Western Leaders have Made Putin into a Superman to Avoid Facing Up to Their Own Mistakes, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 17 – One of the most effective ways to conceal from oneself and others his or her failures is to suggest that one is up against someone or something with apparently super human powers, Vladislav Inozemtsev says. And that is exactly what many in the West have done by promoting Putin as a fetish with superhuman powers.

            This is especially true in the United States where people across the political system at one point or another have addressed their own failures not by considering the mistakes they have made but by suggesting Putin is “a political genius and all-powerful manipulator against whom all means they have are powerless” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=61BCC0E86420B).

            “In my view,” the Russian commentator says, “the cause of such assertions is not a striving after self-destruction by the West or even more by an objective analysis of the situation but rather the laws of political struggle” which require people to blame others for their own shortcomings rather than face up to them.

            Inozemtsev has made this point before – see thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/319264-putin-isnt-too-strong-the-enemies-make-him-mighty – but it is clear that the time has come to remind everyone that “Putin has become a fetish that can explain away any problems of any political force in ways that don’t require admission of your own mistakes.”

            “Putin is not the ruler of the world,” Inozemtsev says; that should be obvious. But what is especially disturbing is that he has been made into “the demiurge of world politics not least of all by those seeking to fight him and present him as the main threat to the existing world order.” That gives him a victory he doesn’t deserve and makes it more difficult for others to fight him.