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Putin or Ahmadinejad: Who is the Bigger Threat?

Filed under: Eastern Europe ~ Middle East

Russia, like the USSR, is an Evil Empire

Displayed at the left you see a photograph of Shiri Negari, who was murdered on Tuesday, June 18th, 2002, by a Palestinian suicide bomber on her way to work. She was 21 years old.

Blogger Michelle Malkin took this photograph while participating in a protest against the visit by crazed Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia University in New York City for a speaking engagement; the lunatic was in town to address to the U.N. General Assembly at its opening ceremonies. (Michelle has a tribute to Shiri here).

Shiri speaks from the grave in this image, attending the protest in spirit to remind those gathered that she, too, would have liked to address the students at Columbia, but was prevented from doing so by terrorists from Hamas who were funded by Iran's government, which is led by Ahmadinejad -- who in turn has called for a holy war against Israel wiping it off the face of the earth. All of the NATO allies are now furiously arrayed against Iran and, amazingly enough, France's new president is leading the charge to impose draconian sanctions to keep Iran in line. If France is willing to take action, you know that Ahmadinejad is just as extreme as he can possibly get.

One might well ask: Where does Ahmadinejad get the brazen hubris necessary to confront the overwhelmingly more powerful team of the United States and Europe in this haughty, contemptuous manner? His nation, alone, is far too puny to work up such suicidal pathos (look how easily the U.S. destroyed the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq). There's a clear answer: He gets it from Russia, and specifically from Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin. It is no overstatement to say that Russia is the real root cause of turmoil in the Middle East. There would still be violence and conflict in the region if Russia ceased to exist, but it would be far more subject to U.S. influence if Russia were not fanning its flames.

And make no mistake: turmoil in the Middle East is directly in Russia's interests. Even if it doesn't actually undermine U.S. security, it still creates the conditions of uncertainty which tend to keep international oil prices inflated, and those prices are the Kremlin's lifeblood. By supporting terrorist and rogue regimes in the Middle East, Russia not only gets the chance to vent its pathological hatred of America and her values, but more importantly supports the only pillar of its economy. Peace and stability in the Middle East are the last things Russia wants.

Recently, we published a drawing depicting Putin and Ahmadinejad as lovers, and the two truly are birds of a feather. Ahmadinejad is cracking down on Iran's universities, seeking to purge them of all secular influence, while Putin is developing the maniacal "Nashi" youth cult in Russia. Ahmadinejad denies that Iran has any homosexuals, and hence can't be accused of persecuting them, while Putin jokes about rape in front of a diplomatic delegation. Ahmadinejad says the Jewish holocaust never happened, and Putin says Stalin wasn't really so bad after all. Both are shutting down newspapers and arresting or killing journalists at breakneck speed, and centralizing their power whilst crushing local government. One could go on for days listing the barbaric outrages taking place in these two countries and pointing out their similarities; it's almost impossible to decide which one is a greater affront to democracy, almost as if they are engaged in a sickening pas de deux, the Fred and Ginger of atrocity, barbarity and vulgarity.

And the two are very literally in bed together where hatred of America, Europe and Western values are concerned. Recently, the U.S. military confirmed that Iran is providing missiles to the Islamic terrorists in Iraq which are being used to kill Americans on the ground there. While these particular missiles apparently came to Iran by way of North Korea, Putin's Russia is also providing Ahmadinejad's Iran with the technology it needs to develop nuclear energy, which Iran hopes will be the basis for its obtaining a nuclear weapon. Faced with the threat of Western attack should a bomb become possible, Iran has also obtained a missile defense system from Russia to thwart such an attack. Russia has continually refused to cooperate with Western moves to sanction Iran, providing it with the diplomatic cover it needs to continue killing American soldiers in Iraq as it seeks to exercise imperial control over that troubled nation. How long will it be before we learn that Russian weapons supplied by the Kremlin and wielded by its Iranian friends are killing Americans in Iraq, or elsewhere in the Middle East?

And we must not forget that Russia is doing far more than making common cause with Iran in order to foment turmoil and instability in the Middle East. It is directly supporting Hamas itself, as well as Hezbollah and Syria, with diplomatic protection, weapons and lots of cold hard cash. And Russia's hostility is not limited to the Middle East; it is also providing weapons and diplomatic support to the crazed dictator Hugo Chavez in Venezulea, and seeking to cooperate with the abusive, anti-democratic communist regime in China.

