President Dmitry Medvedev recognizes this. He regularly touts modernization and innovation while denouncing "legal nihilism," police brutality and corruption. Yet the hounding of Mr. Khodorkovsky exemplifies what's wrong with Russia today.
Pardoning Mr. Khodorkovsky would be a truly dramatic gesture for Mr. Medvedev - and an enormously helpful one. It would open a new page in politics - just as Andrei Sakharov's 1987 release from exile in Gorky signaled new freedom in the USSR.
Yet the decision to pardon Mr. Khodorkovsky is Mr. Putin's, not Mr. Medvedev's. And Mr. Putin's closest friends are the same people who orchestrated the demise of Yukos, the first trial and, now, the second one.
President Obama already has his hands full with Moscow. He needs to ensure that Russia lets the United States and NATO supply our troops in Afghanistan. He wants to wrap up arms-control negotiations soon. And he wants Russia to support crippling sanctions against Iran in the United Nations.
But Mr. Obama also needs to show consistency on Mr. Khodorkovsky. In 2005, he introduced Senate Resolution 322, stating that Russia "did not accord Khodorkovsky fair transparent and impartial treatment." He brought up the issue again in his visit to Russia last summer.
He is not alone. The U.S. Senate raised the issue again last year, as did the German, British, Italian and European parliaments.
Mr. Obama needs to tell his Russian counterparts that they cannot flout the will of international public opinion.
Ariel Cohen is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Institute for International Studies.
