The Putinology Game

[NYer]

Trying to decipher Vladimir Putin isn't easy. His regime has been compared to everything from the 'Pinochet model' to Weimar Germany. (http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1139611814493&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112188062620)

Ever since his sudden emergence as Russia's president when Boris Yeltsin abdicated at the end of 1999, Vladimir Putin has baffled analysis.

What does this ex-spy (if there is such a thing: he himself once said that "there are no former chekists"), who pays lip service to free markets, really stand for?

What other leaders does he resemble? The Putinology game has continued for six years now.

Hardly anyone still hopes that Putin can become the democrat he sometimes claims to be; even "managed democracy" is no longer touted much.

[exitwound]

What can I say.....the guy is your classic Tsar. :rolleyes:

In a country used to overblown, power-mad leaders, he's as predictable as bortsch and big furry hats!

[NYer]

Iran: The Other Clock Is Ticking. (http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=3730)

While the world is focused on the clock of Iran’s nuclear programme, the other clock, that of the nation’s domestic politics, is all but ignored by most commentators.

Both clocks have their alarms set. That of the nuclear clock is expected to ring within the next three to five years, unless something is done to interrupt the military aspects of the programme. The alarm of the domestic politics clock, however, could be set off within the next few months as the power struggle in Tehran enters a new and more intense phase.

The event to watch is the forthcoming election of a new Assembly of Experts, a body of mullahs whose task is to elect the “Custodian-Theologian”, more commonly known as the “Supreme Guide”, who has virtually unlimited powers under the Khomeinist constitution.

The implications?

If the new radical elite do not win a majority, the old guard, led by Rafsanjani, could forge an alliance with Khamenehi and oust the new guard, led by Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad out in the next parliamentary election in two years’ time. If , on the other hand, the new guard captures control of the Assembly of Experts, it may well launch a major reform of the Islamic Republic’s political structures with the aim of “full mobilisation for the coming clash of civilisations”, as foreseen by Ahmadinejad and Mesbah-Yazdi.

As for the nuclear clock neither the old nor the new guard wish to stop it. But it requires little imagination to see that a nuclear bomb in the hands of messianic luminaries like Ahmadinejad and Mesbah-Yazdi would be more frightening than in the hands of mullahs like Rafsanjani and Khatami with business interests and contacts in the West.

Faster, please?