Nov 4, 2002 5 min read

Russian President Vladimir Putin faced a terrible task, and he had no other option to deal with it than an attempt to liberate the hostages by force. … It also remains a fact that the Kremlin chief reacted calmly in an extreme situation. He learned from mistakes. Immediately after the storming of the theater he publicly asked the dead hostages’ relatives for ‘forgiveness’ and visited survivors in their hospital beds. …

All this, however, should not block our view of the background. The Moscow hostage-taking is and remains a direct consequence of the Chechen war for which Putin is partly responsible. The killing and marauding of Russian troops in the Caucasus provides no moral justification for the attack in the Russian capital, which was sheer terror. But what has been going on in Chechyna for the past eight years explains the biography of the hostage-takers. …

Violence leaves an impression. It has made countless men and women in Chechyna into anti-Russian rebels – and some of them into terrorists.

That’s why it is fatal to lump all of them in with the Sept. 11 al-Qaida terrorists. … The hostage-taking likely will confirm the opinion of most Russians and many international politicians that only a war against terrorism is being fought in the Caucasus.

Putin’s tough answer will be misunderstood to mean that terror can only be defeated with an iron fist – and the actions of Chechen hostage-taker (Movsar) Barayev will serve as an argument for Russia continuing not to look for a political peace in the Caucasus. …

The raid on the Moscow theater won’t be the last attack by the Chechens.

On Blair and the EU Summit:

Unfortunately for (Prime Minister Tony) Blair, his eagerness to be at the heart of things on this side of the Atlantic was dealt a heavy blow at last week’s Brussels summit. The old Franco-German axis revived to the extent that Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder stitched up a deal on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which was then presented as a fait accompli to the other leaders on the following day.

Understandably incensed at being outmaneuvered, and at Mr. Chirac’s insistence that the British rebate be canceled, Mr. Blair attacked the deal as protectionist.

Mr. Chirac is then said to have accused the Prime Minister of being very rude and of speaking to him in a way in which he had never been addressed before. For diplomatic talk of “vigorous exchanges,” read blazing row.

In leaking details of what passed in the council, the government may be hoping to convince the public that it stood up for British interests in Brussels. In fact, it did no such thing. Mr. Blair has acquiesced in an agreement diametrically opposed to his declared intentions. Regarding the CAP as a protectionist racket, he wants to phase out direct payments to farmers, on the justifiable grounds that they reward overproduction and discriminate against developing countries.

Yet, under the Brussels deal, CAP spending will rise by one percent a year until 2013 from the high baseline set for 2006 at the Berlin summit three years ago. This arrangement may be diluted by reforms proposed by Franz Fischler, the farm commissioner, as part of the EU negotiating position in the Doha round of trade liberalization. But that possibility detracts little from the snub dealt in Brussels to a prime minister keen to bend Europe his way. …

On Arafat’s battle for survival:

Long a symbol of Palestinian struggle for nationhood, Yasser Arafat is famed for his uncanny power to survive misfortunes. Although his current woes are unprecedentedly massive and multilateral, he continues to project the image of an unfazed leader.

Branding him as Israel’s “Enemy Number One,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismissed him as irrelevant. Sharon’s campaign to demonize Arafat to the outside world has made headway – at least in the U.S.

Apparently swayed by Sharon’s propaganda’s blitz, President George W. Bush departed from the way (past American policy) to demand that Palestinians replace Arafat with a “different leadership not compromised by terrorism.” His special envoy to the Middle East, William Burns, last week gave the cold shoulder to Arafat while marketing “a roadmap” (to peace) drafted by an international committee and endorsed by Washington.

Burns’ scheme demands, among other things, that the Palestinians launch sweeping reforms. Months ago, Arafat himself pledged to pursue an overhaul of the Palestinian institutions. His new government is one such move. Whether the new government will be able to function under a ruthless Israeli siege is doubtful.

The big irony is that to bless any Palestinian reform, Washington will accept nothing less than Arafat’s political disappearance.

On Dutch terrorist cells:

Islamic terrorist groups have, alas, found a foothold on our soil.

Initial warnings from our intelligence agencies appear to have been badly understated: agents dismantled a terrorist cell here in order to head off suicide attacks that were apparently being launched from the Netherlands.

They did well to do so, but the story doesn’t end there. The terrorist groups – mostly linked to al-Qaida – were attempting to convince young Muslims to take up arms and join the so-called “Holy war.”

It’s shocking that they were successful. In raids, police found the suicide notes of boys who wanted to give their lives for Jihad.

These were second-generation members of immigrant Muslim families.

That these young people were vulnerable to recruitment by extreme terror groups shows that Muslim integration into Dutch society has gone wrong.

Especially in the Muslim community, there’s a duty to take care that it now improves. It’s necessary to ensure that no more young Muslims slide into extremism and choose for terror.