EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENTS

Ukraine's election on Oct. 31 is a critical moment in post-Soviet history, argues Anders Aslund.

The good news is that incumbent President Leonid Kuchma is not even attempting to run for reelection. After suspicions of his involvement in the murder of a journalist in 2000, his popularity rating plummeted and has now stabilized at 7 percent. The bad news is that the big businessmen he has helped to enrich appear determined to hold on to power by any means.

A defeat for Yanukovich, Kuchma's preferred successor, could be an answer to Putin's re-election earlier this year and his recent power grab in the wake of Beslan.

Bernard Lewis has created a hubbub by saying that Europe will become Islamic before the end of the century. And this is mobilizing opinion against Turkish membership in the EU, which the US supports.

The French, or at any rate Foreign Minister Barnier, think that the insurgency should be represented in any conference on the future of Iraq, and also that a withdrawal of coalition forces should be on the table. This is pretty soulless. The insurgents are applying terror, and killing far more Iraqi civilians than US soldiers. They have articulated no positive goals. And yet... somehow, I kind of like it. France is finally thinking outside the box. To suggest making deals with mass-murdering thugs like al-Zarqawi is pretty unscrupulous. But we were unscrupulous when we backed the mujaheddin against the USSR in Afghanistan, and it worked. Lesson: If you're up against an evil superpower, you can't be choosy about your friends. (Of course, France isn't really up against an evil superpower, they only think they are, but let's not quibble.)