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• Friday, December 1, 2006 07:14 AM

  Qui Bono? Who Benefits?

  We can all be grateful to the authors of these comments. It is obviously not difficult to purchase a lethal amount of polonium 210 or to steal it from anti-static devices used widely in the textile or film industries. It is clear that Livtvinenko's poisoning was not necessarily the work of a state actor.

  So qui bono, as Cicero asked? Who benefits? Putin and the Russian State? Putin and his government may be adopting many of the trappings of a classic authoritarian state, but why would it be in their interest to eliminate a relatively harmless, apparently somewhat delusional, defector like Litvinenko?

  In whose interest would it be to encourage a widening rift between Russia on the one hand and Western Europe and the U.S. on the other? Is there a commercial interest at play, either Russian or European (or American)? Or is there primarily a political interest at play, perhaps the interest of a non-state actor?

  While resisting terminal paranoia, we may need to ponder whether this episode has any connection to events in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida brain trust seem to have the capacity to think a step or two ahead of the leaderships of most Western states. Remember how bin Laden staged the assassination of Afghan Northern Alliance Commander Massoud just two days before launching the attacks of 9/11 in the U.S.?

  If eliminating U.S. and Western influence in the Middle East is bin Laden's essential goal, would it not be in his interest to provoke a rift between Russia and the West? In the upshot the Russians might well be induced to step up arms shipments to Syria and Iran, provide anti-aircraft missiles to the Iraqi insurgency (it was, after all, the U.S. introduction of Stingers into Afghanistan which served as the catalyst of the Soviet defeat there), and actively oppose Western goals in the region--rather than sit relatively passively on the sidelines as has been the case for nearly 20 years.

  If bin Laden wishes to help foment over the carcass of Iraq a regional war that will draw in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Bahrain and Jordan on one side against perhaps Iran, Syria, and Turkey on the other, Litvinenko's assassination could be a piece of his strategic puzzle. As Alec Guiness's character said in the film "Doctor Zhivago" as he marches off with the Tsar's recruits to the First World War, "Out of the war will come the revolution."

  Out of a regional war over Iraq with the attendant chaos and massive flows of refugees will come the crumbling of the Saudi and Jordanian (and other Gulf) monarchies--and out of the wreckage will come bin Laden's chance to become a major leader and state actor in the Arab world.

  So let us see who really benefits in the end from Litvinenko's poisoning.

  —FMArouet21st Read FMArouet21st's other letters
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