International Politics Links (29 June 2009)

Once again, sorry for the lack of Links posts last week. I was busy with other matters. This post covers June 22nd through today, June 29th. Not surprisingly, most of the links deal with the Iranian election aftermath; stories on Israel are also increasing, mostly due to renewed settlement in the West Bank. And the newest, hottest story is of the coup in Honduras.)

Americas:
Coup In Honduras

20 People Killed in Peru in Demonstrations


Europe:
Merkel Stands Besides Demonstrators - "in Iran" (In Germany, not so much.)

Russia Ready for Deep Nuclear Arms Cuts: Medvedev


Middle East:
Odierno: Iraqis Ready for Handover

Violence Erupts in Baghdad as Deadline for U.S. Troops to Withdraw From Major Cities Nears

Iraq After The U.S. Retreat

FBI Files: Saddam Hussein Faked Having WMDs (Old news, but worth linking to.)

Karim Sadjadpour Reminds Chris Wallace That U.S. Meddling in Middle East Politics is Not Productive

David Gregory Badgers Benjamin Netanyahu Over Whether Israel Will Take Unilateral Action Against Iran

Resisting Calls, Israel Insists on Building in the West Bank

Israel Deploys Troops Along Lebanese Border (Near Shebaa Farms, specifically.)

Barak Authorizes Construction of 300 New Homes in West Bank (American reaction? Nothing.)

Pakistan Navy Slated for Major Revamp


Iran:
Has There Been a Military Coup in Iran by the Revolutionary Guard in Iran?

Reza Aslan on Iran (His interview on The Daily Show.)

Neda: A Civil Rights Struggle

Obama: Neda Video 'Heartbreaking'

The Meaning of Neda

In Iran, Authorities Admit Voting Discrepancies

Rachel Maddow: Iranian Protesters Targetting the Basiji

Evidence Of Western Intelligence Meddling in Iran

Sunday's Protest March Broken Up; Rafsanjani Defers to Khamenei (Sunday referring to June 28th.)

5,000 March Silently in Iran

Washington and the Iran Protests: Would they be Allowed in the US?

Guardianship Council Rules out Annulment of Election Results; Reformists Planning Strikes, Mourning

Chatham House Study Definitively Shows Massive Ballot Fraud in Iran's Reported Results

More Details on Saturday's Demonstrations (This would have been Saturday, June 20th.)

An Interesting Detail

Iran Election Wrap Up

Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran’s Election?

Iran: 'There is Very Little Logic at Work' (This was a very interesting personal essay. Must read.)

Obama Questions Legitimacy of Iranian Elections, Says It is ‘Up to the Iranian People to Decide’ Their Leadership.

Lugar: The U.S. Should Still Be Willing To ‘Sit Down’ With Iran For Nuclear Talks


Asia:
China Crosses the Rubicon

China-India Relations: An Unresolved Border and 60,000 Troops Deployed

Thousands of Anti-Govt Protesters Mass in Bangkok (Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra wants to come home.)


Miscellaneous:
Senegal: Islam, Democracy, Sexy

Indefinite Detention, Anyone? White House is Drafting New Executive Order

Obama Considering an Executive Order Allowing Indefinite Detention.

2008 Oil Reserves Analysis

The Economist had a recent graph showing oil reserves as of the end of 2008, with the number of years remaining for each country's reserves at the 2008 rate of production. I posted a similar graph from The Economist back in June 2006, so we'll do a little analysis to see how things have gone in the past three years.

First, there have been some changes in the rankings for total reserves. The top four (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait) remain the same, but Venezuela has moved up one notch, replacing the UAE in fifth place. Russia remains at #7, but Libya has moved up to #8, replacing Kazakhstan. Numbers 10 (Nigeria), 11 (United States) and 12 (Canada) remain the same, but Qatar has moved ahead of China for 13th place. Angola comes in at #15 in the 2008 chart, up four places. Eight countries that were on the 2005 chart were omitted this time (in alphabetical order): Algeria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, India, Mexico, Norway, Oman, and Sudan).

The 2005 chart mentioned that if production were to continue at 2005's level of production, the world would have 41 years' worth of oil left. The good news is that, three years on, global supplies should actually last for another 42 years.

