It tells you something about the increasing irrelevance of news magazines that I entirely missed the fact that Time had designated “Ebola fighters” as their “Person of the Year”. A feel good choice, but not the one I would have made after a year filled with one calamity after another. For my “Man of the Year” (to use the original form invented by Time founder Henry Luce) I would split the honor between two rogues: Vladimir Putin, self-proclaimed president of Russia, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State. Both have had a very good year–which for the rest of us means a very bad year.
Putin began 2014 facing growing protests after he had had engineered his return to the presidency in 2012 after a four year interregnum as prime minister. Things went from bad to worse from his perspective when his ally in Kiev, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown by popular protests after his decision to seek a close relationship with Russia rather than with the European Union. Yanukovych’s downfall could well have presaged Putin’s own. But rather than waiting for a “color” revolution to topple him, the crafty Russian dictator seized the initiative.
Using plainclothes Russian soldiers, spies, and stooges (a.k.a. “little green men”), he fomented an insurgency where none had previously existed in Crimea. By March Crimeans had voted in a rigged election to be annexed by Moscow, and Putin had a major nationalist achievement to distract attention back home. Putin followed up this initial triumph by fomenting another insurgency in eastern Ukraine that succeeded in detaching substantial portions of the east from Kiev’s control.
To be sure Putin has paid a price for his blatant violation of international law; the ruble has gone into freefall and the Russian economy is imploding, in part because of international sanctions and in part because of falling oil prices. But Putin appears to be stronger than ever–and as clever as ever in defeating his foes.
The latest evidence of his amoral brilliance is the manner in which he dealt with Russia’s leading pro-democracy leader, Aleksei Navalny, who had been indicted on trumped-up charges of fraud. Rather than sending Navalny to prison where he could become a martyr, Putin’s handpicked judge gave him a suspended sentence while sending his entirely innocent brother Oleg to prison as a hostage for Aleksei’s good behavior.
Even more sinister and almost as clever has been Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who in the past year has managed to dramatically revive the fortunes of the group once known as Al Qaeda in Iraq. This organization suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of US forces and Sunni tribesmen in 2007-2008. Taking over after the death of his predecessor in 2010, Baghdadi (a nom de guerre for Ibrahim al-Badri) revived its fortunes by taking advantage of the Syrian civil war. Then, having created a base in the Syrian town of Raqqa, Baghdadi moved back into his native Iraq, taking control of Fallujah in January 2014 and of Mosul in June. He then proclaimed an Islamic State stretching across the borders of Iraq and Syria and defended by an army estimated to be 20,000 to 30,000 strong and armed with heavy weapons seized from the poorly led and motivated Iraqi Security Forces.
Baghdadi may have miscalculated the impact of televised beheadings of Western journalists and aid workers–these atrocities helped draw a visibly reluctant President Obama into the fray in a small and limited way–but he has succeeded brilliantly at galvanizing support from extremists around the Muslim world. ISIS, in fact, is starting to eclipse “Al Qaeda” as the leading brand among jihadist terrorist groups.
So congratulations, Vlad and Abu Bakr, on having been won the honor of being designated my Men of the Year for your success at promoting oppression. Your selection, of course, reflects deep discredit on the statesmen of the West–principally President Obama–who allowed you to go from triumph to triumph.
We can only hope that you have over-reached in your aggression and that 2015 will see a more concerted response to the evil that you represent than has been the case so far. Because I’m not sure the international system as we know it can survive another year of your triumphs.