After the Islamic terrorist attack in Moscow, Russia’s basic response (stripped of blaming Ukraine) looks a lot like ours.
There’s a narrow focus on the handful of direct perpetrators, threats of consequences, retweets of statements of support from Muslim countries (Hamas has also expressed sympathy), and a calculated refusal to mention the “I” word.
While people expect a more vigorous response from Putin than they would from the White House, Russia is no better at fighting Islamic terrorism than we are. Russia can bomb terrorist camps, but so can we. And while bombing the occasional terror enclave is fine, terror attacks depend on a domestic infrastructure.
That is to say it depends on mosques, Islamic organizations and populations inside Russia or America.
While Putin won’t say much publicly, there will be some sort of crackdown on the large population of Muslim migrants in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. But there have been crackdowns before.
Moscow is dotted with illegal and legal mosques and a large Islamic population in much the same way that London, Paris or Brussels are. Not to mention New York City.
Putin has the capacity for a larger crackdown than just shaking up a few hovels, kicking out a few thousand Tajiks and closing down a few illegal mosques.
And he won’t do it for the same reason we won’t either.
Russia has come to depend on Muslim labor, political support, and even military resources in Ukraine. That’s why Putin would rather blame Ukraine than Islam. Blaming Ukraine is politically helpful and not dangerous. While blaming Islam is.
Our leaders blame everything on Russia. Russia blames everything on America. Both sides blame Israel or any of the handful of countries still willing to stand up to Islam. Meanwhile, we cozy up to the terrorists.
Russia hosts Hamas. We host the PLO. Russia backs Iran while we back the Saudis. We support the Brotherhood, Russia supports Assad. And so it goes.
America and Russia could fight Islamic terrorism but that would be politically inconvenient. It’s easier for us to fight each other.