Doing a quick-and-dirty analysis, we can find out which countries have been winners over the past three years and which were losers. Winners are those countries whose reserves will survive longer today than they were expected to last in 2005's estimate, taking into account the three years of production that have passed. (This could happen either because more oil reserves have been proved in the past three years, because production slowed down, or both.)

In fact, all of the countries were winners, except for three; the winners being: Saudi Arabia (3.5 years), Iraq (3), Kuwait (2.6), Venezuela (30!), Russia (3.8), Libya (4.6), Nigeria (10.6), United States (3.4), Canada (12.1), Qatar (19.1), China (2.1), and Angola (2.7).

The three losers were Iran (-3.1), the UAE (-4.3), and Kazakhstan (-7.0).

The full Economist article:

Although the price of oil peaked at $147 a barrel in 2008, the world’s proven oil reserves—those that are known and recoverable with existing technology—fell only slightly, to 1,258 billion barrels, according to BP, a British oil company. That is 18% higher than in 1998. OPEC tightened its grip slightly in 2008, and commands slightly more than three-quarters of proven reserves. Saudi Arabia and Iran together account for almost one-third of the total. Venezuela, with nearly 8%, has the largest share of any non-Middle Eastern country. BP reckons that if the world continues to produce oil at the same rate as last year, global supplies will last another 42 years, even if no more oil reserves are found.

International Politics Links (8 June 2009)

My series of links posts, which went on a brief hiatus last week, resumes tonight with two major changes. The first is that I've decided to go with a revolving format; for example, international politics will be every Monday, insha'allah. My tentative schedule for the remainder of the week is: Tuesdays - Business/Economics, Wednesdays - Islam/Muslim Blogs, Thursdays - Miscellaneous (e.g., science, science fiction, photos, etc.), and Fridays - Open. Of course, all of this is subject to change without notice.

The other big change is that I've decided not to do links for American politics, for two reasons: one, it's such a fast-moving and huge topic that to do it justice would mean a daily commitment, one which I'm not sure I want to make; and two, most of the political blogs I read follow the philosophy of "know thy enemy," which, in this case is the Republican party. The sheer stupidity and evil of many Republicans really disgust me. I've decided I'd rather not comment on those matters for the most part, although I may occasionally link to posts about American politics in so far as it deals with international politics and economics.

With regard to international politics, I've separated links into geographical areas (continents) for the most part. For example, in today's post, links are for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with "Miscellaneous" being for other parts of the world or multiple countries discussed in the post. Within each geographical area, I've tried to alphabetize the countries mentioned. So, once more, for example, with respect to the Middle East the countries are Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Syria.

And, of course, if my readers have legitimate suggestions for links, please add them in the comments.


Europe:
Majid: Dangerous Purities (An interesting guest op-ed essay on the 400th anniversary of the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain. The Moriscos were Spaniards of Muslim descent, either themselves or their parents/grandparents, who had converted from Islam to Christianity. But even their conversion was not enough to satisfy the Catholics, so roughly 300,000 Moriscos, or five percent of the Spanish population, was forced to flee their own country, with most of them dying in the process.)

Biased Election Reporting (On the German results for the European Parliament election.)

Russian Warns Against Relying on Dollar


Middle East:
Obama in the Middle East

Reactions to Obama's Speech

Obama's Speech in Cairo (Juan Cole)

Obama's Speech In Cairo (Moon of Alabama)

Iraqi Prime Minister Warned Obama About Photos: 'Baghdad Will Burn'

It's Only Make-Believe: Bush Policy on Israeli Settlement Freeze Was An 'Understanding'

Obama and Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

OSC: Israeli Press on Obama's Cairo Address

Netanyahu's Problem

UN: Israeli Buffer Zone Eats Up 30 Percent of Gaza's Arable Land

Jewish Settlers Rampage in West Bank

March 14 Faction Wins in Lebanon

OSC: Pakistani Editorialists Respond to Obama

Thousands Flee Mingora in Panic; Army advances toward Kalam; 9 Soldiers Killed, 27 militants

Mysterious 'Chip' is CIA's Latest Weapon Against al-Qaida Targets Hiding in Pakistan's Tribal Belt ("Don't like your neighbor? Drop a chip in his house and the CIA will bomb him.")

