Russia: The Enemy

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS


Russia: The Enemy
November 28, 2006; Page A15

It's time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States.

This isn't simply because a former KGB agent turned Putin critic died last week in London after ingesting a dose of polonium 210, an element that usually functions as a neutron trigger in atomic bombs. Nor is it that Alexander Litvinenko's death is the latest in a series of killings, attempted murders, imprisonments and forced exiles whose victims just happened to be prominent opponents of Mr. Putin. It is because the foreign policy of Russia has become openly, and often gratuitously, hostile to the U.S.

Some examples: Last summer, Russia signed a billion-dollar arms deal with Venezuela; Hugo Chávez wasted no time fantasizing aloud about using the weapons to sink an American aircraft carrier. Last week, Russia began deliveries to Iran of highly sophisticated SA-15 anti-aircraft missiles, at a value of $700 million. Russian Defense Minister Igor Ivanov claims the missiles will "have no influence on the balance of power in the region." But the purpose of the missiles is to defend Iran's nuclear sites, which do threaten the balance of power. Mr. Ivanov also says he is "absolutely sure" the billion-dollar Bushehr reactor that Russia is building for Iran could not be used to build nuclear weapons. This is false, and Mr. Ivanov must know it: The spent plutonium from the reactor can easily be diverted and reprocessed to produce as many as 60 bombs.

At the United Nations, Russia has consistently opposed U.S. efforts to sanction Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programs and diluted the effects of the resolutions that were passed. The Russians say they oppose the use of sanctions because they "don't work." It's an odd claim coming from a government that in October brusquely imposed trade, travel and postal sanctions on neighboring Georgia.

(snip)

Yet Russia hardly depends on Iran as a weapons-export market, to say nothing of North Korea; most of its arms sales are to China and India. So why would Moscow, which has its own grave problems with Islamic radicals, abet the nuclear ambitions of a revolutionary Islamic regime that sponsors terrorism from Buenos Aires to Beirut?

(snip)

That's certainly been Mr. Putin's experience with this White House. It was George W. Bush who first saw gold in Mr. Putin's soul, sometime after the Russian had decimated the city of Grozny. It was Condoleezza Rice who came up with the formulation after the Iraq war that the U.S. should "punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia." And it was this administration that agreed last week to Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, with Mr. Bush thanking Mr. Putin for "your time and friendship."

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116468651000734270.html (subscription)

[Old and In the Way]

1. Sorry, we have more enemies than we have Treasury notes to

burn for no-bid contracts. Russia will have to wait until we can repair our fiscal house and then let another Republican administration in to fight the next generation's boogey man. What will they be known as? Neo-capitalists? Paleo-communists?

Seriously, can they write this drival with a straight face? Who's the #1 exporter of weapons in the world? They're just pissed that they have competition in the market.

[Union Thug]

2. Okay, so we all get it - the best way to pull people together is to

construct a common enemy.

Whatever. The WSJ facilitates, validates and justifies US imperialsm, and as such, I have no respect for it, its opinions, or its subscribers.

[ixion]

3. yeah, and the US MIC is so careful about who they sell weapons to

:eyes: :sarcasm: