Only time will tell if the Iraq War will turn out to be a heart-warming victory or a presidential career-destroying failure, but one thing is for certain: it was not a good public relations move, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Even within the rather anemic looking list of coalition countries, the popular sentiment was dead-set against us, even if their governments weren't. C'mon, international community – where is that good feeling?

Well, according to recent reports, it might be in Russia. Vladimir Putin showed a little love to the current administration last Friday by releasing a carefully worded statement, indicating that Russian intelligence had evidence that Iraq was planning to attack the United States. The response, so far, has been a collective, "Whut?" from the international community.

The big question is, of course, why did Putin choose to make this announcement now? Perhaps he was just waiting until everybody forgot that he was against the war in the first place. In an attempt to resolve the apparent contradiction posed by the announcement, Putin said that the invasion of Iraq did not follow "international legislation on procedures of the use of force in international affairs."

That's a bit of a clue right there. If Russia had credible information indicating that an Iraqi-backed terrorist attack were imminent, wouldn't they accept that a pre-emptive strike would be the right response? Putin's announcement stated, rather narrowly that Iraq was "planning" terrorist attacks. Perhaps, given the Bush administration's track record with regard to following up on our enemies "plans", he expected their response to be somewhat less than a full-scale invasion.

Then again, maybe there's another reason. According to Alexander Pikayev, "The timing of it leaves no doubt that it is -- directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally -- support for President Bush." While it's possible that Russia just likes Republicans better than Democrats, one begins to wonder if Putin maybe owes G.W.B. a few favors. Indeed, as Ivan Safranchuk is quoted as saying, "[The announcement] may have come as a result of a concrete agreement with the Bush administration."

If, in fact, the announcement was intended as a favor to the president, he's certainly taking his time about capitalizing on it. The Bush administration has not, as of press time, said much about it at all. Their response (issued by a White House spokesperson): "We've declassified as much information as we can to talk about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed." What's taking so long? Isn't this information a slam dunk?

Well, maybe not. According to Putin's announcement, Bush personally thanked someone in the Russian intelligence service for the information about Iraq – which, implies that he actually saw it. The problem is that, if he chooses to use this information to justify the war, it'll only blow the door open for even more questions. For example, why didn't tell the rest of us what he knew back when the war was getting started? Why go through that laundry list of spurious justifications? Why continue to insist on imaginary ties between Iraq and Al-Qa'ida? Either the information doesn't stand up to scrutiny, or it doesn't paint a dramatic enough threat, or, maybe, the president doesn't think very much of us and thought we'd swallow any old reason to go to war.

Maybe it's just foolish for us to hope that Putin's announcement will soften the hearts of the international community, when it doesn't seem to have had that effect on Putin himself. Still, maybe it just needs more spin; but there have been at least three news-cycles since the announcement. Bush had better hurry if he wants to use this situation to bring back the most important and elusive good feeling of all. An America that feels good about a war.

-B. C. Silvia
-6/23/2004