Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 109
RUSSIA AS THREAT
in the late 1990s, the Clinton administration not only
criticized Kremlin conduct of the war but even provided
tacit encouragement to Chechnya’s Muslim allies and
private security companies to assist Islamist rebels in
Chechnya.42
More recently, the administration of President
Barack Obama has shown even less tolerance for
Russia’s efforts to stamp out separatist movements
inside Russia by defeating restive rebellions within
its borders. In January of 2012, he appointed the
strident Kremlin critic, Michael McFaul, to serve as
the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, where he has subsequently hosted at the embassy a variety of opposition activists including secessionists, some of whom
were suspected as being linked to terrorists, according to the Federal Security Service of the Russian
Federation.43
Although such policies may win short-term
geo-political gains among some international groups
sympathetic to separatist goals, they could have
devastating consequences in the future because they
stymie efforts to cultivate the kind of good will and
support from Russia that the United States will
need to deal with its own set of emerging security
challenges.
Russia Courting the Islamic World
To counter what it apparently perceives as hostility from the West in general, and the United States
in particular, Russia appears to be making a strategic
effort to ingratiate itself with, and restore some of
its Soviet-era influence in, the Islamic world. To
that end, Putin has sought to publicly demarcate
in the Muslim world his view of what constitute
“good” and “bad” Islamic militants; the latter are the
Chechen separatists and their allies in the North
Caucasus and Tatarstan, while the former include
those who challenge the United States and Israel.44
This approach has had significant political success.
At the 2003 meeting of the Islamic Conference
Organization held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
amidst anti-Zionist and anti-American tirades, Putin
elaborated on that theme while describing Russia in
stark contrast to the West as Islam’s “historic defender.”45 Russia was later invited to join that organization as an official observer in 2005.
In this same vein, at a speech on 24 June 2009
in Cairo before the Arab League Conference,
then-President Dmitry Medvedev emphasized the
importance of Islam to Russia, commenting that
owing to Russia’s large Muslim population, his
(AP Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko)
MILITARY REVIEW January-February 2015
Muslims pray outside Moscow's main mosque during celebrations
of Eid al-Adha, 15 October 2013. The feast, celebrated by Muslims
worldwide, is called Kurban-Bairam in Russia.
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