Putin and Khodorkovsky

The New York Times,Wall Street Journal (subscriber link) and the LA Times think that we should be deeply concerned about the arrest of the richest man in Russia. They also think that the matter is one Bush should not ignore. In fact, they believe that this is a serious matter for US-Russia relations.

Why the US wants to antagonize Putin over this domestic matter escapes me. We are looking for allies in the war on terror and international support on Iraq and North Korea. Russia is a great power whose assistance we welcome. Now is not the time to meddle in their internal affairs.

Right now in this country former CEOs are appearing in courtrooms. We accept that the excesses of the Clinton Bubble included illegal activities. Why is it hard to believe that some of the men who got rich in Russia's "privatisations" are not honest businessmen? The arrest of Khodorkovsky is a matter of grave concern, but Ken Layne and Bernie Ebbers deserve to rot in jail?

All the accounts agree that Khodorkovsky broke the tacit agreement that the oligarchs would stay out of politics. He was funding multiple parties (including the Communists) and probably aspired to become president himself. It is difficult to fault Putin for striking at this overweening ambition. Putin may not be a liberal, but on this matter he is behaving in a way that Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt would understand and approve. Both men knew that big money can corrupt politics and in Russia money does not get bigger than Khodorkovsky.

One would think that a paper like the Times, which is a steadfast supporter of campaign finance reform in the US, would see the danger to Russia's nascent democracy.

In his obituary for Madam Chiang Kaishek John Derbyshire made a relevant point:

Chiang did not even bother much with advertising his regime to the peasantry. His main propaganda efforts were addressed to the urban middle classes and foreign sources of finance and military aid. He seems to have thought of the peasants, in his own mind, as a kind of livestock. His wife shows little sign of having thought about them at all.

Khodorkovsky seems to have made the same mistake. He worked assiduously to woo Western bankers and investors. But he and the other oligarchs did little to earn the respect of their fellow Russians.