Who is Vladimir Putin?

Since the rise to power in Russia of this obscure bureaucrat and former KGB agent in the fall of 1999, two groups in the West have answered this question very differently.

For some bankers, investors and diplomats, Russian President Vladimir Putin was a godsend. On his watch, Russia's 1998 devaluation and rising oil prices began to fuel economic growth for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. If not personally responsible for the turnaround, Mr. Putin did initiate reforms designed to sustain it over the long haul. He replaced the personal income tax with a 13% flat tax, cut corporate taxes, balanced the budget, paid foreign debts, legalized land ownership, supported the restructuring of the big monopolies, and even began to tackle sensitive social services reforms. Compared with the last years of Boris Yeltsin, Mr. Putin looked like a dedicated proponent of capitalism.

In parallel to this storyline of Vladimir Putin as hero, a more sinister subplot emerged. As liberal tax reforms sailed through the Russian parliament, Mr. Putin's team was implementing illiberal political changes. During the Putin era, all national television networks effectively came back under the state control. The closing of TVS last month was the final blow. Russian soldiers have continued to abuse the human rights of Russian citizens living in Chechnya. (To be sure, Chechen fighters have practiced similar inhumane tactics, but two wrongs don't make a right.) Human rights organizations have been harassed, journalists imprisoned, and Western aid workers thrown out of the country. Of course, Mr. Putin personally rarely intervened in these rollbacks of democracy. But that's the point: he did nothing to stop these obvious steps toward authoritarian rule.

These two Vladimir Putins -- economic reformer and democratic backslider -- have lived side-by-side without meeting. Business people brushed aside the crackdown on the media as a necessary response to the anarchy unleashed during the Yeltsin era. The apologists claim Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, the two media magnates who were forced to flee the country to avoid jail, got what they deserved: Mr. Putin wasn't suppressing freedom of the press, only limiting the power of corrupt oligarchs. Some bold voices in the business community even championed interim dictatorship in Russia as the only way to provide the stability for investment and economic growth.

For their part, critics of Mr. Putin's anti-democratic policies undermined the punch of their analysis by exaggerating the Russian president's ruthlessness and failing to recognize his accomplishments in other sphere. They cast Mr. Putin as a new dictator who has more in common with Stalin than Boris Yeltsin or Mikhail Gorbachev.

Last week, the arrest of billionaire Platon Lebedev brought the two Vladimir Putins together. Mr. Lebedev runs Menatep, the bank for the Yukos financial-industrial group headed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man. Like Mr. Lebedev and others in the Yukos-Menatep organization, he made his fortune by using personal relationships with government bureaucrats to acquire state assets -- in this case, oil and mineral companies -- for a song.

When Mr. Putin first came to power, many billionaires worried the new Russian president would redistribute property rights once again, this time to a new set of cronies. Instead, Mr. Putin implicitly offered the oligarchs a deal: you keep what you had before as long you run your companies without looking for government handouts and get out of politics.

Unlike Vladimir Gusinsky or Boris Berezovsky, Mr. Khodorkovsky eagerly accepted this bargain. He and his team kept out of jail and built Yukos into one of Russia's most profitable, most transparent, and most Westernized companies. He grew to be first among equals among Russia's other oligarchs. He also began to operate differently than the rest, establishing his own foundations, charitable causes, and think tanks. In this election year, he also openly donated money to two of Russia's largest political parties, Yabloko and the Communists. Mr. Khodorkovsky calculated that all this fell within the bounds of the implicit pact between the Putin administration and the oligarchs.

Last week's arrest, and the police questioning of Mr. Khodorkovsky, suggest that the Russian president interprets the pact differently. Mr. Khodorkovsky's economic power and political ambitions threatened Mr. Putin. So the president changed the rules of the game. Economic deals of the past once thought to be beyond scrutiny are now suddenly in question. If there are now new rules, then the alleged claim against Mr. Lebedev -- that he illegally acquired assets in the 1994 privatization of the Apatit fertilizer company -- or similar ones, could be leveled against nearly every businessman who operated in Russia since the early 1990s.