Syrian Newspapers on Obama's Arab Tour (OSC)


Asia:
Made in China Means Quality

American Journalists Sentenced In North Korea To 12 Years Labor Camp

Star War Fantasy Drill (Is North Korea a military threat to America? No, and a military hardware project called the "star war fantasy drill" from the US budget, to the howls of protest by some.)

Seoul Boosts Forces Against N Korea


Miscellaneous:
Fleischer criticizes Obama’s Cairo speech as being too ‘balanced.’

EU And Lebanon Elections

NYT Finally Runs ‘Editor’s Note’ Correction To Misleading Gitmo Detainee ‘Recidivism’ Story

Links for 29 May 2009

Politics:
Dick Morris Thinks Convincing the Japanese to Develop Nuclear Weapons is the Solution to Dealing With North Korea (Oh, yeah, that's the ticket! Bring all of Northeast Asia into a nuclear arms race. No, thank you!)

Another Ralph Peters idea: Eventually, soldiers will need to start killing the media too (Yesterday, I linked to a post where Col. Ralph Peters suggested we should just kill all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Some people have been looking into his previous statements, and found that he's also suggested that the military kill the media as well: "Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar. ... Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media." Unthinkable now, unthinkable in the future, too, you nitwit!)

Fox News Embraces Right-Wing Theory That Obama Is Forcing GOP-Owned Car Dealerships To Close (Of course, no one seems to consider that "...all car dealers are, in fact, overwhelmingly more likely to donate to Republicans than to Democrats — not just those who are having their doors closed.” But why let facts get in the way of a good hysteria? See also TBogg's Negro president locks Republican car dealers in the trunk and Yet another intrepid Malkin 'investigative scoop' goes pffffft.)

Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique? (The answer: YES! No wonder the Obama administration is trying to keep the new photos from Abu Ghraib secret.)

Rachel Maddow Responds to Tancredo's Racist Screed

Countdown: Jesse Ventura on Torture Prosecutions and Waterboarding (Ventura on "why he thinks we haven't had any prosecutions for torture in the United States, 'Mancow' Muller's waterboarding and Sean Hannity never agreeing to go through it himself.")

How to talk to a right winger ("What was ostensibly good for Israel for 40 years will also be good for another 400 years. For 40 years we were able to deceive ourselves, to mock the world, to occupy, to oppress, to trample and to kill. So why shouldn't we continue?")

The Potential Korea Escalation


Economics:
Yield Curve

"Fermi Problems" (Fermi Problems are interesting; I've run into a few, and I know that Microsoft has used them as part of their recruiting process. Thoma mentions that "Watching someone work out a Fermi problem in real time reveals a lot about their brainpower." More specifically, what it really does, IMO, is show how one works through a problem: the assumptions made and the logic necessary to solve the problem itself. Whether the solution itself is correct is mostly irrelevant. How one comes up with the solution is what's at stake.)

Are Durable Goods Orders Bottoming? (Another sign that might indicate the recession is beginning to fade.)


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
A quote to remember...


Miscellaneous:
Closer: The Cutout Of Delight (Always carry an extra hand in your purse, my dear?)

Russian police find feral girl in Siberia (Astaghfirullah! Poor girl. Russian police have taken into care a 5-year-old girl who has been shut up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs for her entire life, police said on Wednesday. ... The girl, who lived in the Eastern Siberian city of Chita, could not speak Russian and acted like an dog when police took her into care. ... "For five years, the girl was 'brought up' by several dogs and cats and had never been outside," a police statement said.)

Crater on Mars named for Isaac Asimov (An asteroid was already named after him, but this is still an overdue honor.)

Petroleum and Natural Gas Proved Reserves, 2009, Top 10

This is an annual post; the data is only updated annually. For the 2008 data, please click here.

The Energy Information Administration, a department of the U.S. Department of Energy, has recently released the January 1, 2009 proved reserves for petroleum and natural gas. Proved reserves are the amount of oil and gas in the ground that is "reasonably certain" to be extracted using current technology at current prices. The following are lists of the top ten countries for petroleum and natural gas proved reserves, with their quantities and percentage of the world total for 2009:

Petroleum - Billion Barrels
1. Saudi Arabia - 266.710 (19.87%)
2. Canada - 178.092 (13.27%)
3. Iran - 136.150 (10.14%)
4. Iraq - 115.000 (8.57%)
5. Kuwait - 104.000 (7.75%)
6. Venezuela - 99.377 (7.40%)
7. United Arab Emirates - 97.800 (7.29%)
8. Russian Federation - 60.000 (4.47%)
9. Libya - 43.660 (3.25%)
10. Nigeria - 36.220 (2.70%)

Notes:

• The world total of proved reserves is 1,342.207 billion barrels of petroleum, an increase of 10.164 billion barrels over 2008's total (a 0.76% increase).
  
