What is Vladimir Putin doing in the Middle East? So far, it looks like he is wandering around finding states that have been either alienated or neglected by the U.S. and courting their friendship.
The Islamic world -- especially the tier of Western Asia that stretches below the southern rim of Russia proper -- has been of political interest of, if not downright domination by, Russia for more than two hundred years.
Russian "interest" in this part of the world started in the Crimea and the Caucasus. It spread to Central Asia as Russia expanded eastward and consolidated its empire. The Communist coup and subsequent Russian invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War was, perhaps the most recent expression of Russian intent in the Muslim world.
I guess you could throw Russian machinations with Arab nationalists like Nasser into the picture as well.
And so ...
Two news items struck me as particularly interesting this week.
The first was images of Vladimir Putin putting a wreath on the grave of Yasser Arafat and paying his respects to the dead Palestinian leader. Um -- there can be really no mistaking the message here.
By visiting the grave of Arafat, Putin is telling the Palestinians, "I am on your side." And, as an extension, he is trying to raise the level of political goodwill between citizens of Arab countries and the Russian state.
Of course, coverage in the mainstream press of this incredibly significant event was minimal. After all, Larry King was in court as part of the Michael Jackson circus.
The second news item was that -- as we run up to conflict with Iran over their development of nuclear energy technology -- it seems likely that most of the expertise and, perhaps in fact, even the fuel, for Iranian nuclear plants will be supplied by Russian companies.
Russia is helping to create a nuclear Iran. Why in the world would they want to do this? If you get your news from CNN, this question would probably never even come to mind.
But I think it's a very good question to ask.
Lots of good questions here.
"What is Putin doing in the Palestinian territories?"
"Why is Russia helping to build a nuclear Iran?"
"What are these folks up to in the Middle East?"
As they say in Boston, Vladimir Putin is wicked intelligent. Someone on Daily Kos once said, "Putin is terrifyingly smart."
Here is my guess as to what is going on:
If the Bush Administration is committed, blunder by blunder, toward refashioning the world along Eastern and Western lines, Putin knows that it's better for Russia to be a king among Eastern nations than a poor relation among Western ones.
In the European and North American sphere, Russia is a bad joke, a sad catastrophe, a lost cause. In the developing world -- and that includes the Muslim world -- Russia still has reserves of prestige and can play the role of a powerful protector state.
The "New World Order" of the Bush Administration is founded on two principle parts. The first part is the phenomenal system of error through which we are interacting with the rest of the world. The second part is the reaction of the world to our dangerous fumbles around the globe.
I think Putin is looking at us and seeing a doorway through which he can easily guide the Russian nation to reclaim some of its glory as a world power. As we blow up relationship after relationship with countries in the Islamic world, the Russians are going to be there with a smile, a handshake, cash and -- in the case of Iran -- nuclear technology.