MOSCOW - As Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, engages in a high-profile four-day sweep through Germany and France this week, he may be paying attention to the world view of his communist predecessor.
According to the doctrine of "inter-imperialist contradictions" laid out by Lenin, Russia is in a position to take advantage of efforts by France and Germany to thwart U.S. plans to depose Saddam Hussein.
Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, saw such situations as an opportunity for the Kremlin to boost its international clout by playing capitalist nations off against each other.
"Anyone who follows events around Iraq can see that, in essence, the positions of Russia, France and Germany practically coincide," Mr. Putin said in Berlin at the start of his tour and again, with slightly different words, in Paris yesterday.
While Washington fumed, Mr. Putin, Gerhard Schroeder, the German Chancellor, and Jacques Chirac, the French President, were clearly singing from the same song book.
At a series of photo opportunities, they agreed that unlike 1991, when a U.S.-led coalition expelled Saddam's army from Kuwait, there is currently no justification for a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Although the Cold War is over, Russia still has a strategic interest in blocking U.S. hegemony. However, it has had few opportunities to do so in recent years.
The Kremlin is backing a Franco-German plan to stiffen the UN inspections regime in Iraq with armed peacekeepers because it would establish international rather than U.S. control over the country, and Russia would be part of it.
There is no political downside for Mr. Putin in this position. Siding with Germany and France -- and irritating the United States -- can only make the Russian President more popular at home than he already is.
A series of polls in Russia this winter has shown enormous hostility to U.S. plans to invade Iraq. One recent nationwide survey found only 3% of respondents approved of what the United States proposes to do, while 52% were strongly opposed.
Quite apart from any inter-imperialist contradictions Russia might exploit, there is huge oil money at stake in Iraq.
In an interview with a French television network yesterday, Mr. Putin rejected the suggestion his country would support the United States on Iraq if its oil companies were promised a share of Iraq's resources.
"We have got our own interests there and not only in the oil sphere," he said. "But we are not going to engage in horse-trading as if in a bazaar, or sell out principled position for any economic advantage."
Valeri Fyodorov, director of Political Friends, an independent Russian think-tank, sees it differently.
"There were talks with the U.S. about Russian economic interests in Iraq, but they did not succeed," Mr. Fyodorov said. "There were expressions of sympathy but no guarantees."
So Russia decided to do the next best thing to protect its interests, siding with two of its strongest economic partners, Germany and France.
"We want to be partners with the U.S., but we will not be part of a partnership between a giant and a dwarf," Mr. Fyodorov said.
Whatever manoeuvres Russia, France and Germany are able to manage, it will do little to alter the fact the United States will likely invade Iraq and conquer it easily, said Viktor Kremeniuk, deputy director of the Institute of Canada-USA Studies in Moscow.
However, he warned the United States will face serious long-term consequences if it continues to ignore the opinions of Russia, Germany, France and the many other countries opposing U.S. intervention in Iraq.
"On the surface, this is quite an anti-American coalition," Mr. Kremeniuk said. "But the fact is that there is only one superpower in the world and it wants to change the rules that currently exist. Others fear this change."
In his view, the United States has either miscalculated or simply disregarded the opinion of the United Nations, Europe and Russia, and the White House would do well to reconsider.
"This Iraqi question has activated feelings that the U.S. has been abusing its position as a superpower," Mr. Kremeniuk said.
"The whole question quickly slipped from being about Iraq to something much bigger about respect for international law, respect for the UN and respect for allies."