The ironies are almost overwhelming, of course. You can't get any more anti-Muslim than Russia's conduct of its war against Chechnya, and there is zero tolerance for dark-skinned non-Orthodox people in Slavic Russia, yet the hyper-Islamic Ahmadinejad and the ultra-Orthodox Putin both have no problem abandoning their supposed core values and ignoring this fundamental hostility in the short term (just the same way that it was easily possible for Stalin to enter into a secret pact with Hitler selling out Europe). Although these kind of alliances between rogue nations always lead ultimately to their destruction (both Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR were obliterated), in the short term the new Evil Empire means a great deal of trouble for the West if it is allowed to fester and grow. Immediate action is needed to prevent this from happening. A new Ronald Reagan must step to the forefront, and the upcoming U.S. presidential elections are the ideal place to start looking for her (or him).

It's time to give up the ridiculous, childish and arrogant idea that the only reason Iran and Russia are keeping company together is that our misguided policies have driven them together. The idea that by "engaging" these two regimes we could "convince" them to stop desecrating the globe with their barbarism is a flight of fancy, the easy way out, too good to be true. It's oh-so-comforting to imagine that we are so powerful that if we only say the right magic words, all our enemies will turn into friends, or at least harmless bystanders, that we don't have to fight -- and this is exactly what our enemies want us to think. They want us to drop our guard, "engage" them with meaningless rhetoric and allow them to consolidate, manipulate and destroy.

It was not kind words of understanding that brought down the USSR, it was direct confrontation. And it was just plain crazy for us to believe that simply because it had been defeated the USSR would slink away into the recesses of history, never to be heard from again. Would we have become happy communists if the USSR had won the cold war? Of course not. And Russia has not abandoned its fundamental hostility to our values or its desire to rule the world with its own brand of what's-good-for-you. It simply bided its time waiting for the chance to lash out, and rising oil prices have made it think (quite wrongly) that the time has come.

It was possible for us to turn Japan and Germany into friendly, democracy-respecting nations because we physically gutted their leadership and obliterated them militarily. No such thing happened in Russia after World War II, and today the "president" of the country is a proud KGB spy who spent most of life trying to destroy our democratic friends in Germany. As long as Putin and his ilk hold power in Russia, that nation will remain devoted to our destruction by any means possible. They are a mere shadow of their former might, and so the only way they can make serious trouble for is is by getting us to drop our guard. And so that is what they are endeavoring feverishly to accomplish.

That Vladimir Putin, presiding over a nation which loses up to 1 million from its population every year due to demographic crisis, and works for an average wage of $3/hour, would think he has the time and energy to spare to make common cause with one of the world's most despised despots, antagonizing the entire world into a cold (and perhaps hot) war, and that nobody within Russia would seriously challenge his doing so, is clear proof of the depth and breadth of Russia's abiding hatred for the West and its total inability to act rationally in the face of it. And what else should we expect from a man who spent his entire life in the KGB, learning not merely to hate the West but to destroy it by any possible means. Do we really believe he simply woke up, as if from a dream, when the USSR collapsed and abandoned his life's work? If so, we deserve to suffer for our stupidity, hubris and insularity.

We must fight back, and we must do so now. There are those who argue that it was wise to give Ahmadinejad the opportunity to speak at Columbia, since it helps to elicit his crazy views and lay them before the world, helps us to better understand how to deal with him. This is pure nonsense. Ironically, Columbia's own president said, introducing Ahmadinejad as a speaker: "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous." So much for respectfully allowing him to speak and eliciting his views! As David J. Feith & Jordan C. Hirsch of National Review put it:

It is naive to ignore the uses to which Ahmadinejad will put his invitation. Over the past years, Ahmadinejad's confrontational rhetoric and policies have resulted in diplomatic isolation and economic hardship for Iran. These developments are unpopular among Iranians. It is beneficial to Ahmadinejad and his regime, then, if he can claim to the Iranian people that his leadership is not hurting their country. If he can demonstrate that he is treated abroad as a respected leader, he will be better able to counter his critics at home. Columbia's invitation thus gives political assistance to Ahmadinejad.

By allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, Columbia has enabled his dictatorship and increased his power, not diminished it. The same happened when Putin was invited on Larry King. It would be one thing to extend such invitations if we were actively engaged in combat with our enemies, but we are not. As Anne Applebaum wrote in the Washington Post: "it was deeply naive to imagine that the Iranian president would enter into a 'vigorous debate' with students who were deploying their 'powers of dialogue and reason,' as Columbia University President Lee Bollinger stated before the event, or that he would answer the appropriately aggressive questions Bollinger put to him." Applebaum points out that Columbia didn't even insist on an exchange whereby Ahmadinejad would allow a strongly anti-Iranian Westerner to address a large group of students at one of Iran's most prestigious universities -- much less is Columbia devoting its resources to figuring out ways we can remove this maniac from his seat of power and oppression.

We must not do the same with Vladimir Putin, it's his only hope of defeating us with only the feeble resources of the neo-Soviet Union at his disposal. We have to stop asking for it -- or we're going to get it. Right between the eyes.

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Comments

Yuri iz Pitera says:

So your thesis by comparing the physical purge of Japan and German leadership was essential in turning these enemies into democracies. Your solution (although not stated but quite implied) is to physically remove the Russian leadership. What do you think WE the Russian people think about this? You think we just lie back and let foreigners screw us over without getting angry?

The cold fact is, Iran does not invade sovereign states, the Russian Federation does not invade sovereign states, the only country to invade sovereign states and bomb them in our era is the United States and a handful of their allies.
The most Russian Federation has done were the gas conflicts in the Ukraine and the wine sanctions against Georgia and Moldavia, a far cry from invading and bombing these people.

As well, I would like to know where you get these facts about my country. You must be using some statistics from the Yeltsin era, because the average Russian wage is much over 3 dollars an hour. The monthly salary of an average worker (grocery clerk) in St. Petersburg is 24,000 roubles in a month. This works out to about 1,000 dollars. Factory workers at the Ford Plant get around 2,000 a month if memory serves me correct. Although a crummy student job, the University of Saint Petersburg paid me as a TA at about 250 rubles in an hour. This works out to basically 10 an hour. That is less than my American equivalent, but not by much. Putin may not be responsible for our economic upsurge, but he is not wasting it and is wisely investing the money in other industries so these oil prices will not be our only pillar. You have a saying, "to make money you need money."

As for instability, we may give arms, diplomatic meetings, and some money to groups like Hamas, but it pales in comparison with what US ally Saudi Arabia gives them. As well, the most unstable countries in that region are those that you invade. We are not responsible for the chaos in Iraq, only you are. We are not responsible for high gas prices, you are. We may give tacit support to insurgents in Iraq, but again nothing compared to Saudi Arabia and Iran. Yes, we do give weapons, weapons such as SAM systems which at the same time you people claim as being ineffective and low quality.

Our trade with communist, oppressive, undemocratic China is quite prosperous, but it is nowhere near as prosperous as your trade with China which is just so phenomenal I do not even know where to start. I am sure you are not happy about what Clinton did with China, but you really do not have a leg to stand on to criticize us and our dealings with China when your nation is granted "most-favoured nation" status.

With all these dealings with all these countries around us, it sounds like we just work and trade with them. European trade with Russia is at an all time high, despite the rhetoric, and Iran and the Russian Federation have worked together in Caspian Sea. But we are not as friendly with Iran as you make it out. You leave out the important fact that we are pulling a lot of our technical expertise from Bushesher nuclear power plant and are working much closer with the West on this issue than we have previously.

La Russophobe says:

YURI:

All through the first cold war, all we heard from the Soviets was how innocent they were and how evil America was by comparison. And where are those Soviets now, I wonder?

I assume the people of Russia support Putin whole-heartedly, and they felt the same about the leaders of the USSR. Accordingly, I assume they will fight to protect him. But since his government is hell-bent on undermining our security, I feel it is a battle worth fighting, just as it was worth it to fight against and destroy the USSR. And I presume that Russia will do just as well in the second cold war that it is now provoking as the USSR did in the first -- namely, it will lose and cease to exist. Hopefully, something better will replace it. And naturally, if you feel the US and NATO are threats to Russia (though we aren't arming the Chechens as you are arming Venezuela and Hamas), you should want that struggle to occur. I guess you think you will do better the second time around, with a country much smaller and weaker than the USSR and no allies. I'd wish you good luck, but no amount will help you.

