Israeli press reports US pledge of war on Iran-is Bush preparing an October Surprise?

By Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site, 21/05/08

An Israeli press report that US President George W. Bush intends to launch a military attack on Iran before he leaves office at the beginning of next year prompted a heated denial from the White House Tuesday.


The article, which appeared in Tuesday’s Jerusalem Post, cited a report on Israeli Army Radio, quoting Israeli officials who had met with Bush and his delegation during their visit to Israel last week.

"A senior member of the president’s entourage said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for," the article quoted an Israel official as saying.

The report cited the US official as stating that "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" had delayed a decision on military action against Iran.

The recent crisis in Lebanon and the evident ease with which the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement seized control of Beirut, according to the report, had placed a US attack on the Islamic Republic back on the front burner.

Bush expressed the opinion that "the disease must be treated, not the symptoms," according to the Israeli officials.

The White House denial—issued within hours of the story appearing on the Jerusalem Post’s web site—was notably harsh in its tone. "An article in today’s Jerusalem Post about the president’s position on Iran that quotes unnamed sources—quoting unnamed sources—is not worth the paper it’s written on," read the statement.

Later on Tuesday, however, Bush’s spokesperson Dana Perino was pressed by several reporters, who expressed skepticism in regard to the denial. "Do the President and the Vice President feel that an attack is called for—whether someone said that in Israel, or not?" asked one.

Dana Perino refused to answer, reiterating the official position that Washington is working to resolve its confrontation with Iran "diplomatically" but that it would not take any "options off the table."

In reality, the Jerusalem Post story is hardly the only indication that the Bush administration is preparing for a military attack on Iran.

Ample physical evidence exists in the stepped up US military deployments in the region, with the Navy once again having two aircraft carrier battle groups—the USS Lincoln and the USS Harry S. Truman—within striking distance of Iran.

Meanwhile, the flagship of the 6th Fleet, the USS Mount Whitney, has been deployed off the coast of Lebanon, in what the Navy has described as an "unscheduled mission." The ship is the Navy’s most advanced command, control and intelligence vessel, capable of coordinating a major attack over a wide region. It joined the USS Cole, a missile destroyer, already there.

In Washington, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before a Senate committee Tuesday to reiterate the Pentagon’s unsubstantiated charges that Iran is responsible for violence in Iraq. The lack of a US military response thus far, he stressed, "does not signal lack of resolve or capability to defend ourselves against threats."

In his speech before the Israeli Knesset last week, Bush placed Iran at the center of his pledge of unconditional support for Israel. "America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions," he said. "Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

After Bush’s visit, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the press that Olmert and Bush had agreed on the need for "tangible action" to thwart Iran’s supposed drive to develop a nuclear weapon.

"We are on the same page. We both see the threat.... And we both understand that tangible action is required to prevent the Iranians from moving forward on a nuclear weapon," Olmert spokesman Mark Regev told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

Referring to diplomatic efforts to exert pressure on Iran, Regev added, "It is clearly not sufficient, and it’s clear that additional steps will have to be taken."

Even as the US and Israel stepped up the drumbeat about an alleged Iranian nuclear threat, Mohammad El-Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spoke before a World Economic Forum session in Egypt Monday, declaring that the UN nuclear watchdog agency has no evidence that Iran is building a bomb.

Well before the story appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Ha’aretz reported that "Iran’s nuclear program has held center stage" in the talks between Bush and Olmert. Israeli officials, the paper reported, presented Bush with intelligence data that supposedly contradicted the National Intelligence Estimate produced by US spy agencies last year, which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

"Will this be enough to alter the position of the administration on the possibility of a US strike of the nuclear installations in Iran? It is not clear," the paper reported. It added, however, that the Israeli government is insisting that Iran is approaching the "point of no return," and immediate action is required.

As for Bush, it commented, the closer he "comes to the end of his tenure, he is certainly thinking about the legacy of his presidency, beyond the contentious war in Iraq."

The suggestion being made is that one way to change the subject from the disastrous legacy embodied in the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the launching of yet another act of military aggression, one which would undoubtedly throw the entire region into chaos.

