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Russia and the New Axis of Evil
By Arthur Herman
With Russian tanks now presiding over the dismemberment of the Republic of
Georgia, can a lame-duck Bush administration -- weary from its long drubbing by
critics over Iraq and eyeing the exit door -- rise to the challenge Russia has
chosen to pose to the Free World?
To understand the nature of this challenge, consider that the distance between
Baghdad and Tbilisi is barely 578 miles, less than the distance between New York
City and Chicago. Iraq and Georgia, both of which have democratic governments,
are sandwiched between Iran and Russia, two of the most authoritarian
governments in the world. Russia has been collaborating with Iran to strengthen
the latter's nuclear program and its military. It is also steadily arming
Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez.
Russia's invasion of Georgia came exactly one month after Iran test-fired its
Shahab III intermediate ballistic missile in order to intimidate neighbors like
Israel and Iraq, and two weeks after Mr. Chávez traveled to Moscow to formalize
a Strategic Alliance with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry
Medvedev. Meanwhile, Iran's proxies remain the principal threat to peace in Iraq
-- while on the other side of the world, evidence mounts of Mr. Chávez's links
to the terrorist group FARC, which threatens neighboring Colombia.
Coincidence? Iraq, Georgia and Colombia are battlegrounds in a new kind of
international conflict that will define our geopolitical future. This conflict
pits the U.S. and the West against an emerging axis of oil-rich dictatorships
who are working together to push back against the liberalizing trends of
globalization. One of their prime objectives is toppling or undermining
neighboring, pro-Western democracies.
The term axis has been overused in recent years, and in misleading contexts. But
Russia, Iran and Venezuela are acting very much as Japan, Italy and Germany did
in the 1930s, when each took advantage of each other's aggressive moves to
extend their own regional power at the expense of liberal democracy -- and, as a
result, propelling the world to the brink of war.
The chessboard of traditional competitive geopolitics is back with a vengeance.
Russia is the principal source for Iran's nuclear weapons program as well as the
principal obstacle to international sanctions. Between them, Mr. Putin and
Tehran's mullahs clearly aim to control access to every major source of fossil
energy from the western end of the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. The third
player in this new axis, Venezuela's President Chávez, hopes for an oil and
natural gas monopoly over the natural resources of neighbors like pro-Chávez
satellites Bolivia and Ecuador.
All three dictatorships are flush with cash thanks to rising oil prices; all
three are bent on regional domination. All three openly celebrate a model of
government that is authoritarian and monolithic in opposition to Western
pluralism, market-oriented economies and representative democracy. All three run
economies built on mafia-style crony capitalism. All three denounce U.S.
imperialism, and evidently hope that the 2008 election will help to bolster
their geopolitical plans.
And all three see themselves as natural allies. Since 2004, Mr. Chávez has
steadily strengthened his strategic and economic ties to Tehran. Last year he
joined with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to push OPEC to cut production
and boost oil prices. In addition to his Allianz Estrategica with Mr. Putin, Mr.
Chávez was the one international leader who publicly praised Russia's invasion
of Georgia.
Finally, all three members of this axis see the emergence of pro-American,
Western-oriented governments on their borders as mortal threats and are
determined to hit back. In Russia's case, this means direct military force
against Georgia. Iran has used its terrorist proxies to sow chaos in Iraq,
Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Mr. Chávez wages a proxy war against
Colombia through the terrorists of FARC.
What can the U.S. and a new president do? Despite Russia's nuclear arsenal, none
of these states poses a military threat comparable to the Cold War Soviet Union,
or even the Axis powers in the 1930s. For all their bluff and bluster, Russia,
Iran and Venezuela have a relatively tenuous position in the world; for all
their oil wealth their economies remain weak and unstable.
A broad strategy of targeted economic sanctions and multilateral diplomacy,
backed by U.S. military power -- together with a determined effort to push down
oil prices by expanding supply and strengthening the dollar -- can introduce a
note of sober realism to the strategy of this new axis, and force them to
realize how limited and vulnerable their source of money and power really is.
However, the most important strategy right now is to secure democracy's vital
new flanks -- Iraq, Georgia and Colombia. By shoring up and strengthening,
rather than abandoning all three governments, the U.S. will send a clear signal
that liberty, not tyranny, is the wave of the globalizing future.
Mr. Herman's latest book is Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That
Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age (Bantam, 2008).
The Wall Street Journall
OPINION
August 29, 2008; Page A17 |
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