Moment of Clarity
Why the likes of Russia can be trusted.

By Tom Nichols, professor of strategy, Naval War College.
September 26, 2001 9:20 a.m.

Editor's note: The views are those of the author and not of any agency of the U.S. government.

he British prime minister has been welcomed in Teheran (where one of the reformist dailies has opined that "probably now is the best time to help return the legal government of Afghanistan back to power"), and the Russian president has signaled his assent to the American use of military bases in the former Soviet Union.

One can only imagine that bin Laden and his sponsors are all having the same thought right now: It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Of course, the Russians have their own reasons for seizing the moment and seeking a breakthrough with the Americans at this point in history, not the least of which that President Vladimir Putin is gaining a certain amount of immunity from Western criticism for his own war against Chechen terrorists in Russia. (And yes, they're terrorists, not "rebels." Rebels don't take hospitals hostage, terrorists do.) The Iranian opening to the British — an enemy they despise as much as they do America — may reflect only a temporary alliance directed against the Taliban, or perhaps is the result of a split among Iran's ruling clerics in which the reformers hold the upper hand for the moment. But it is, as Jack Straw rightly said, an historic event.

The fact that regimes like Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and others are committing themselves, at least nominally, to aiding the emerging coalition against terror suggests that a fundamental realignment of international life might be underway. It may well be that among states addicted to the poison of terror, the horrific scale of the attacks on New York and Washington have produced what alcoholics call a "moment of clarity," a sudden realization of the need to change old habits.

This doesn't mean that these regimes will now share our values, although I would argue Russia was well along the path to democracy and Putin's latest efforts need to be energetically embraced. Rather, it suggests that September 11, 2001 created a moment of pause, in which traditional enemies of the United States have stopped to consider whether this is the last chance to turn away from their own past, and to ask whether their own disagreements with our values or our policies must necessarily include support for the mass extermination of innocents.

Some years ago, I was at a conference devoted to the question of European unification. An older man, a veteran of World War II, stood up and expressed severe concern about the recreation of a united German state. He had fought the Nazis, he said: Why should he trust the Germans now? There was an embarrassed silence, since a senior German diplomat was sitting on the panel with us. Finally, a wise American professor (there are a few left) spoke up, and said quietly: "Because I believe in redemption."

If the slaughter at the Twin Towers and the Pentagon has produced a moment of reflection that leads, even momentarily, to a move toward redemption among states that once supported terrorism, then the terrorists will have failed beyond even their most pessimistic fears. State sponsors of terror have an opportunity to join with the United States, but it is not a window that remain open indefinitely. At some point, they will have to decide, as President Bush has warned, that they are with us or with the terrorists, and time is soon to be upon them.

At the moment, such regimes should be transfixed by two sets of images. One is the endlessly looped tape of the attacks in New York, dramatic footage that few people with any conscience, save for a psychopath like Saddam Hussein, can watch dispassionately. The other is a chart tallying the current amount of Western firepower gathering in the Gulf and elsewhere, a display of might that could only fail to impress — and worry — the most delusional leaders. (Did I mention Saddam Hussein?) The road marked by these two images is clear: Take the path of redemption, if not for the sake of human decency, then for the sake of self-preservation. Moscow has thrown its lot in with the West because its president and its people have decided that they are part of the human family, and no longer in league with pariahs. Other states may have less noble reasons for taking the same road, but if they show the good sense to take it nonetheless, the war on terror will take a leap toward eventual victory.