If these new informal rules are being remade to scare Mr. Khodorkovsky away from politics, then the arrest of Platon Lebedev is even more sobering. It means that Russians are not allowed to try to influence electoral outcomes -- an essential feature of even the most minimal democracy. Of course, oil tycoons should not be allowed to deploy their financial resources to skew the electoral playing field. But the enforcement of campaign finance laws is the tool that most democracies use to address this problem, not random arrest.

Arbitrary rule by the state is not only undemocratic. It's bad for business. A state that isn't constrained by checks and balances, the rule of law, the scrutiny of an independent media, or the will of the voters is unpredictable at best, predatory at worst. Two weeks ago, Mr. Lebedev probably would have argued that President Putin's economic accomplishments outweighed its democratic failures. Today, he probably has a different view. So should the rest of us.

George W. Bush wants Americans and the world to believe that the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime two months ago represented a defeat for tyranny and a victory for liberty. No one has devoted more words to framing regime change in Iraq in these terms than the president.

In the debate leading up to the war, Mr. Bush and his administration focused primarily on Iraq's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and the threat they posed to the US to justify military action. After military victory, however, Bush has emphasized the larger objective of promoting liberty in Iraq and the greater Middle East, especially because the search for weapons of mass destruction has produced such limited results. This mission statement for Iraq echoes convictions Bush stressed in every major foreign policy speech given since Sept. 11.

The president, however, has one big problem in pursuing this foreign-policy agenda. Few believe he is serious. Around the world, many see an imperial power using its military might to secure oil and replace anti-American dictators with pro-American dictators.

At home, isolationists in both the Republican and Democratic parties shudder at the folly of another Wilsonian mission to make the world safe for democracy.

Both at home and abroad, observers of Bush's foreign policy are confused by the mixed messages it sends. Was the war against Iraq undertaken to eliminate weapons of mass destruction or to spread liberty?

Bush faces an even more daunting challenge in making his commitment to democracy-promotion credible - the perception of hypocrisy. Bush has shown more concern for bringing freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq than to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

If Bush is truly committed to a foreign-policy doctrine of liberty-promotion, none of these criticisms is insurmountable. But they must be addressed. Especially now, with end of war in Iraq, what Bush says and does will define the true contours of his foreign-policy doctrine. Is it a liberty doctrine? Or does the language of liberty camouflage ulterior motives?

We will know that Bush is serious about promoting liberty if he credibly commits to four important tasks.

First, and most obviously, he must devote intellectual energy and financial resources to securing new regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq that, if not full-blown democracies, at least show the potential for democratization over time. To date, the record of achievement in both places is spotty. Bush has to keep these two countries at the top of his agenda, making regime construction as important as regime destruction. If democratizing regimes do not take hold in these countries, then Bush has no credibility in promoting liberty elsewhere.

Second, if Bush is serious about his stated mission, then he must give more attention to developing, funding, and legitimating the nonmilitary tools for promoting political liberalization abroad. The Marines cannot be used to promote democratic regime change in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, or Uzbekistan. Wilson had his 14 points and Truman his Marshall Plan. Kennedy created the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps. Reagan started the hugely successful National Endowment for Democracy. Bush needs to lend his name to similar grand initiatives.

Third, in future speeches, Bush must flesh out the next phase of his liberty doctrine by explaining his priorities. Even the most powerful country in the world cannot bring liberty to every person living under tyranny all at once. But the president does owe the American people and the world a clearer game plan. It is no accident that Bush has given top priority to promoting democratic regime change in places where autocratic regimes were also enemies of the US. Fine, but what principles guide the next moves? There are also countries in which the promotion of political liberalization at this time could actually lead to less freedom, not more. What are the criteria being used to identify such places? To win supporters to his mission, Bush must present a rationale for the next phase of democracy promotion.