• The total of the top ten countries makes up 84.71% of the world's proved reserves.
  
• Venezuela was the only country to move up in the rankings, having placed seventh in 2008; the United Arab Emirates dropped one place, to seventh.
  
• Canada's proved reserves are estimated to be 5.4 billion barrels of conventional crude oil and 173.2 billion barrels of oil sands reserves. (Oil sands are much more costly to refine than conventional crude oil.)
  
• Two countries had singificant increases in their amounts of crude oil proved reserves in 2008: Venezuela, with an increase of 12.342 billion barrels, and Libya, with an increase of 2.196 billion barrels. Ten other countries also had increases in their proved reserves as well; however, the highest amount of any of the ten was 442 million barrels (Brazil).
  
• Two countries had significant depletions in their amounts of crude oil proved reserves in 2008: Iran, with a decrease of 2.250 billion barrels, and Mexico, with a decrease of 1.149 billion barrels. Thirteen other countries also had decreases in their proved reserves.

Natural Gas - Trillion Cubic Feet
1. Russian Federation - 1,680.000 (26.86%)
2. Iran - 991.600 (15.85%)
3. Qatar - 891.945 (14.26%)
4. Saudi Arabia - 258.470 (4.13%)
5. United States - 237.726 (3.80%)
6. United Arab Emirates - 214.400 (3.43%)
7. Nigeria - 184.160 (2.94%)
8. Venezuela - 170.920 (2.73%)
9. Algeria - 159.000 (2.54%)
10. Iraq - 111.940 (1.79%)

Notes:

• The world total of proved reserves is 6,254.364 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, an increase of 42.029 trillion cubic feet (a 0.68% increase). (I've noted a discrepancy in the difference between 2008 and 2009, coming up with an increase of 41.714 trillion cubic feet, a difference of 0.315 trillion cubic feet.)
  
• The total of the top ten countries makes up 78.35% of the world's proved reserves.
  
• There were no changes in the top ten rankings.
  
• Twelve countries had increases in their total proved reserves in 2008, for a total of 83.968 trillion cubic feet; however, this was partially offset by decreases in a total of fourteen countries, with depletions of 42.254 trillion cubic feet.

Mercury's Sholem Aleichem Crater, by Messenger

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

The other day I wrote about the sense of humor the astronomers at APOD have. Now it's time to show some of the recent photos taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft that flew by the planet Mercury last week. This particular photo was taken last Monday, January 14th. The caption for the photo reads in part:

This image ... was acquired on January 14, 2008, 18:10 UTC, when the spacecraft was about 18,000 kilometers (11,000 miles) from the surface of Mercury, about 55 minutes before MESSENGER’s closest approach to the planet.

The image shows a variety of surface textures, including smooth plains at the center of the image, many impact craters (some with central peaks), and rough material that appears to have been ejected from the large crater to the lower right. This large 200-kilometer-wide (about 120 miles) crater was seen in less detail by Mariner 10 more than three decades ago and was named Sholem Aleichem for the Yiddish writer. In this MESSENGER image, it can be seen that the plains deposits filling the crater’s interior have been deformed by linear ridges. The shadowed area on the right of the image is the day-night boundary, known as the terminator.

One interesting fact that APOD pointed out is that many of the craters on Mercury are shallower than comparable craters on the Moon, the reason being the higher gravitational pull on Mercury, which "helps flatten tall structures like high crater walls."

As for Sholem Aleichem: He was a Russian Jewish writer (1859-1916) whose stories about Tevye the Milkman became the basis for the musical and film "Fiddler on the Roof."

Cross-posted on my new blog, Ministry of Space Exploration.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Proven Reserves, 2008, Top 10

Update: Please click on the link for the 2009 Petroleum and Natural Gas Proved Reserves.

