Debate ahead

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 465.

If there is a renewed peace process, the radical elements will probably fight even harder to destroy it - there could be even more atrocities.

Sean McGough

Quickly, the White House expressed sympathy with Russia, calling the school siege "barbaric." "Western leaders have pulled their punches on the way in which Russia has tried to pacify Chechnya partly because Putin has persuaded them he is engaged in the same war on terror as they are," said Archie Brown, Professor of Politics at Oxford University. Mr Putin's defence needed to be good. He came to power and was re-elected on the promise that he would bring calm to Chechnya and security to the Russian people. He cannot claim to have done so. Nor does the handling of the siege by the Russian security forces accord with his own image of cold efficiency.

But leaders whose policies fail in the face of terrorism do not necessarily get punished. In common danger, people often rally to the leader. This could be said of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, for example. One option, which looks unlikely in the shock of the moment, might be for Russia to try to restart a dialogue with more moderate Chechen figures like Aslan Maskhadov, who has said that his forces were not involved in the school siege. At various times in the past, he has hinted that he might moderate Chechnya's demands for independence if the Russians ended their military occupation. But up to now, Mr Maskhadov has been dismissed by Mr Putin as just another terrorist. "There will now probably be a long period of debate and discussion about Chechnya," said Mr McGough. "The problem is that the Chechens fight among themselves and there is nobody who can speak for a majority. If there is a renewed peace process, the radical elements will probably fight even harder to destroy it. There could be even more atrocities. "In the long run, the question of Russia simply withdrawing from Chechnya might come up, but it is too early for that and that would be the hardest thing for Putin to do since his own reputation would be at stake."