PRESIDENT BUSH said last week of his erstwhile «friend» Vladimir Putin, «I have no idea what he’s going to do.» Mr. Bush is not alone: no one but Mr. Putin knows whether the Russian president will relinquish power next year. Still, after Mr. Putin’s announcement that he would not be averse to becoming the next prime minister, the prevailing guess is that after the March 2 presidential election Mr. Putin will head the Russian government under a new president. Yet before the Bush administration and the leading contenders for the White House begin to design a Russia policy based on this, its plausibility has to be examined. In the light of what we know about Mr. Putin and the political and economic system he has forged, he is more likely to find a way to continue in office as President Putin. To begin, Vladimir Putin has done the opposite of what he publicly said he would do with regard to some major policy issues. In November 2003, he declared that «the state should not really seek to destroy» Yukos — at the time Russia’s largest, most modern and most transparent private company — and then methodically did just that through a palpably fraudulent prosecution.

The United States, Israel, Germany, France, and many other countries assert that: a) Iran is undoubtedly striving to produce nuclear weapons; b) this must not be permitted under any circumstances. True, it isn't clear exactly what can be done about it. The media have said a thousand times already that the USA will bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. But the more they talk of it, the less believable it seems. Bush and his administration are psychologically broken by their failures in Iraq. And if they bomb the nuclear sites, Iran might well respond by unleashing a real full-scale war against the USA in Iraq. For the US military, this would mean... let's see... a war against a nation of 70 million people. A war with a strong flavor of "jihad against the infidels." Given that the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-87 left about a million dead on either side, it's clear that Iran would be willing to accept high casualties. For the USA, which still can't recall the 50,000 troops lost in Vietnam without a shudder, such a war would be a national disaster. What's more, even if some miracle allows a repeat of the Iraq situation - a blitzkrieg taking the Americans into Tehran - subsequent developments might repeat the Iraq scenario as well! To be more precise: all right, let's say they manage a rapid entry into Tehran - but then they'll face the problem of how to get out.

John McCain and Rudy Giuliani made some statements about relations with Russia during the Republican Party's recent debate for potential presidential candidates. McCain referred to President Putin's KGB background, and Giuliani argued that a strong military would deter Russia and China. Fox News organized a debate for former New York mayor Rudy
Giuliani, former senator Fred Thompson (Tennessee), Senator John McCain (Arizona), and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

He didn't look or sound like a politician putting the finishing touches to his legacy as he prepares to head into retirement in a few months. In an unrelentingly upbeat, magisterial performance, he stressed his personal, ongoing engagement in economic planning, social policy, and negotiations with foreign leaders. But one subject Putin had surprisingly little to say about was his own future plans, although Moscow political analysts have been discussing little else for weeks. He pledged, as he has in the past, that he will leave office following presidential polls next March and that "another person will be here, in the Kremlin, in 2008."

At an off-the-record discussion several months ago, a former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Russia's elite was intoxicated from the smell of oil and gas and was drunk with petroleum power. The state-controlled, cash-rich energy giant Gazprom had just attempted to purchase a British energy company and was making progress in its plan to gain control over European pipelines and gas terminals. Russia was making strides in building Nordstream, a Baltic Sea pipeline that would allow it to supply gas directly to Europe and bypass pipelines that run through Ukraine and Poland. And Central Asia's political leaders were in lock step with the Kremlin, agreeing that all energy exports to Europe should flow through Russia rather than across the Caspian and Turkey. In short, Russia was getting stronger, and it was using its prodigious resources to advance its geopolitical agenda.

In his first day of talks in Tehran, President Putin has already signed up to a statement with fellow Caspian Sea leaders condemning any use of force in the region and supporting Iran’s right to acquire nuclear technology. His discussions about co-operation over Caspian Sea energy resources, and likely talks about the completion of a Russian-made nuclear power plant at Bushehr, signal that meaningful sanctions are no longer realistic. The only option left would be unilateral sanctions of the type already imposed by America against Tehran with little effect.

AS VLADIMIR Putin embarks on a historic visit to Iran, the first by a Russian head of state in more than half a century, expectations are high. The Russian leader is seeking to effect an otherwise unlikely thaw in the frozen ties between Iran and the West. This visit is not directly related to Iran’s nuclear crisis; Putin’s main itinerary being participation in the Caspian Sea heads of state summit.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are coming to Moscow. Given the impending parliamentary election in Russia and presidential elections first in Russia and then in the United States, the time has come to summarize and evaluate eight years of relations between administrations in Moscow and Washington. The beginning was rather sour. The Republicans, who had condemned the Democrats for "letting Russia slip away," promised a more rigorous approach. Russia, which had barely started its climb out of the crisis and overall weakness, was predictably skittish. Once they occupied the Oval Office, however, the Republicans changed their mind and chose not to mount tension. Representatives of Russia were told the following (literally). We will look you in the eyes and say we trust you. We will treat you with all respect a world power is entitled to. We have a lot of common interests after all. That's how everything will be as long as you don't interfere with our policy in the Larger Middle East and elsewhere.

In a tense start to talks on a range of thorny issues, President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned U.S. officials to back off a plan to install missile defenses in eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow. Addressing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Russian president appeared to mock the U.S. missile defense plan, which is at the center of a tangle of arms control and diplomatic disputes between the former Cold War adversaries.

Vladimir Putin yesterday brushed off efforts by Nicolas Sarkozy to persuade Russia to be more co-operative in its dealings with the world. He notably stuck to his refusal to put more pressure on Iran over its nuclear plans. President Sarkozy, on a two-day «tough-love» mission to Moscow, was visibly embarrassed when his Russian counterpart failed to share in his upbeat account of the rapport that the pair had struck at a private dinner at Mr Putin’s home.