Fourth, even if the US does not have the capacity to promote freedom everywhere all the time, the president can make his commitment to liberty more credible if he develops a consistent message about his foreign-policy objectives, no matter what the setting. Words matter. Advocates of democracy living under dictatorship can be inspired by words of support from an American president. They can also become frustrated and despondent when the American president refrains from echoing his liberty doctrine when visiting their country. For instance, Bush's failure to speak openly about democratic erosion on his recent visit to Russia was a big disappointment to Russian democrats.

Some will always believe that the US is just another imperial power, not unlike the old Soviet Union, Britain, France, or Rome, exploiting military power for material gains. But for others of us who want to believe that the US has a nobler mission in the world, we are waiting on the president to give us signs of a long-term credible commitment to promoting liberty abroad.

Oil Boom: Peril or Opportunity? Sub-Saharan Africa is in the midst of an oil boom as foreign energy companies pour billions of dollars into the region for the exploration and production of petroleum. African governments, in turn, are receiving billions of dollars in revenue from this boom. Oil production on the continent is set to double by the end of the decade and the United States will soon be importing 25 percent of its petroleum from the region. Over $50 billion, the largest investment in African history, will be spent on African oil fields by the end of the decade.

The new African oil boom -- centered on the oil-rich Atlantic waters of the Gulf of Guinea, from Nigeria to Angola -- is a moment of great opportunity and great peril for countries beset by wide-scale poverty. On the one hand, revenues available for poverty reduction are huge; Catholic Relief Services (CRS) conservatively estimates that sub-Saharan African governments will receive over $200 billion in oil revenues over the next decade. On the other hand, the dramatic development failures that have characterized most other oil-dependent countries warn that petrodollars have not helped developing countries to reduce poverty; in many cases, they have actually exacerbated it.

Africa's oil boom comes at a time when foreign aid to Africa from industrialized countries is falling and being replaced by an emphasis from donor nations on trade as a means for African countries to escape poverty. The dominance of oil and mining in Africa's trade relationships, coupled with this decline in aid flows, means that it is especially vital that Africa make the best use of its oil.

CRS is committed to helping to ensure that Africa's oil boom improves the lives of the poor through increased investment in education, health, water, roads, agriculture and other vital necessities. But for this to occur, these revenues must be well managed. Thus, this report addresses two fundamental questions: How can Africa's oil boom contribute to alleviating poverty? What policy changes should be implemented to promote the management and allocation of oil revenues in a way that will benefit ordinary Africans?

Protesters who marched around the world last week were wrong to assume that American inaction against Iraq will make their children safer or the Iraqi people better off. (Wouldn't it be nice if the Iraqi people could express their opinion about their country's future rather than having to listen to George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein or street protesters speak on their behalf?) The protesters were right, however, to question whether war against Iraq will produce more security at home and real freedom for the Iraqi people.

Americans should have confidence that the Department of Defense has a game plan and the capacity to destroy Hussein's regime, but we have less reason to feel the same level of confidence about the blueprint and resources earmarked to rebuild Iraq because no one talks about them.

The time for circulating such plans and amassing such resources is now, before the bombs begin to fall. A war to disarm Hussein alone is not legitimate. Only a military conflict that brings about genuine political change in Iraq will leave the Iraqi people better off and the American people more secure. Winning the war will be inconsequential if we fail to win the peace.

To demonstrate a credible commitment fto rebuild a democratic Iraqi over the long haul, the Bush administration could do the following today:

First, if we must go to war, we cannot go alone. American armed forces can destroy Hussein's regime without France or Germany, but the U.S. Agency for International Development will struggle to rebuild a new Iraqi regime without the assistance of others.

Second, President Bush must state clearly before the conflict begins that an international coalition will govern Iraq for an interim term. Again, the burden will fall mainly on American armed forces and their commanders. But the less the occupation looks like an American unilateral action, the better.

