The Kremlin Denials Fly

[Dover]

The Kremlin Denials Fly

By Yulia Latynina

The people in charge of foreign policy seem to have developed severe short-term memory loss. In the run-up to the U.S. presidential election, President Vladimir Putin announced that a vote for the opponents of George W. Bush was nothing less than a vote for international terrorism. But after Bush won, Putin gave an Iron Curtain-style speech in India directed against the architects of a unipolar world.

It's a sad thing. Had Senator John Kerry beaten Bush last month, it would have been a victory for international terrorism. But Bush won, scoring a victory for a unipolar world.

During the hostage crisis in Beslan, official Moscow loudly insisted that Arab terrorists were involved. The embassies of Arab countries that have enough problems with terrorism back home demanded an explanation. And the Federal Security Service was forced to explain that no Arabs had actually taken part in the terrorist attack in Beslan, and that the Chechen and Ingush terrorists had not conducted negotiations by telephone with Arab countries.

Imagine how Russia would have reacted if the United States had publicly announced that Russians as well as Arabs were involved in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, and then privately recanted, admitting in a diplomatic memo that no Russians had taken part.

The Kremlin's pronouncements offended the entire Middle East, except for Israel. At least we could have been consistent. But a month later Russia was the only non-Arab country to vote in favor of a failed UN Security Council resolution that would have barred Israel from launching preemptive strikes on terrorist bases on Palestinian territory. Just last Friday Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated Russia's right to launch preemptive strikes against terrorists anywhere in the world...cont'd

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/12/15/007.html