One clue to the political thinking within the top echelons of the Bush administration came in the form of an audiotape. The tape was part of the material the Pentagon turned over recently to the New York Times in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for its article exposing the Defense Department’s relationship to a group of retired officers who regularly appeared on television news, promoting the administration’s line on Iraq.

The tape was of a December 2006 luncheon meeting between then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a group of these "military analysts"—referred to by the Pentagon itself as "message force multipliers."

The mood at the meeting was clearly one of dismay and even anger over the results of the 2006 midterm election, in which a wave of popular antiwar sentiment delivered control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats.

Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael Delong is heard noting to Rumsfeld that with the new political configuration on Capitol Hill, "you’re not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there until it [a terrorist attack] happens."

Rumsfeld agreed, responding: "We haven’t had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it’s not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment ... The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it’s a shame we don’t have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you’d think we’d be able to understand it..."

The "correction" for the failure of the American people to support the war in Iraq and the global eruption of American militarism under the mantle of the "war on terrorism" is, in Rumsfeld’s view, another "attack," along the lines of September 11, 2001. Clearly, the conception is that another round of "lethality" and "carnage" would serve to stun the public and create conditions for the administration to impose its political will by extraordinary means.

Certainly, one means of making such an attack all the more likely would be the launching of a military strike against Iran.

The reports from Israel and the military buildup in the region raise an obvious question: With the approach of the 2008 elections, are elements within the Bush administration preparing an "October Surprise" in the form of an unprovoked attack on Iran?

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Russia and Georgia on the brink of armed conflict over Abkhazia

By Vladimir Volkov
World Socialist Web Site, 10/05/08

Tensions between Russia and Georgia have intensified to the brink of open armed conflict.

Both sides accuse each other of escalating tensions and armed preparations, threatening to plunge the region into a new round of bloody conflicts. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, conflicts in the Caucasus have taken the lives of tens of thousands of people.

The center of the confrontation at present is Abkhazia, a small territory in the northwestern part of Georgia bordering Russia and located along the shore of the Black Sea. The majority of the population in Abkhazia carries Russian passports.

The Abkhazian side claims that 1,500 Georgian troops have been sent into the Kodori Valley on the border of the republic and 2,000 into the Zugdidi region. According to Russia, practically every day there are deliveries of military supplies to Georgia, particularly from Turkey.

Georgia accuses Russia of trying to carry out a "creeping annexation" of Abkhazia, and of concentrating its armed forces there. At the beginning of May, Russia increased by one-and-a-half times its contingent of what it calls peace keepers in Abkhazia-from 2,000 to 3,000 troops, justifying this action by the military preparations being made by Georgia, as well as the desire of the Georgian regime to enter NATO.

The situation has heated up dramatically since a Georgian unmanned reconnaissance plane was shot down on April 20. Georgia insists that it was destroyed by a Russian MiG-29 fighter plane, but Moscow claims it was shot down by the armed forces of Abkhazia.

A few days later, a similar Georgian spy plane was shot down, and on May 4, two more.

On April 27, Valery Kenyaikin, a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, warned that if matters reached the level of armed conflict, Russia would be prepared to use "military methods" to defend its citizens.

In the days since, the situation has remained tense, although Russia somewhat muted its propaganda campaign to accommodate the Kremlin inauguration of the new Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev.

One of the latest episodes in the confrontation was the statement made on May 5 by the Georgian Foreign Ministry that the country was ending its participation in the 1995 pact between nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) regarding military collaboration. This document, which stipulated the creation of a joint system of air defense, was signed by the heads of the ten states of the CIS: Armenia, Belorussia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Russia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenia, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Although Georgia’s participation in this agreement was largely nominal, its gesture in repudiating the pact testifies to the depth of the intensifying conflict.

Georgia’s geo-political significance

The strained relations between Russia and Georgia date from the US-backed coup d’état in Tbilisi carried out in the fall of 2003, known as the "Rose Revolution." In the course of these events, then-Georgian president, Eduard Shevardnadze-the minister of foreign affairs of the USSR during Gorbachev’s "perestroika"-was forced to resign, and power passed to a troika of younger politicians whom he had promoted and who had been his closest protégés.

