| I'm sure Putin is just grateful as all hell for that assistance... |
President Vladimir Putin should grant Chechnya special status within Russia to end a decade-long insurgency, although some Western countries would like to see Moscow trapped in the "Chechen quagmire" for years, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said on Monday.
| Gorby knows a thing or two about quagmire, too. |
Gorbachev also said there was an important lesson from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: Don't act unilaterally. "The crisis in Iraq has been a lesson, and I believe that lesson has been learned by both the United States and all of us," the 73-year-old said at a breakfast attended by journalists. "That lesson is that unilateral action is really not the way to go, is really not the way forward."
Looking at Russia's most immediate crisis, Gorbachev said the solution in separatist Chechnya must be political. Russia has twice invaded largely Muslim Chechnya on Russia's southern rim, fighting a 1994-96 war to end a self-declared independence and a second war starting in 1999 after apartment bombings that Russia blamed on Chechen terrorists. The second war is still raging, and Putin classifies it as part of the global war on terror. But at the same time, Putin is trying to make Chechnya self-governing with a native leadership. |