Cohen: Obama Can Shore Up His Global Image by Seeking Release of Khodorkovsky
In a pro-con debate, Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Institute for International Studies, argues that releasing Khodorkovsky should be high on Obama's agenda. If successful, it would "demonstrate the administration's ability to promote freedom in Russia and around the world". He notes that today, Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev face a second trial on trumped-up charges of "embezzling" oil belonging to Yukos and that Moscow sorely needs talents like Khodorkovsky and his programs to reform Russia's economy. According to Cohen, pardoning Khodorkovsky would be a truly dramatic gesture for Medvedev-and an enormously helpful one.
Questions around Khodorkovsky's imprisonment were raised by the US Senate again last year, as it was in the German, British, Italian and European Parliaments. Cohen concludes that Obama "needs to tell his Russian counterparts that they cannot flout the will of international public opinion".
Arguing in response, Wayne Madsen, a contributing writer to the progressive Online Journal, believes that instead of pressuring Russia to free Khodorkovsky, Obama should instead focus on enforcing Interpol arrest warrants for the wanted Russians who have fled to the West.