Mikhail Saakashvili took the post of president, Zurab Zhvania became prime minister, and Nino Burdzhanadze became the head of parliament. In February 2005, under as yet unexplained and rather strange circumstances, Zhvania, who was considered an experienced and extremely influential politician, was found dead. After his death, full power was concentrated in the hands of Saakashvili, who has shown himself to be the servile partner and, in essence, a puppet of the United States.

Combining "free market" economic liberalism and patronage of big business with assaults on the living standards of the common citizens of Georgia, Saakashvili has been forced to rely increasingly on the political and military support of the West, primarily the US. He has also sought salvation in ever more aggressive nationalist rhetoric. One of the touchstones of the latter is the slogan of reestablishing Tbilisi’s control over the two separatist regions that have broken away-South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

One other historical region of Georgia, Adzharia, which de facto became independent in the 1990s under the leadership of a local politician, Aslan Abashidze, was, in the spring of 2004, almost bloodlessly returned to Tbilisi’s control. Abashidze was exiled and, according to rumors, is hiding to this day in Russia.

From the moment Saakashvili came to power, the United States gave his government political and military support, helping, in particular, to arm, equip and strengthen the Georgian army, which in the previous decade had largely been a collection of separate units subordinated to various commanders.

For the US, this support has major significance. According to the doctrine worked out in the post-Soviet period by leading centers of the Washington establishment, the region of Central Asia, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus is decisive to global geo-political domination in the immediate historical period. Rich in oil, gas and mineral resources, this region is a bridge between Southeast Asia, with the growing economies of China and India, and Europe-the most important competitor of the American ruling elite.

Control over access to the region’s natural resources and their supply to world markets can provide a decisive advantage in the struggle for geo-political domination in a period when the American economy is increasingly losing its leading world position, and the world capitalist economy as a whole is descending into an abyss of economic crisis unseen since the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Russia, in turn, is emerging as one of the active participants in the sharpening geo-political struggle. Relying on its natural resources and reaping enormous profits from soaring prices of raw materials, and possessing the biggest military machine in Eurasia, including a powerful arsenal of nuclear weapons, Russia during Vladimir Putin’s presidency was able to recoup some of the positions on the world arena it had lost in 1990s.

For the time being, Moscow has managed to retain its control of the strategic oil and gas pipeline routes into Europe from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea area, but this situation could be quickly undermined if nations in the region decided to support projects for which the United States and Western Europe are lobbying.

The strengthening the military and political influence of the US in the Caucasus, Ukraine and other countries of Eastern Europe is a crucial element in the efforts of the American ruling elite to secure its geo-political interests against its European competitors. US plans to develop an American missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic, and similar proposals being made by Turkey, are animated by Washington’s overarching drive for hegemony in the region.

The aggressive policies of American imperialism are the main source of the growing confrontation in the Caucasus. This, however, by no means alters the fact that Russia’s bellicose response is dictated exclusively by the selfish interests of the ruling oligarchic and bureaucratic clans in the Kremlin, whose power is based on the ruthless exploitation of the Russian working class and the plundering of the country’s natural resources.

The threat of confrontation with NATO

A new turn in the confrontation in the Caucasus began in March 2006, when Russia introduced economic sanctions against Georgia (and also Moldavia). A complete ban was placed on import into Russia of Georgian mineral water and wine, for which Russia has traditionally been the main market. These sanctions were a painful blow to Georgian agricultural producers, who have not been able to redirect their products to the markets of other countries. Losses to the Georgian economy are valued at tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.

In the fall of the same year, the Russian embassy stopped issuing visas to citizens of Georgia-after Russian military personnel were seized under suspicion of espionage. The Kremlin also incited a chauvinist campaign to persecute Georgian entrepreneurs living in Russia.

Later, Russia lifted some of the sanctions and limitations, but, on the whole, the atmosphere of suspicion, fear and mutual incrimination only thickened.

