What is Russia's Real Game?

By Douglas Farah

In an increasingly confused world, it has become apparent that Russia, for all its talk, is consistently positioning itself against the interests of the United States, Europe-and often on the side of Islamist radicals.

It is not just true in the U.N. Security Council with Iran, where, along with China, Russia is protecting an important client despite what such support means.

It is also true in Lebanon (directly and through Iran), the republic of Georgia and Somalia, where Russian weapons merchants, including but not limited to Viktor Bout, are supplying large amounts of weapons to fuel wars that will have a devastating impact on entire regions. In each case the beneficiary is going to be enemies of development, democracy and human rights. The beneficiaries will be radical Islamists.

President Bush famously warned that in the war on terrorism, you are with us or against us. The Russians, it seems, like the Pakistanis, Saudis and many others, are both. Russia is a particularly troubling case because of the quantitiy and quality of weapons its possesses, as well as the nuclear arsenal at least nominally under its control. My full blog is here.

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