The Energy Information Administration, a department of the U.S. Department of Energy, has recently released the 2008 proved reserves for petroleum and natural gas. Proved reserves are the amount of oil and gas in the ground that is "reasonably certain" to be extracted using current technology at current prices. The following are lists of the top ten countries for petroleum and natural gas proved reserves, with their quantities and percentage of the world total for 2008:

Petroleum - Billion Barrels
1. Saudi Arabia - 266.75 (20.03%)
2. Canada - 178.59 (13.41%)
3. Iran - 138.40 (10.39%)
4. Iraq - 115.00 (8.64%)
5. Kuwait - 104.00 (7.81%)
6. United Arab Emirates - 97.80 (7.34%)
7. Venezuela - 87.04 (6.54%)
8. Russian Federation - 60.00 (4.51%)
9. Libya - 41.46 (3.11%)
10. Nigeria - 36.22 (2.72%)

Notes: The world total of proved reserves is 1,331.70 billion barrels of petroleum. The total of the top ten countries makes up 84.50% of the world's proved reserves. Canada's proved reserves are estimated to be 5.4 billion barrels of conventional crude oil and 173.2 billion barrels of oil sands reserves. (Oil sands are much more costly to refine than conventional crude oil.)


Natural Gas - Trillion Cubic Feet
1. Russian Federation - 1,680.000 (27.16%)
2. Iran - 948.200 (15.33%)
3. Qatar - 905.300 (14.64%)
4. Saudi Arabia - 253.107 (4.09%)
5. United Arab Emirates - 214.400 (3.47%)
6. United States - 211.085 (3.41%)
7. Nigeria - 183.990 (2.97%)
8. Venezuela - 166.260 (2.69%)
9. Algeria - 159.000 (2.57%)
10. Iraq - 111.940 (1.81%)

Notes: The world total of proved reserves is 6,185.694 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The total of the top ten countries makes up 78.14% of the world's proved reserves. Venezuela moved past Algeria into the 8th spot for the 2008 listing, having been listed 9th last year.

Do You Have a Flag?

I got a kick out of the following news story (more underneath)...

Canada on Thursday dismissed Russia's claim to a large chunk of the resource-rich Arctic, saying the tactic was more suited to the 15th century than the real world.

A Russian submersible on Thursday dived beneath the ice under the North Pole and planted a titanium flag on the seabed, staking a symbolic claim as Moscow seeks to extend the territory in the Arctic it controls right up to the North Pole.

"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory'," said Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.

Why? Because it reminded me of this Eddie Izzard routine (click here for a longer version):

So there was a lot of that, and we built up empires. We stole countries! That's how you build an empire. We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in.

"I claim India for Britain!"

And they're going, "You can't claim us. We live here! Five hundred million of us."

"Do you have a flag?"

"We don't need a bloody flag; this is our country, you bastard!"

"No flag, no country! You can't have one. That's the rules... that... I've just made up! And I'm backing it up with this gun... that was lent from the... National Rifle Association."

"All we are saying..."

The Economist Intelligence Unit, a division of the corporation that publishes The Economist, has come out with its first annual "Global Peace Index," an index that ranks 121 countries based upon their "peacefulness." One of the irritants I have about certain American Christians and Islamophobes (who are often one and the same) is their claim that the US is sooo peaceful and Muslims are sooo violent. Well, the Global Peace Index exposes the lie behind that claim. Of the 121 countries in this year's index, the US placed 96th, ahead of Iran, but behind Yemen. The most peaceful Muslim country is Oman (22) [see below for a list of the remaining Muslim-majority countries]. Countries of interest: Norway (1), New Zealand (2), Japan (5), Canada (8), Hong Kong (23), Australia (25), Singapore (29), South Korea (32), United Kingdom (49), China (60), India (109), Russia (118), and Israel (119).

The following comes from the press release that describes the objective of the Index and how the Index was created:

"The objective of the Global Peace Index was to go beyond a crude measure of wars by systematically exploring the texture of peace," explained Global Peace Index President, Mr. Clyde McConaghy, speaking in Washington. "The Index provides a quantitative measure of peacefulness that is comparable over time, and we hope it will inspire and influence world leaders and governments to further action."