The immediate catalyst for the latest increase in tension is the plan to accept Georgia into NATO, compounded by Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February of this year. The West’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence created a precedent for legitimizing separatist regimes in regions such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia and Pridnestrovie in Moldavia. Russia warned that it might respond to the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by recognizing the independence of the three above-cited pro-Russian regions.

Up to now, however, the Kremlin has held back from taking such a step, despite the fact that Russia’s State Duma in March conducted public debates and spoke in favor of recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This caution is fed by fears that a line might be crossed in Russian-US relations leading to a direct geo-political and even military confrontation with Washington.

Meanwhile, the US intervention in the Caucasus and in Eastern Europe continues. Last month, at a NATO summit in Brussels, the alliance reviewed the question of offering Ukraine and Georgia membership action plans for entry into NATO. Although the decision was negative, the majority of commentators indicate that this was only a temporary postponement.

The entry of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, if it occurs, will sharply increase the danger of armed conflict between Russia and the NATO bloc, with unpredictable consequences. The question of the status of Abkhazia is one of the disagreements that contain the seeds of a bloody conflict in the region.

That is why the Kremlin has preferred not to recognize the juridical independence of Abkhazia, while deciding instead to strengthen economic ties with the republic. On March 6, Russia declared the lifting of economic sanctions against Abkhazia, and on April 16, President Putin instructed the Russian government to establish special relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which essentially set in motion a mechanism for integrating these regions into the social and economic sphere of Russia.

The newspaper Kommersant wrote on April 17 that Putin "has in fact ... ordered the establishment of relations with the unrecognized republics according to the model of the relations between the federal center and the regions of Russia."

The leading countries of the West have condemned Russia’s actions. At a session of the UN Security Council on April 23, the US, Great Britain, France and Germany spoke in support of the Georgian government.

For now, none of the NATO countries has made a proposal concerning the withdrawal of Russian peace keepers from the zone of conflict or their replacement by some other force. But the atmosphere of preparing world public opinion for the possibility of armed conflict with Russia continues to intensify.

Senators Joseph Biden (Democrat of Delaware) and Richard Lugar (Republican of Indiana), who are respectively the chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, recently declared that attempts to cajole Moscow had failed. They say the time has come to show unity and resolve within the transatlantic community, and that NATO should decide to offer Georgia and Ukraine membership application plans at its next summit in December of this year. "If we do not begin to act soon, peaceful resolution of the crisis will become impossible," Lugar and Biden declared.

In fact, this would signify an ultimatum that the Kremlin acknowledge that the loss of its most important geo-political positions in the "near abroad" is an accomplished fact.

No less aggressive is the ideological campaign being waged by the Russian media. One of the leading Kremlin political observers, Mikhail Leontiev, said last February in a radio interview: "I see colossal challenges and threats. I feel that Russia must prepare for war, and not simply pick its nose."

He added: "They [the Americans] want to destroy us ... If we prepare for war well, then perhaps it will not happen ... But if we prepare badly, it definitely will."

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Israel and Syria announce negotiations amid ongoing US-Israeli threats to Iran

By Peter Symonds
World Socialist Web Site, 06/05/08

Israel and Syria announced last Wednesday that negotiations via Turkish mediators were underway for a comprehensive peace treaty. Far from being a step toward lowering regional tensions, the move is a transparent attempt on Israel’s part at detaching Syria from its ally Iran amid ongoing threats of an attack against Tehran by the Israeli and/or US military.


Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spelled out the terms in comments on Thursday, declaring that "the Syrians also need to understand that [a peace deal] means full renunciation of their support of terrorism—of Hezbollah, of Hamas and of its problematic relations with Iran". The unstated quid pro quo would be the return of the Golan Heights seized from Syria during the 1967 war.

While Israel is certainly seeking to choke off support for the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, the chief aim is to rupture relations between Syria and Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal: "Israeli officials say Syria’s secular government is fundamentally averse to its strategic alliance with Iran’s Islamist rulers. They say Damascus needs to be offered economic and diplomatic incentives to offset the assistance supplied by Iran."

Damascus responded with an editorial in the state-run Tishrin newspaper stating "there should be no preconditions in the negotiations" and that "Syria’s international ties are not negotiable". The statement appears to be little more than an attempt to placate Iran as well as public opinion at home. Having agreed to talks, the Syrian government is well aware that Israel will be insisting on firm security guarantees in return for any handover of the strategic Golan Heights.

