Why The Litvinenko Case Still Matters

I don't know whether it is because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or our own lawlessness here at home, but the transformation of Russia into a virtually lawless state has escaped real notice in America. Do people realize that there simply is no justice system in Russia? That the Russian government simply kills people who criticize it? Relations between Russia and Great Britain are still strained because of the case of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium and died in November, 2006.

But going public with an accusation like this (and another one that the Russians scouted out another London-based critic, Boris Berezovsky) is another matter and it will raise the diplomatic temperature.

Whether the comments were timed deliberately or whether they just came out in the course of a conversation with the BBC journalist is not clear. Sometimes, these revelations are not the result of a careful decision but just emerge and have all kinds of unexpected repercussions.

It is a reminder that all is certainly not well in the relationship between Russia and Britain and, beyond that, between Russia and the West in general.

It will dash any hopes that the meeting at the G8 in Japan between the two prime ministers, Gordon Brown and Dmitry Medvedev, might have started a new chapter.

The talks were in any case, according to a Russian official, "sharp" at times as Mr Brown raised the various issues clouding the relationship - the outstanding extradition request, the restrictions on the British Council and the Russian manoeuvres against BP [British Petroleum].

Did President Bush raise any substantive questions with Medvedev when they met with one another? Or did they have other things to talk about? Or is he operating under the assumption that Putin is still running Russia?

I think that's the safest assumption of all.

Meet the new boss...beholden to the old boss...

Russia has a Putin puppet new president today, sort of. Dimitri Medvedev, Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, was sworn in a few hours ago in an elaborate and opulent Kremlin ceremony. Putin stood at his shoulder as he took his oath and after the ceremony, they walked out of the Kremlin Palace together to survey the grounds and review the presidential guard.

The Parliament is expected to confirm Mr. Putin as Prime Minister tomorrow, and on Friday the ceremonies will conclude with a Soviet-style military parade in Red Square - bombers will buzz overhead, low and loud and tanks will rumble through, just like the old days.

Russia is emerging as a superpower, no matter what the chucklehead who was chattering on NPR this morning as I was stirring from sleep says. I actually woke up to some jackass from Panorama blathering on about Russia and saying that yes, they have natural resources and hydrocarbons, but really, they are just a third-world country..."Russia's main priority is to stop pretending it's a great power, which it isn't. Russia may have natural resources and a lot of potential, but it's a Third World country," were his exact words.

I have never seen combat, but I woke up screaming.

Let's go over the three prerequisites to be considered a superpower:

Nuclear weapons. Check. Russia has something like ten thousand of them with the capacity to reach anywhere on the globe and they have tested a new MRV and missile in the last year.

Economic clout. Check. Russia has that in spades, and they aren't mortgaged to China for the next three generations.

A Blue-Water Navy. Check. Russia has carriers and subs and a large, seagoing fleet.

Any country that possessed those three elements has the ability to project power around the world. And saying words that indicate otherwise does not change that reality. Russia has all three and China is poised on the edge.

Like it or not, we are not the only game in town any more, and we are not really in a position to get too damned chirpy with either Russia or China right now.

And there is yet another reason why we sure as hell can't have McCain at the helm in this country.

If we are going to avoid another cold war, we have to have a president who looks ahead to the future, not back to an adversarial past.