I wonder if you asked how the people of Chechnya felt about Russia's invasion. Did you? Did you publish your questions? Can you link me to them?

Do you imagine that we in the West should just sit idly by and let Russia threaten us by making common cause with our worst enemies? Surely you can't be that crazed, can you? Surely you admit we have the right to defend ourselves from such actions? And since you don't begin by denying Russia is a threat, it's clear it is.

Seriously, Yuri, if you were trying to destroy us, would you admit it? Wouldn't you say exactly what you've just said, trying to lull us into complacency and make us easier to attack?

Your attempt to discuss St. Petersburg is unavailing. I am not interested in the local wages in the few tiny wealthy areas that monopolize the nation's income, just as in Tsarist times, but in the NATIONAL average, which is a matter of public record and which the vast majority of Russia's people must live on. It's rather outrageous that while calling for source material you give NONE yourself. I"m offended by your blatant hypocrisy. I suggest you read my blog La Russophobe, as I document Russia's economic picture there on a weekly basis. Russia's average NATIONAL wage is roughly $500/month, which translates to roughly $3/hour for a 160-hour full time month of work. See here, for instance, and many other sources:

http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/06/russian-healthcare-system-sick-in-so.html

The fact that you attempt to discuss this point, a very minor one in the text, which has nothing to do with the thesis that Russia is supporting terrorism and foes of the US, shows that you cannot deny the thesis, and therefore confirms its fundamental truth. I guess you are suggesting that you think Russia, with a sub-60 male lifespan and losing hundreds of thousands from its population each year, CAN afford to joust with the NATO allies. If so, you're a madman.

If America were giving money to the Chechen fighters and justified it by saying that other countries gave more, would you accept that rationalization? I doubt it. For your information, there are MANY people in the USA who criticize Saudi Arabia and US policy towards it. But THIS post is about RUSSIA.

Russia is providing nuclear technology and weapons to Iran, one of America's most mortal foes, despite the wishes of the entire Western world. If you think Russia has the "right" to do this and should fight the West to preserve that "right," you think like the neo-Soviet men who destroyed the USSR. You don't acknowledge a single mistake Russia is making, and perhaps you are not even aware of how totally the world has turned against your country (logical, since your leaders have cut you off from real information just as in Soviet times).

And so you shall destroy Russia as well.

Yuri iz Pitera v Austinye says:

My information I find to be very diverse as at the moment I am studying abroad in all places the University of Texas at Austin. I do not understand how Russians are devoid of foreign information, as I am able to get Western newspapers there very easily, and even for the non-English speaker, you are able to get translated into Russian articles. True, I do not really cite anything, mostly because this is an internet post in a non-acedemic institution. I am not going to spend so much time since at the same time I am doing a paper.

What I do not get is your whole attitude of placing Russia as this great threat and at the same time making claims about its inability to do anything. If our leadership is so incompetent, than why are they a threat to you, the suburbanite in America. We sell the Venezuelan military with some new military equipment, this is true, but are you seriously saying that Chavez is a threat to you? Despite his often comic rhetoric, he really doesn't do anything other than make telemundoesqe TV shows for his electorate in Caracas. I know a bit of Spanish, they are quite funny, you should watch them. Iran is a threat to US forces in Iraq, but you people are for sure much more threats to them then they are to you. Again, Iran in its present form has never ever gone to war with another country.

If by threat to US national security you mean us selling weapons to countries you might invade? Well than your logic is most definently flawed. You should say we are a threat to US unipolar idea of the world, that much is true and I fully acknowledge that Russia, along with some of its like minded allies is a threat to global US hegemony, but we are not a threat to you the people of the United States because as you say we are incapable of it.

As for the wage debate. I will hand you this, that St. Petersburg is not the best example, but it does prove that opportunity exists in Russia for the average Russian. The average wage however appears to be more around 13,000 roubles, aproximently 500 dollars according to July 23 edition of Kommersant'. Forgive me, I could not find your economic figures on your site, except for that article about the growing inequality in my nation.

My nation is not in a rosy condition for sure. There are many problems that we are working on such as this demographic crisis, but atleast we are getting somewhere. There is a sense of optimism and the country is undoubtedly better run than it was in the Yeltsin era.

La Russophobe says:

YURI:

You are repeating that you want a confrontation with the U.S. and are prepared to do nothing to avoid it, attempting to place the blame entirely upon the U.S. just as the USSR did. Fine. You've got one. That's what this post is calling for. You should be agreeing with it whole-heartedly.

