In the land of the paranoid and cynical

Jim Hoagland:

Russian prosecutors say that the separate grisly murders of two of the Kremlin's most vocal opponents during the past year have a common motive: They were committed by enemies of Vladimir Putin to frame and embarrass his government.

A similarly sinister hidden agenda lies behind U.S. plans to create antimissile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russian officials are telling Western diplomats. The silos that the Americans say are needed to defend against Iranian missile attacks will, in the Russian version, be stuffed with multiple-warhead offensive rockets aimed at Moscow.

These "explanations" of murders and missiles raise a chilling question about Putin's Kremlin: Is it worse if the Russians are cynically offering up blatantly implausible tales as propaganda -- or if the Russian president and his aides actually believe their own accounts?

Americans should root for cynicism. Hostile governments run by delusional fantasy are far more dangerous than those run by knowing lies -- especially when the government in question possesses a vast nuclear arsenal....

Two disturbing patterns emerged more clearly last week when Yuri Chaika, Russia's prosecutor general, announced 10 arrests in the slaying last October of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in an elevator in her apartment building. Chaika portrayed the assassination of Politkovskaya -- a fierce critic of the Kremlin's policies in Chechnya -- as the work of a Chechen crime boss who hired Russian police officers as killers to embarrass the government.

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The second pattern can be found in the motives cited by Chaika in Politkovskaya's killing. The prosecutor's account echoed the Kremlin's explanation of the poisoning in London last November of dissident Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210. Behind this plot, which was once again aimed at defaming Putin, was exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, Russian officials suggested, without offering any evidence to support the theory.

The diplomatic argument between Washington and Moscow over missile defense in Central Europe also turns to a great extent on Russian suspicions that balance on a thin line between cynicism and paranoia....

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The Russian argument holds that the Iranian missile threat "might" materialize only 15 years from now. So U.S. haste on deployments in the two former Soviet satellites is a cover for "creating facts on the ground" and gaining an offensive strategic edge over Russia.

It's worth asking if this is merely psychological projection at work: We know you Americans are going to hide MIRVs because it is what we would do in your shoes. You, after all, must be as cynical as we are. Your offers of unprecedented transparency and inspection rights (which were conveyed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Putin) are just one more trick and will not fool us.

The KGB graduates who run the Kremlin do seem to see Bush as being far more cunning and purposeful in planning to undermine their rule than is indicated by any available evidence. The same can be said of Berezovsky and for Chechen crime bosses -- if, that is, you are not a prosecutor trying to close politically explosive cases.

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There is also a good deal of farce in the Russian act of belligerence toward the west. Putin is going to the expense of doing Bear bomber flybys on planes that have no bombs on board. They are providing mutual photo ops for the fighter pilots in the west and Russia's antique aircraft show. Is there anything less scary than a antique turbo prop bomber without weapons on board demonstrating that it can still fly?

Putin wants Russia to have more influence on events, but appears to be clueless as to how to accomplish that result. Hopefully, Russia will find a smarter successor.