Putin dissolves Russia's parliament and flexes his Cold-War muscles... -The iPINIONS Journal

President Vladimir Putin dissolved Russia’s parliament on Wednesday, and then shocked everyone by appointing the country’s (virtually unknown) financial regulator and anti-corruption czar, Viktor Zubkov, as its new prime minister. And, in a staged TV discussion with one of his Kremlin flunkies, Putin announced that he exercised this presidential prerogative:

…to structure the government so that it better suits the pre-election period and prepares the country for what will happen after the parliamentary and presidential elections.

But Western political pundits wasted little time deriding Putin’s move as a blatant ploy to enable him to continue wielding power in Russia after he’s constitutionally mandated to give up the presidency next year. (To his credit, Putin has repeatedly pledge to eschew any attempt to amend the provision in Russia’s 1993 constitution that limits presidents to two consecutive terms.)

In fact, many of them have described Zubkov as nothing more than Putin’s caretaker president. Never mind that these same pundits accused Boris Yeltsin of a similar ploy when he plucked Putin from relative obscurity in August 1999 to serve his fifth prime minister in 17 months….

But even though I think there’s merit to this conventional wisdom, I rather suspect that Putin’s appointment of Zubkov has more to do with protecting the billions of dollars he siphoned off from the oil companies he nationalized, than with his Stalinist ambition to serve as Russia’s president for life.

After all, what better way to ensure Zubkov’s trust, if not complicity in this regard, than a quid pro quo in which Putin makes him president, and Zubkov launders Putin’s loot…? Besides, Putin could even allow the 65-year old Zubkov to serve two terms and still be a relatively young 63 when it becomes his “rightful” turn to reclaim the presidency in 2016.

(Though, given the way former presidents Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko died off in such quick succession during the 1980s, chances are that Putin may not have to wait even one four-year term before he resumes [official] power….)

Meanwhile, Putin also made quite a shocking (and intimidating) point this week by testing what he calls “the father of all bombs”. It packs an explosive impact that is equal to that of a nuclear weapon and is four times more powerful than anything the US has in its arsenal of conventional bombs.

Of course, despite his Cold-War predilections, Putin is not planning to drop this bomb on America. But folks in unruly former Soviet republics like Georgia should be afraid…be very afraid!

*Published originally on Friday, 14 September at 5:17 AM

Vladimir Putin, Viktor Zubkov