The rankings show that even among the G8 countries there are significant differences in peacefulness: While Japan was the most peaceful of the G8 countries, at a rank of five in the Index, Russia neared the bottom at number 118. The Global Peace Index also reveals that countries which had a turbulent time for parts of the twentieth century, such as Ireland and Germany, have emerged as peace leaders in the 21st century.

The Economist Intelligence Unit measured countries' peacefulness based on wide range of indicators - 24 in all - including ease of access to "weapons of minor destruction" (guns, small explosives), military expenditure, local corruption, and the level of respect for human rights.

After compiling the Index, the researchers examined it for patterns in order to identify the "drivers" that make for peaceful societies. They found that peaceful countries often shared high levels of democracy and transparency of government, education and material well-being. While the U.S. possesses many of these characteristics, its ranking was brought down by its engagement in warfare and external conflict, as well as high levels of incarceration and homicide. The U.S.'s rank also suffered due to the large share of military expenditure from its GDP, attributed to its status as one of the world's military-diplomatic powers.

The main findings of the Global Peace Index are:

Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration

Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption

Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking

Muslim-majority countries: Oman (22), Qatar (30), Malaysia (37), the UAE (38), Tunisia (39), Kuwait (46), Morocco (48), Libya (58), Kazakhstan (61), Bahrain (62), Jordan (63), Egypt (73), Syria (77), Indonesia (78), Bangladesh (86), Saudi Arabia (90), Turkey (92), Yemen (95), Iran (97), Azerbaijan (101), Algeria (107), Uzbekistan (110), Lebanon (114), Pakistan (115), and Iraq (121).

Russia's Muslims: A Benign Growth

There's a significant article about Russia's Muslim population in this week's Economist magazine.

A Benign Growth
Apr 4th 2007

Russia's fastest-growing religious group is its Muslims. But they are not much like their counterparts in other countries


MUSLIMS in Russia—or at least the politically active among them—are rejoicing. On March 30th a human-rights case that had become a touchstone of Muslim concerns was dramatically resolved. The story concerned a Russian who had adopted Islam, prefixing his Slavic name of Anton Stepanenko with a Muslim one, Abdullah. Thriving in his adopted faith, he became an imam in the south Russian town of Pyatigorsk. But in January 2006, say friends, he was arrested on sham charges of kidnapping and theft.

Senior Muslims across Russia used their access to the pro-government press to make a public appeal to President Vladimir Putin for his release. Suddenly, just as Muslims were about to celebrate the Prophet's birthday, the imam's fortunes changed: the charges against him were reduced and he was freed. His release came just in time for this “exemplary, heroic figure for all the nation's Muslims”, as one report called him, to go to the mosque and lead his flock in Friday prayers.

The imam's travails, and ultimate release, exemplify two features of Muslim life in Russia. One is the state's pragmatic combination of authoritarianism and flexibility towards minorities. Another is the emergence within Russia of an active but ultimately loyal Muslim community. Muslims want a fair deal and growing influence to match their rising numbers.

Whatever the Stepanenko case was about, it had nothing to do with the bloody war for the independence of Chechnya, which most people outside Russia—including many Muslims—see as the biggest quarrel between the Russian state and Islam. Not that Chechnya is easy to sweep aside. For the world's Muslims, the troubled region is usually listed with Palestine, Kashmir and Bosnia as one of the places in which Islam has been under attack. The repression of the Chechens, as well as sputtering violence in the entire neighbourhood, is the biggest albatross round Mr Putin's neck in his efforts to cultivate Muslim countries.

Yet in most of Russia a quite different contest over the future of Islam is going on. All of its participants insist that they have no desire to live under a ruler other than Mr Putin. But they differ on how, and how far, to hold him to a promise he first made in Malaysia in 2003, when he declared that Russia was a Muslim power, which hoped to play a role in global Muslim affairs.

A Muslim power? It sounds bizarre. But Russia has more Muslims than any other European state (bar Turkey); and the Muslim share of the population is rising fast. The 2002 census found that Russia's Muslims numbered 14.5m, 10% of its total of 145m. In 2005 the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, put the number of Muslims at 20m. Ravil Gaynutdin, head of Russia's Council of Muftis, talks of 23m, including Azeri and Central Asian migrants.

