Doctor Russia
Russian diplomats have recently been strongly resembling psychoanalysts. In the best possible sense. Specialists in the field of psychoanalysis, as they are shown in movies, always listen to their patients attentively and at length before giving them invaluable advice: don't worry, don't take drastic steps, talk to people more, decide all issues with dialogue rather than force…. All this advice, in general, bears no fruit, since the patient ignores it from the minute he leaves the doctor's office.
Nevertheless, while repeating fond words about the necessity of dialogue yesterday in Beirut, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov made a highly unusual announcement. He said that it is indispensable to hold talks with Hezbollah and Hamas, since they "reflect the result of decades of attempts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict" and are "an integral part of political life in Palestine and Lebanon."
The call to dialogue with Hezbollah and Hamas is partly a milestone in the evolution of the crisis in the Near East. Without talks with them, no peace process is possible: that becomes more clear with every passing day. Radical organizations are gathering clout: only two months ago the single group in power that the West unequivocally refused to hold talks with was Hamas. Now it seems to have gained strength and multiplied. The tendency is such that this matter will never be finished. Anything could happen: the regional power could become the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Soon ignoring them will be impossible and unreasonable. Thus, beginning to establish contacts with them is, most likely, extremely pragmatic.
It is true that there is a small problem amid all of this pragmatism. Russia is holding a dialogue with Israel, which considers Hamas and Hezbollah to be diseases that should not be talked with, but rather wiped out. The Islamists feel exactly the same way about the "Zionist entity," as they call Israel, and they have no intention of coming to terms with Israel's existence.
Speaking openly, Russia is not doing anything reprehensible. It is not selling arms directly to Hezbollah or Hamas. But it is behaving like a pragmatic psychoanalyst who, unable to resist making money hand over fist, has opened a kiosk near the exit from his office and is trading in alcoholic drinks, strong tranquillizers, firearms, soap, and rope. In general, selling everything that the patient needs if he decides not to listen to the calming advice of his doctor. You will agree that there is nothing to reproach the doctor about. He didn't give bad advice, and the kiosk – well, that is a whole different business, he just couldn't allow himself to pass up the chance to turn a profit.
It is worthwhile to admit that Russia is not the only one acting this way. The practice of prescribing a medicine with one hand while the other hand sells poison under the table is popular among the world powers who have appointed themselves the world's doctors. But when a huge war breaks out in the Near East, when the patient goes off the deep end and massacres half the neighborhood, Doctor Russia won't be able to stand by and, raising her hands to the sky, whisper, "How terrible, and after all, I knew that it would end this way!"
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 08, 2006
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