Third, the Bush administration must secure a commitment from all stakeholders in a post-war Iraqi regime about the basic contours of a new constitution for governing Iraq before war begins. Right now, these claimants on a future Iraqi regime are weak. They need the United States to come to power, which gives American officials considerable leverage now. Once Hussein's regime falls, however, they will be less beholden to the Americans. Without a clearly articulated plan in place before the fall of Hussein's regime, the process of constituting a new government could quickly become chaotic and unpredictable.

Fourth, President Bush must make absolutely clear now -- before war -- that the United States has no intention of seizing Iraqi oil fields, which belong to the Iraqi people. Bush must distance himself from statements made by unnamed government officials that the United States plans to appropriate Iraqi oil revenues as reparations.

This absurd idea -- believed by many throughout the world -- must be squelched immediately and unequivocally. Instead, the Bush administration should consider privatizing the Iraqi oil business through a mass voucher program. Give every Iraqi citizen a small stake in the ownership of these resources. At a minimum, an international consortium, not an American general, must assume stewardship of the Iraqi oil business during occupation.

On Day One after Hussein is defeated, Bush must demonstrate a real commitment to the promotion of democracy in the region. Most importantly, the rebuilding of Iraq must begin immediately. The delays we are witnessing in Afghanistan cannot be repeated.

In this cause, the American people should also help through the direct delivery of aid, student exchanges, or sister-city programs. Those who rallied in support of peace last week should remain mobilized to promote peace and development in Iraq after a military conflict, when the Iraqi people will be in greatest need.

In parallel, Bush must demonstrate a more serious commitment to rebuilding a state in Afghanistan -- hopefully as a democracy, but at least as a functioning, coherent state that can maintain order and promote development. This can happen only if the warlords are contained, an assignment that will require several times the several thousand peacekeeping troops now in the country. Western aid workers in Afghanistan -- including those working on democracy -- complain that internal security is a precondition for any aid to be effective.

In addition, Bush must formulate a policy toward Iran, which could begin by stating clearly that the United States does not intend to use force against that country. The current ambiguity about American intentions only strengthens the hard-liners within Iran and weakens the reformers. More fundamentally, the United States must develop a more sophisticated policy toward Iran, one which engages reformers within the Iranian government and assists democratic forces in society, but does not legitimate hard-line clerics who control the regime. The model is American policy toward the Soviet Union in its waning years.

And President Bush should redouble his administration's efforts to help create a democratic Palestine. A democratic Palestine is not a reward to the Sept. 11 terrorists, but their worst nightmare. Of course, this undertaking is enormous, but no larger than the task of installing democracy in Iraq after invasion.

Bush should also call his counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt and tell them privately the truth -- regime change in their countries has already begun. If they initiate political liberalization now while they are still powerful and their enemies are still weak, they might be able to shape the transition process according to their interests as the king did in Spain and Augusto Pinochet did in Chile. If the Saudis, Pakistanis and Egyptians wait, however, their regimes are more likely to end in revolution like Iran in 1979 or Romania in 1989.

Even if President Bush undertakes all these initiatives, an invasion of Iraq is still likely to produce a net loss of political liberalization in the region in the short run. Dictatorships in the region are not going to suddenly liberalize in response to the American occupation of Iraq. In the face of angry publics, they will do the exact opposite -- just as autocrats across Europe did two centuries ago when Napoleon tried to bring democracy to the continent through the barrel of a gun.

American leaders, therefore, will face greater and more complex challenges after the war than before the war. To succeed, Bush and his successors need a long-term game plan. Above all, the president must explain to the American people that the United States will be involved in the reconstruction of a democratic Iraq and the region for decades, not months or years.

The worst-case scenario -- for both Americans and Iraqis -- is a quick war, followed by a terrorist attack on American troops stationed in Iraq, followed by a call for early American disengagement. Twenty years ago, the United States helped to destroy the Soviet-sponsored regime in Afghanistan, but then failed to help build a new regime in the vacuum. We experienced the consequences of such shortsightedness on Sept. 11, 2001. In Iraq or elsewhere in the region, we cannot make the same mistake again.