nations, War on Terror and just about every other international issue.
CNN and other Western media likes to portray the Russian people as fools who blindly support Putin and his semi-dictatorial tendencies. But they are not fools. They know that today they are wealthier than ever before in Russian history, and Putin has been their leader responsible for the economic rise. Surely the rise in oil prices helped, but rather than stealing the newly-found wealth (like, for example, Nigerian leaders do) or squandering it on useless government programs that support degenerate behavior (as is done in the West), Putin used it to lower taxes and pay off the debt. Paying back the country’s debt is not particularly popular because citizens do not see any immediate benefit, and it would’ve been far more fashionable for Putin to engage in American-style populism where politicians spike their personal poll numbers by engaging in fiscal child abuse by borrowing and then wasting money that will have to be paid by later generations.
But more than economics, what truly makes Russians support Putin is a restored sense of pride, a sense that their country matters once again for the first time in a generation. Putin’s next test is in Kosovo. He must show his people and the international community that Moscow is willing and able to help its allies.
