Remarks

From an article in Rossiyskaya Gazeta by a well-regarded, well-connected Russian commentator, Sergei Karaganov. The title of Karaganov's article was "The Battle Was Won, but the War Is Being Lost."

"The Americans decided that terrorism had to be combated by forcing democracy on people and clambered into Iraq. They have already lost the political war. [Iraq] is mired in civil war and has become a huge training ground for future terrorists of every hue. When the Americans leave, and this event is not that distant, this entire international group of terrorists will start spreading out in all directions. I am afraid they will be moving in our direction too. This proved something that had already seemed obvious enough. Networks like al-Qaida cannot be destroyed by broad-scale military operations. In fact, this seems to promote their growth."

"Almost nothing has been done in the last few years to foster sensible and extensive dialogue between civilizations or to promote participation in the gentle modernization of the Middle East Muslim states and elite, which are lagging behind the progressive countries."

"The West -- or, to put it more precisely, the American leadership -- never took the trouble to understand that most of the anti-Western and anti-Christian attitudes do not stem from differing values or from cultural and religious differences. Bin Laden does not have many negative things to say about Western culture. These attitudes are largely a result of the West's unfair treatment of the countries of that region. This impression, compounded by the region's underdevelopment, the causes of which I have enumerated more than once in this newspaper, has given rise to an increasingly common and increasingly serious Muslim 'Weimar syndrome.'"

"The mounting anti-Western sentiment cannot be blamed solely on the West, however. Bin Laden's rapidly multiplying followers are not only defending themselves and avenging themselves. They are also taking offensive action. Their goal is the eradication of Western influence and, in general, all outside military-political influence in the Middle East, the elimination of the relatively moderate Islamic regimes, and the triumph of radical political Islam."

"The worst thing of all is that the West, realizing that it is losing either because of the United States' outrageous blunders or because of the essential inactivity of Europe, is now on the defensive even on the ideological front. There is no need to justify stupid cartoons in a Danish newspaper or Pope Benedict's recent statement about 'aggressive Islam,' which was not exactly politically correct. There have been apologies, official ones at that, for the stupidity and the poorly worded phrases, in view of the organized pogroms they supposedly have sparked."

"These conciliatory efforts by the aggressor are whetting the appetites of the militant Islamists and convincing them that the West can be beaten (furthermore, they see [Russia] as part of the West, although a weaker and less malicious part). The aggressive and unsuccessful inculcation of democracy, which evoked protests and ridicule, combined with the ideological appeasement of absurd demands, especially in view of all the insults and threats religious leaders and officials in the Middle East are hurling at the West, Christianity, and Judaism, seems positively infantile in the political sense."