The results of last weekend's elections in Chechnya offer little hope for a solution. To no one's surprise, former Interior Minister Alkhanov won in a landslide and promised to bring peace to the shattered country. Chechen rebels countered that the new president, like his predecessor, was already marked for death. While there can be no capitulation to the terrorists, the Russian strategy will not work; indeed, it has not worked. The iron fist is not enough; a failure to recognize the need to change course will ensure continuing violence in the Chechen Republic and elsewhere, too.
Chechen rebels have been fighting to establish a separate Islamic state since 1994. Tens of thousands of people were killed in a brutal and savage conflict that virtually flattened the capital of Grozny and was marked by human rights violations on both sides. The Russians withdrew from the republic in 1996, but returned with fury after a series of bombings of apartments in Russia that resulted in some 300 deaths, which the Moscow government blamed on the rebels. The move also helped reinforce Russian President Vladimir Putin's image as a strong and forceful leader.
The return to Chechnya was no more successful than the first intervention. The Russians managed to drive Mr. Aslan Maskhadov, who won presidential elections in 1997, from office and install their own leader, but the rebel movement remained a powerful force. Mr. Akhmad Kadyrov won the presidency last fall -- in elections widely thought to have been fixed by Moscow -- but was assassinated in May at a celebration marking the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany.