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After a heated discussion, 85 percent of the studio audience answered "Yes." Iraqi and pro-Iraq guests on the program rushed to sum up the mood in Russia with a slogan as over-simplified as the original question: "Moscow sides with Baghdad."
Russians' real attitude toward Iraq is much more complicated. A survey conducted last month by the Public Opinion Foundation asked: "What is your opinion of Saddam Hussein: positive, negative or indifferent?"
Only 13 percent of those polled said they had a positive opinion of the Iraqi leader. Sixteen percent weighed in with a negative opinion, while 57 percent expressed indifference. Only 4 percent of Russians believe Russia should support Saddam if Iraq is attacked. Russians on the whole have a rather different opinion to that of Shuster's studio audience, moreover the number of people who think Russia should stay out of the conflict between the United States and Iraq has nearly doubled since 1998, from 19 percent to 33 percent. As the numbers make clear, the slogan "Moscow sides with Baghdad" is rather more than a mild exaggeration.
Whether Saddam's well-wishers like it or not, official Moscow and Russian public opinion are already sizing up the prospects of Iraq "after Saddam." And Russia is committed to a dialogue with the United States.
"If we continue to pursue a constructive dialogue with the Americans, as we are currently, we can assume that our real interests in Iraq will be taken into consideration," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika research center. Without some kind of preliminary guarantees that Russian interests will be protected, no constructive dialogue is possible. Most of those interests are tied to the Iraqi oil sector. President George W. Bush's administration seems to understand this and has been in contact with Russian oil companies who do business in Iraq. LUKoil president Vagit Alekperov, for instance, told the Financial Times recently that he had received assurances from President Vladimir Putin that if and when Saddam Hussein's regime falls, his company will not lose control of its valuable assets in Iraq's West Kurna oilfield. Alekperov said Putin considers the issue of oil concessions in Iraq to be a top priority. According to information obtained by Mideast.ru, similar assurances have been received by three other Russian oil companies operating in Iraq: Tatneft, Slavneft and Zarubezhneft.
Pessimists in Russia have long feared that when the "oil pie" in Iraq is divvied up, Russian companies could get less than their fair share, and that all is not quite so hunky-dory as the Americans would have us believe. But Russian companies don't really have much of a choice. Neither do the politicians. If they help to maintain the current status quo in Iraq, the sanctions will remain in place. If they try to save Saddam, seeing him as the "guarantor of Russian interests," they could lose much more than petro-dollars. Iraq could very well be in for a regime change, and Russia would risk serious damage to its relationship with the United States.
If the optimists are right in their assumption that the U.S. president will make good on his promises, the U.S.-Iraq conflict could result in a win-win situation for Russia. Saddam's promises -- contracts for Russian companies worth billions of dollars -- would be kept not by Saddam himself, but by Bush. And relations between Washington and Moscow would be sustained, if not improved. In other words, the United States would ensure economic dividends for Russia in exchange for our political neutrality in the conflict. This is the crux of ongoing negotiations between the two countries. In this situation, Saddam is superfluous. Russians seem to be coming around to this way of thinking.
Alexander Shumilin, editor-in-chief of Mideast.ru, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
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