In the weeks since the Boston Marathon bombing, a number of Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have made pointed comments on America's indirect encounter with the ongoing conflict between the Russian government and Islamist insurgents in the North Caucasus region. The message can be summarized in two phrases: "We told you so" and "We're all in the same boat now."
The first phrase is meant to remind Americans that Russian officials, and especially Putin, have long argued that the persistent unrest in the North Caucasus is not motivated by crimes against the Chechen and neighboring peoples by the Russian or Soviet state, but is driven instead by irreconcilable terrorists aligned with Al-Qaeda and bent on global jihad. As for the assertion that the United States and Russia are "in the same boat," the superficial meaning is clear enough: Both countries are threatened by Islamist fanatics who do not shrink from shedding the blood of innocents at sporting events, on public transportation, or in schools.
The Russian leadership, however, is also sending a more subtle message. At the core, the Putin regime is telling America that the problems we both face-terrorism first and foremost-far outweigh any differences over democracy, the rights of the individual, and political values. Without saying so directly, Putin is insinuating that the Boston bombing might never have happened if the United States had stopped interfering in Russia's sovereign affairs. Had we restrained our interventionist impulses, the argument goes, the door would have been open to closer cooperation in the war against terrorism.
There is evidence that Putin's admonition is finding an audience among American political figures. Veteran diplomats are cautioning against what they call gratuitous criticism of Putin's latest crackdown on civic activism and peaceful opposition protests. Going even further are members of a U.S. congressional delegation that visited Moscow recently to investigate the backgrounds of the Boston bombers and any failures in cooperation between Russian and American security agencies prior to the attack. The leader of the delegation, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, placed the blame for poor communication between the intelligence services squarely on the White House. "I would say both the Obama administration as well as the Republican administration before Obama-that we have allowed attitudes, maybe the attitudes from the cold war, to remain in place that have prevented a level of cooperation that is justified." In calling for closer collaboration with the Russians, Rohrabacher even raised the possibility of joint military exercises, according to the New York Times. He also came to the defense of Putin, whom he said had been unfairly vilified in the United States, and expressed agreement with Russia's prosecution of three members of the all-female performance group Pussy Riot, who received prison sentences for a political protest action in a Moscow cathedral.
It should be emphasized that Rohrabacher and others are not simply asserting that Putin's American critics are incorrect. They are implying that these critics have weakened the security of the United States. The attacks on Putin, so the narrative runs, have pushed Russian officials to a lower level of cooperation on terrorism issues. To restore an environment of mutual trust, Putin's critics should change their tone and stop pointing to the Russian president as a leader and spokesman of the world's authoritarian fraternity.
