Rogue Summit
Putin is catering to his clients.

Mr. Gaffney is president of the Center for Security Policy
March 14, 2001 9:20 a.m.

his just in: Russian President Vladimir Putin has hosted his Iranian counterpart, Ayatollah Mohammed Khatami, in Moscow and pledged a "new Spring" in bilateral ties. The two leaders signed a "cooperation pact" aimed at increasing the Kremlin's arms sales and other strategic partnering with Tehran.

While the precise contents of Iran's shopping list are not yet known, it seems a reasonable bet that its Islamic Revolutionary government wants to acquire more of the advanced armaments — from submarines to fighter aircraft to missiles — that the former Soviet Union has designed and built for basically one reason: to kill Americans.

In addition, Putin apparently confirmed that Russia would be continuing its cooperation in a program likely to be of assistance to Iran's concerted bid to "go nuclear": the construction of a Russian-designed "power plant" at Bushehr. The fact that Iran, a nation awash with oil, hardly needs a nuclear reactor program to meet its energy needs is of no concern to Putin et al. This is a business transaction; as Russian analyst Sergei Karaganov put it: "Cooperation with Iran is all about making money."

But the Russian-Iranian axis is more than that. It is one of many examples of the Putin regime's efforts to establish or rebuild strategic ties with virtually all of the most dangerous countries on the planet. Others on this list include: North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Vietnam, Yemen, and Venezuela.

As it happens, there has been something of a parlor game in Washington in recent months about what to call these nations. Until the latter days of the Clinton administration, they were officially dubbed "rogue states." Madeleine Albright announced last fall, however, that henceforth the U.S. government would be calling them "states of concern" instead. Art imitated life when "President" Martin Sheehan blithely approved the adoption of this nomenclature last week on NBC's West Wing, saying it would make no substantive difference but would be appreciated by the erstwhile rogues.

In fact, this change was meant not only to be less pejorative and offensive to the sensibilities of the despots running these countries. It was intended to clear the way for a U.S. diplomatic offensive whereby the Clinton team hoped to normalize relations with virtually every one of them. Fortunately, the clock ran out and President Bush has wisely pulled back from some of the singularly ill-advised initiatives his predecessor had in mind (notably, a trip to North Korea and an end to the embargo on Cuba).

Whatever we call these countries, however, the Putin-Khatami meeting is a forceful reminder of what Russia — and, for that matter, its main strategic partner and fellow "arsenal of roguery," Communist China — calls them: "clients." These nations share their suppliers' increasingly ill-concealed hostility toward the United States; they are, to varying degrees, willing and ever more capable of acting against American interests.

All things being equal — and given enough time and advanced Russian and/or Chinese technology — each of these rogues/clients eventually will be able to threaten the United States with long-range ballistic missiles outfitted with weapons of mass destruction.

This behavior on the part of Russia and China worrying. It takes on an even darker hue, however, when it is contrasted with what is emerging as the "Bush Doctrine." As President Bush said on March 4, on the occasion of the christening of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan: "America, by nature, stands for freedom. And we must always remember, we benefit when it expands. So we will stand by those nations moving toward freedom. We'll stand up to those nations who deny freedom and threaten [their] neighbors or our vital interests. And we will assert emphatically that the future will belong to the free."

The relationships that Russia and China are now cultivating with their clients are an affront to the efforts to promote freedom. Worse, the "new Springs" they are promoting with their rogue partners are ominous indications of how determined Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin are to ensure that the future does not, in fact, belong to the free.