April 8, 2003	Tuesday	Safar 5, 1424

MOSCOW: Just after the beginning of the war in Iraq, President Vladimir Putin made an extremely tough statement condemning the US-led operation. There’s no reason to believe it was because the Russian president opposes the idea of using military force, bombing cities or inflicting civilian casualties: His three-year experience with the Chechen war has shown otherwise. Nor does it appear likely he has changed the generally pro-American course he opted for after September 11, 2001. Integration and economic cooperation with the United States (as well as with other developed countries) still remain critical for Russia.

But Putin also has to deal with anti-American sentiment among the public and parts of the elite. And while the public may remain relatively passive — there have been no street protests to speak of — polls show strong anti-war, or anti-American, feelings. Some 90 per cent were opposed to the military operation in Iraq a month before it began, and 71 per cent said the United States was itself a security threat, while only 45 per cent thought Iraq was. Never under Putin’s rule has the number of Russians taking a negative attitude toward the United States been so high.

Given Russia’s weak civil society, policymakers, including the president, can easily enough ignore the public. But once in a while public opinion in Russia becomes important. This occurs, of course, around elections.

The parliamentary election is scheduled for December, and the campaign has begun. The competition, just as it was four years ago, will be between the Communists and the pro-Kremlin party created, guided and controlled by th the Kremlin. The Kremlin manipulators need nothing short of a solid victory over the Communists, having come in about one per cent behind them in 1999. Unless they do significantly better this time, Putin’s much-vaunted stability and claims to economic progress will be seen as not having made much of a difference.

Right now the situation does not look good for the pro- Kremlin party: The most recent national poll put its popularity rating at 21 per cent and that of its Communist rivals at 31 per cent. The Communists are not missing the opportunity to capitalize on anti-American feeling. Anti-American rhetoric, which portrays the United States as an evildoer seeking to destroy Russia, has an irresistible appeal for their constituency. Putin’s aides in charge of the pro-Kremlin party are fully aware of this, as well as of broader public frustration over American hegemony.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.