The announcement has provoked opposition in Israel, including within the government. Eli Yishai, the trade minister and leader of the extremist Shas party, opposed any deal, saying: "Syria is still the foundation of the axis of evil, and I am not sure it is appropriate to transfer Israel’s northern front to the axis of evil." A television poll found that 70 percent of respondents oppose withdrawing from the Golan Heights as part of an agreement with Syria, with only 22 percent in favour.

The Israeli government’s critics are well aware what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is seeking to do, but are sceptical that it can be achieved. "You have to make a cold assessment whether Israel could drive a wedge between Syria and Iran," Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, told the New York Times. "Unfortunately, in the present period, Iran has Syria within its grip to a far greater extent than it did in the 1990s when previous negotiations with the Syrians were held."

Some commentators have speculated that the negotiations with Syria are something of a setback to the Bush administration, which has previously opposed such a step. The New York Times reported last Thursday that US officials "feared such a negotiation would appear to reward Syria at a time when the United States was seeking to isolate it for its meddling in Lebanon and its backing of Hezbollah." One Bush administration official described the announcement as "a slap in the face".

Whatever tactical differences may exist, Israel and the US share a common objective of splitting Syria from Iran, as the military drumbeat against Tehran continues. Israel is quite prepared to use the stick as well as the carrot. Last September Israel launched an air strike on a building in Syria’s eastern desert in a graphic demonstration of its ability and willingness to attack wherever and whenever it pleased. Effectively sanctioning the raid, the Bush administration released intelligence last month purportedly proving that Damascus was building a nuclear reactor at the site—a menacing threat to the nuclear facilities in neighbouring Iran.

The US has pursued its own efforts to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran. At an international conference last May in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointedly held a discussion with Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem while shunning his Iranian counterpart despite the fact that Washington brands both countries as "state sponsors of terrorism". Last November, Syria was invited to, and attended, the international summit organised by the Bush administration in Annapolis, which, behind the cover of Israeli-Palestinian peace, aimed to further isolate Iran.

Iran was clearly at the top of the agenda when President Bush visited Israel earlier this month. He told the Israeli parliament on May 15: "American stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions... For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." While the White House later dismissed press reports that an attack on Iran had been discussed, Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev confirmed that the two leaders were "on the same page" and understood that "tangible action" was needed to block Iran’s supposed drive to build a nuclear weapon.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to circulate its latest report on Iran’s nuclear programs this week. Even before the report was released, Rice and her British counterpart, Foreign Secretary David Milliband, last week again demanded that Iran come clean, and threatened a new round of economic and diplomatic sanctions. Last December, a National Intelligence Estimate by US spy agencies found that Iran had halted any nuclear weapons research program in 2003—a conclusion that Bush has effectively dismissed.

Publicly, the Bush administration and the Olmert government still pay lip service to the need for a "diplomatic solution" to the standoff with Iran. Behind the scenes, however, discussion continues about military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites prior to the end of Bush’s term of office.

In an article entitled "Bombing Iran: the Clamor Persists", Time magazine commented: "Listening to the questions of General David Petraeus in the Senate [last] Thursday, you might think the US was heading for a new war in the Gulf. Senators from both sides of the aisle spent as much time asking him about Iran as they did about Iraq and Afghanistan." In testimony to the congressional hearing, Petraeus supported diplomatic efforts but declared that military action against Iran should be kept as a "last resort".

Despite White House denials, Bush clearly had discussions in Israel over a military attack on Iran. A senior Israeli official told Time: "A military option is not a good option. But there’s only one thing worse than that, which is Iran going nuclear." The article also cited the remarks of Yossi Kuperwasser, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer, who warned that it would soon be too late to act against Iran’s nuclear programs. Referring to military strikes on Iran, he said: "Just do it. For Christ’s sake, do it and solve our problem."