Moreover, the Muslim population of Russia is rising even as the country's overall population falls. Many Muslim communities long predate Russian rule. Shamil Alyautdinov, the imam of the newest and most dynamic of Moscow's four mosques, insists that the very word “minority” should not apply to a faith “which emerged on Russia's territory far earlier than Christianity did”.

Aside from the Caucasus, there are now two concentrations of Muslims in Russia. One is in Moscow, swollen by labour migration, where they may number 2m. The other is in the faith's old bastions: Bashkortostan and, above all, Tatarstan (see map), where a revival of the faith has been overseen successfully by a wily regional president, Mintimer Shaimiev. In several parts of the Caucasus, old-style compacts between local rulers and “tame” clerics have alienated young people; but in Tatarstan they still seem to work quite well.

Tatarstan has its share of Islamists, some of whom face severe repression. Seven men sent back to Russia from Guantánamo Bay all suffered harassment or torture, says Human Rights Watch, a lobby group. Two were later convicted in dubious circumstances of blowing up a gas pipeline in Tatarstan. Especially in the early 1990s, Russia's new freedoms—to go on pilgrimage or to open mosques—imported new influences, from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. In Tatarstan much of the alleged radicalism was linked to a foreign-financed religious school, now closed. Last week six people were convicted of belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir, a non-violent Islamist movement to restore the caliphate that is banned in Russia (as is the international Muslim Brotherhood).

But in general Islam's resurgence in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan, has been peaceful. For the first time since Ivan the Terrible conquered the place in 1552, the city's Kremlin houses a mosque, its minarets vying with nearby Orthodox Christian onion domes. Ramil Yunusov, its Saudi-trained imam, gets on fine with the local Orthodox clergy. Just 25 years ago, says Gusman Iskhakov, the mufti who heads the Muslim Spiritual Board of Tatarstan, the region had some 20 mosques. Now there are around 1,300. In Russia, says the mufti, things are better for Muslims than in many Arab countries. Muslim prayer rooms are to be found in Kazan State University, where Tolstoy and Lenin studied. Even as he grumbles about the harassment that an Islamic beard can incur, one foreign Muslim notes the small but growing number of local girls and women wearing headscarves. Tatarstan, he avers, is the last hope for Muslims in the former Soviet Union.

Rafael Khakimov, an adviser to Mr Shaimiev, uses the term “Euro-Islam” to describe the faith that has evolved in what was for long the world's northernmost Muslim outpost. Wherever he turns, Mr Shaimiev likes to present a benign image. Accompanying Mr Putin round the Middle East, the Tatar leader shows Russia's pious Muslim face, a tactic that underpins the Kremlin's Middle East diplomacy. In February the Saudis gave Mr Shaimiev an award for services to the faith. But when they are talking to west Europeans, the Tatar authorities like to present themselves as more open-minded than most other regions of Russia.

Many people in Arab countries, says Mr Shaimiev, have never lived on equal terms with other cultures, and their teaching doesn't suit the needs of the Tatars, who have. His government has opened its own religious schools and universities, to propagate its preferred form of Islam.

Among the politically active Muslims of Moscow who lobbied for Imam Stepanenko, the mood is different. For one thing, there is a row between two contestants for official favour: the cautious Mr Gaynutdin, and Talgat Tadjuddin, a feisty chief mufti who in 2003 proclaimed a jihad against America. But more significant than these two old-timers is a flashier movement based on Muslim entrepreneurs, journalists and websites such as www.islam.ru. Ansar, a publishing house linked to the site, turns out Russian translations of Islamic thinkers along with catchier titles such as “Love and Sex in Islam.”

Since no political force in Russia has much hope if it stands in open opposition to Mr Putin, these Muscovite Muslims tend to flex their muscles by being (even) more critical of the West than the Russian norm. Shamil Sultanov, a Muslim legislator who is close to the new movement, praises Mr Putin for “standing up to America” and its nefarious plans. Such talk meshes easily with a strand of Russian nationalism that looks to Islam as an anti-Western ally. And the easy fit between Russian-style political Islam and ordinary Slavic pride may be one reason why the Kremlin tolerates it.

Terms like “Euro-Islam”, says Rinat Mukhametov, a Muslim journalist, reflect a patronising Western Orientalism. For an up-and-coming advocate of Islam in Moscow, nothing could be worse.