I'd ask you to stop and think for a minute about whether you really have the right to lecture Americans about who they are allowed to be afraid of. Do Americans have the right to lecture Russians in the same way? Do you really think we are stupid enough to let you do so? Truly, you sound just like a Soviet propagandist -- the ones who destroyed the USSR with their unhinged, unrealistic dream world that ultimately collapsed.

As clearly stated in this text, Russia is dangerous because it is supplying support to countries that are dangerous, like Iran and Venezuela. Russia has a vestigial Soviet place it doesn't deserve in the UN and the G-8 which it uses to provide diplomatic cover to our enemies, and it has an accidental and temporary flow of money from oil resources that is uses to fund our enemies. And because Russia is relatively weak now, it is the proper time to take action, rather than waiting until later when Russia might become stronger. Do me the courtesy of actually reading what I've written before you criticize it, if you please.

A person who earns $3/hour will have a great deal of difficulty getting Internet access. Most Russians, of course, have no opportunity to study in foreign countries either, and don't do so, nor does Russia encourage foreigners to teach in Russian universities as America does. Your views are totally unrealistic, detached from Russian reality, indicating you are a member of the elite with little actual knowledge of real life in your own country outside Moscow and Piter. The Kremlin has seized control of all the media that ordinary Russians have access to, especially television, and your inability to even accept, much less criticize, that fact is barbaric in the extreme. It is neo-Soviet and disgusting. The total lack of any credible opposition to the Putin regime is clear proof that Russians lack the basic communication skills to form one. The lack of opposition implies to the world that Russia is a barbaric state unworthy of sitting at the table with civilized nations. Maybe you don't realize it, but all you are doing is repeating the propaganda line of the Kremlin. There's no doubt that the Kremlin is very good at fooling the people of Russia (though, to be sure, it's not that difficult a task) and you may well have been victimized just as many were in the time of Stalin.

Once again, while you talk of having information, you DO NOT PROVIDE A SINGLE HYPERLINK to any source material of any kind challenging the facts I've put forth here, but merely continue to spew out your own ridiculous propaganda based on your personal opinions. In light of your call for quality research, this makes you look simply ridiculous.

Peteris Cedrins says:

La Russophobe wrote:

"A person who earns $3/hour will have a great deal of difficulty getting Internet access..."

Internet penetration in Russia is at 19,5%. Usage rose by 803,2% over the last seven years. (Data from this site.)

Though the first figure isn't especially impressive when compared to penetration in most European countries, the growth rate is (Bosnia is the winner in growth, at 11 420%!).

Though I agree with la Russophobe that Russia is extremely dangerous, I think la Russophobe is a victim of his/her own hyperbole, as so often.

Bosnia is a lot poorer than Russia, but penetration is now higher. Internet access is now seen as a necessity by many, and making $3/hr. -- or even far less -- is not an impediment; I live in the poorest region in Latvia, where many people earn less than Russians, but some friends earning $200 a month have gotten broadband. In fact, I don't know a single person under the age of 45 who isn't wired.

Before they got wired, they used cybercafés -- those charge less than $1 an hour here. I assume that cafés are ubiquitous in those parts of Russia where obtaining access is still difficult. Hell, they're everywhere even in Nigeria, where usage is up by 3900%.

There are severe problems with censorship in Russia, the mainstream media is almost entirely under the Kremlin's control, etc. ...that's a different issue, as is the ease with which journos get snuffed.

Still, Yuri is right to point out that getting other info is not so difficult. He's also right to point out that foreign texts are frequently translated into Russian. I'd be interested in seeing a comparison between the US and the RF on that score, actually -- like Russians, many Americans are rather ignorant about the rest of the world... many more Americans tend to be a lot more ignorant, though, in my personal experience.

Having access to info is one thing. Taking advantage of that is another.

Yuri is obviously not suffering from a lack of info. In fact, his views are shared by an awful lot of the (pseudo?-)left and huge numbers of people basking in nearly universal Internet access. It's also silly to accuse him (and all Russians) of lacking basic communication skills -- that's not the problem, Kim. His communication skills look fine to me, esp. since he's not a native Anglophone.

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Putin or Ahmadinejad: Who is the Bigger Threat?

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