Yesterday’s Scotsman on Sunday pointed to the discussion in Israeli circles on the need to take action if the Bush administration failed to do so. An Israeli official told the newspaper: "It’s certainly not an option to be taken lightly, but at the end of the day, we may decide it is the only option we have." Former Israeli national security adviser Giora Eiland made a similar point, saying: "Within a year, the Israeli government will have to decide between two options: either not do anything and reconcile itself to the fact that Iran is now nuclear, or take military action."

Eiland insisted that the decision to open negotiations with Syria was an unrelated issue. But clearly if Israel were able to split Damascus away from Tehran, then Iran would be left more isolated and vulnerable to attack—whether by Israel or the US or both.

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Putin's Russia

By Padma Desai
Foreign Affairs, May-June 2008

Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss ("The Myth of the Authoritarian Model," January/February 2008) make several erroneous judgments regarding the current Russian scene. The Russian economy has grown in the last seven years at an annual rate of 6.5 percent. The ongoing debate among economists and other informed observers of Russia is over whether this is a result of exceptionally high (and rising) oil prices, and hence a reversible phenomenon if the price of oil collapses, or the result of substantive changes in the last decade that made high growth rates sustainable. At a major World Leaders Forum and a scientific conference attended by distinguished Russia scholars at Columbia University last April, participants shared the view that Russia's economic performance was not a flash in the pan caused by oil; rather, the consensus was that important policy changes had taken place. Still, no responsible Western scholar of Russia (nor even a supporter of former Russian President Vladimir Putin) has suggested that the high growth rates in Russia are a product of Putin's authoritarian ways. The claim by McFaul and Stoner-Weiss that this argument is made is simply creating a straw man.

The authors also exaggerate former President Boris Yeltsin's democratic accomplishments in order to make a compelling case against Putin's supposed authoritarian consolidation. Yeltsin, they argue, started to develop "all the basic elements of an electoral democracy." Yeltsin and his young reformers did indeed demolish the communist planned economy and the authoritarian arrangements; they planted the liberal idea in the land of Lenin and Stalin and changed the course of Russian history. But they did not introduce, much less develop, basic liberal democratic institutions, such as a party system, fair elections, a free press, or strong legal and financial organizations. These were unlikely to spring fully grown, like Athena from the brow of Zeus, in a country with a long history of tsarist and communist authoritarianism.

McFaul and Stoner-Weiss claim that "electronic and print media outlets not controlled by the state multiplied [under Yeltsin]." This is misleading. During the Yeltsin presidency, Russian TV networks and the press, strapped for cash and lacking advertising revenues, turned to the money-wielding oligarchs. According to the Russian Media Fund, a U.S.-based media-advocacy group backed by the International Center for Journalists and others, nonmedia oligarchs moved into the media business in order to take advantage of the tax exemption for profits enjoyed by media companies. As a result, the media then became mouthpieces of the special interests of the few oligarchs who dominated the scene and sought to control the state.

The authors also provide a flawed assessment of Putin's economic policies, including those regarding the Russian energy sector. In Putin's view, the Russian energy sector, which has driven Russia's economic growth since 2000, could not be left completely to the initiative of the private sector, domestic or foreign. Putin sought to balance private profit making with what he regarded as the broader national interest. His policies did not constitute the blanket "renationalization" of the energy sector that the authors allege. Rosneft, a state-owned oil company, will counter Lukoil, a private oil company. Gazprom, the 51 percent state-owned natural gas monopoly, has acquired a 51 percent stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and natural gas unit, which was previously owned by Royal Dutch/Shell, Mitsui, and Mitsubishi. And BP has been reduced to a minority stake in the Kovykta natural gas unit in western Siberia, with Gazprom acquiring 51 percent ownership. In each of these cases, the process involved the Kremlin flexing its muscles, but the details and the numbers suggest strategic policy maneuvering. Foreign minority partners will supply needed cash, management expertise, and technology in the energy sector, which would not have been true if there had been a sweeping renationalization.

Beyond the energy sector, much of Russian industry, including businesses in aluminum, steel, aircraft, or automobile manufacturing, is less controlled by the Kremlin, more prone to inviting active Western business participation, and more open to competitive pressures from foreign multinationals. The flourishing retail sector remains fully open to the participation of foreign firms. Doing business in Russia is not for the faint-hearted, but according to current indications, foreign investors, including Shell and BP will continue to participate in the economy, from the energy sector down to retail businesses. Their involvement will help maintain the country's high growth rates.

Finally, McFaul and Stoner-Weiss complain about the legislation restricting foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as if Russia were the only country restricting their entry. They do not seem to be aware that over 400,000 Russian NGOs are engaged in a variety of activities relating to health care and environmental issues at the local level. Is it not sensible for Russian civil society to grow from within instead of depending on foreign largess, which taints the recipients and prevents them from grounding their activities in Russian society itself?

It would seem that their excessive Putin and Kremlin bashing prevents the authors from recognizing the positive impact of the economic revival on the lives of Russians. I lived and traveled in the Soviet Union in 1964 and remember that Orwellian landscape of bleak monotony, state control, and pervasive fear. I have been studying Russia ever since and visiting frequently. Today, it is a different country, undergoing remarkable changes. To suggest that it will morph into another Angola is to lose all perspective.

PADMA DESAI

Gladys and Roland Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems and Director, Center for Transition Economies, Columbia University

Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss reply:

We do not claim that Russia today is the Soviet Union. We write, "Russians are richer today than ever before." Our article attempts to explain why. Contrary to Padma Desai's oversimplification of our analysis, we emphasized both the impact of rising oil and gas prices and the "important policy changes." But the policy changes that jump-started growth were undertaken before Putin came to power. Russia's real economic turnaround came after the financial meltdown in August 1998, which forced the Russian government to pursue prudent fiscal policies and a more rational exchange-rate policy. As a result of these reforms -- carried out by a left-of-center government headed by Yevgeny Primakov -- Russia's economy began to grow a year before Putin became prime minister and 18 months before he became president.

We did note that Putin implemented some important macroeconomic reforms, such as the 13 percent flat income tax, a reduction in the corporate tax, and the creation of a stabilization fund. But tracing the relative impact of these reforms, against the backdrop of the fundamental macroeconomic reforms before Putin and the rising oil and energy prices while he was president, is the harder analytic task for Putin apologists such as Desai, because there have been other real economic, social, and political costs associated with his rule. As we document in our article, Putin's transfer of the assets of the privately owned Yukos to the state-owned Rosneft destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars in value in the company and created a less profitable, less productive enterprise. And all independent measures show rising levels of corruption in Russia under Putin. The real question is not how well the Russian economy is growing now but how well it could be growing under a less autocratic form of government.

Desai writes about Putin's "authoritarian ways," but she also tries to defend his regime by recounting the flaws in Yeltsin's democracy and suggesting that we are not aware of Russia's 400,000 NGOs. But many of these NGOs, especially those working on anything considered to be remotely political, are being shut down, forced out of business by a restrictive new law, and their leaders are being imprisoned. In early March, Lev Ponomarev, a Russian colleague of ours in the NGO community, was arrested, along with others, for participating in a peaceful demonstration against the overmanaged "election" of Putin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Regarding the Yeltsin era, we agree that the "oligarch"-owned media outlets might have become "mouthpieces of the special interests." However, one wonders what Desai would say about the oligarchs who own Fox News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Nation, The New York Times, or The Weekly Standard. And even if a totalitarian dictatorship had run Russia in the 1990s (it did not), how would that justify Putin's "authoritarian ways" today?

Finally, we disagree with Desai's assertion that we have created a straw man in recounting that some argue that it was Putin's regime that helped produce economic growth and better governance in Russia. The evidence to the contrary is far too substantial. Both the Russian and the Western media are filled with accounts of how Putin's strong hand spurred growth. Time magazine named Putin its Person of the Year, in part based on this logic. And inside Russia, public opinion polls confirm that a majority of people have accepted the alleged tradeoff between less political freedom and more wealth. President-elect Medvedev based his campaign on maintaining Putin's "strong" state and economic success. Maybe Desai can afford to ignore all this. But judging from the overwhelming reaction to our article, including from Putin himself, it appears that we are arguing against not a straw man but a strongman.

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