Georgia vs Russia: Fanning the flames
Tuesday, 02 March 2010 16:31
Written by Eric Walberg
Will
there be another war in the Caucasus? This is a smoldering issue on
more than one front, finds Eric Walberg, in the first of a two-part
analysis of the spectre of conflict in this crucial crossroads. With
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world expected a new era of peace
and disarmament. But what happened? Instead of diminishing, US and NATO
presence throughout Europe, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Central
Asia rapidly increased, and the world experienced one war after another
-- in the Caucasus, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan, each one hotter
and more horrible than the last. And we are far from seeing the end to
the savagery now unleashed by the anti-communist jinni.
Though a pokey
backwater for the past millennium, the south Caucasus is now a key
battleground, the "critical strategic crossroads in 21st century
geopolitics”, writes analyst Rick Rozoff, the focus of ambitious energy
transit projects and a military corridor reaching from Western Europe
to East Asia, controlled (or not so "controlled”) from Washington and
Brussels.
Surely peace in this
vital region should be a paramount goal for both Russia and the West,
for their own reasons -- Russia because, well because it is there and
its cultural and economic links are vital to Russia’s well being. The
US, if only to benefit economically, since peace everywhere is a boon
to economic well being and logically should be blessed by the world’s
superpower, whether or not it is a benevolent one.
But this logic has
been betrayed -- egregiously, in the case of US abetting Georgia in its
disastrous war against Russia in 2008, less obviously in likely covert
US and other involvement in Chechnya and its neighbours, as well as in
the Armenia-Azerbaijan stand-off over Nagorno Karabakh.
Topping the list in
recent times are Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where firebrand Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili struts and threatens, running from one
NATO gathering to another, embracing one US military envoy after
another, as he shakes his fist at his northern nemesis and vows to
retake his breakaway territories Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now fully
fledged republics. This pits a NATO hopeful against a NATO foe, and
despite the fact that NATO expressly forbids membership to any country
with disputed borders, it continues to vow that Georgia will soon be a
full member, a project that can only mean war with Russia.
US encouragement
for Saakashvili in his failed 2008 war with Russia was, to put it
mildly, an embarrassment for the US and should be a warning to politely
distance itself from further abetting a dangerously unpredictable
character. Despite the likelihood that Saakashvili’s extreme pro-West
policies will be reversed by a future government, the US navy is
conducting war exercises at this very moment with Georgia in the Black
Sea, and the Pentagon is preparing to build three military bases in
Georgia and dispatch of up to 25,000 US servicemen to the country by
2015. It seems the embarrassment is also a "window of opportunity”, a
chance to put facts on the ground which a future government would find
very difficult to change.
Georgia is a tempting
morsel for other reasons. US special envoy to AfPak Richard Holbrooke
just last week visited Georgia to arrange transit of arms to his
killing fields via Georgia. Saakashvili offered Georgia’s Black Sea
ports Poti and Batumi as docks for military supply ships and the
country’s airports as refuelling points for cargo planes. "The route to
Afghanistan is already used extensively, because almost 80 per cent of
cargo which is not going through Pakistan is going through Georgia, and
only 20 per cent through Russia,” boasts Alexander Rondeli, president
of the Georgian Foundation for Security in International Studies.
Saakashvili is
pursuing a propaganda campaign aiming to destabilise the region through
direct and indirect provocation of Russia and support of terrorists
with the tacit approval of Washington and Brussels. He has launched a
Russian-language TV station First Caucasus beamed into South Ossetia,
much like Reagan’s TV Marti set up in 1985 for Cubans. He has also
reached out to Abkhazians and Ossetians to try to convince them to
subvert their current governments and join Georgia.
The idea, according
to analyst at the Strategic Cultural Foundation Nicolai Dimlevich, is
to foment instability throughout the Caucasus and in Transcaucasia and
then call for all the zones of conflict to be passed into UN, EU and/or
NATO hands for safekeeping, since Russia would be proven to be
incapable of ensuring the security of local populations. In this
scenario, the US and NATO "benefit” from war in the region, as it is an
opportunity to weaken Russia and extend control over the region.
Terrifying thoughts, but unfortunately perfectly "rational”.
The failed war
against Russia in 2008 also left behind storm clouds in Saakashvili’s
own Tbilisi, where opposition to his reckless political gambits has
hardened. Even as Saakashvili blusters, key Georgian opposition figures
have been visiting Moscow since late last year, disowning their
president’s plans. "We are prepared to receive those, who come not for
fighting and trickery, but for making some changes,” Russian Deputy
Minister Gregory Karasin told reporters in Geneva recently. Karasin
quoted Georgian parliament’s ex-speaker, current leader of the
Democratic Movement-United Georgia, Nino Burjanadze: "When Saakashvili
made a decision to wage war in summer 2008, I am quoting her ‘he
intended to make Russia bend on its knees and to cause tension in
relations with Russia, but Saakashvili lost the war and put the country
in a tragic situation.’ We want to have open and pleasant relationship
with Georgia.”
Former Georgian prime
minister Zurab Noghaideli was received by Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin in December, the first time that the Russian leader
openly met with a Georgian opposition leader. He openly advocates
cooperation between his Movement for a Just Georgia and United Russia,
and has developed close ties with the Union of Georgians in Russia.
Noghaideli has repeatedly stated that without a radical change in
Georgia’s foreign policy priorities his country’s "destruction will
continue”, warning that "there is danger of Georgia’s further
dismemberment” if Tbilisi’s current course continues.
"Saakashvili
understands that his rule is in danger, and therefore he is prepared to
plunge the country into a new war. He prefers to be a president
banished from Georgia by Russia than to be banished by his own people,”
said Burjanadze, condemning the TV station beamed into Ossetia which
features a talk show hosted by the late Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar
Dudayev’s widow. Giorgi Khaindrava, a former Cabinet member and now an
opposition leader, said. if the channel devotes coverage to the
insurgency in Russia’s north Caucasus, Putin may declare it a terrorist
threat and use force to shut it down. "This isn’t just fantasy. It
could happen.”
The entire spectrum
of Georgia’s politicians agree. Conservative Party leader Kakha Kukava
says, "Russia doesn’t have any strategic plan towards Georgia nowadays.
It is in Saakashvili’s interests to provoke Russia and attract
international attention to obtain support.” Even "some of the people
close to President Saakashvili may also agree, but they can’t say so
openly because they’re afraid of him,” asserts Noghaideli.
Perhaps Saakashvili’s
bluster is just hot air. But the war exercises with the US and the
planned US bases aren’t. Nor is the fact that the south Caucasus has
become a transit route for drugs to Europe and Russia. Russian Federal
Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov said last week that the ports
of Batumi and Poti are "the main ones in drug trafficking, and the
Georgian city of Kabuleti is one of the key points of trafficking of
Afghan heroin.”
Only Saakashvili
seems to think it’s possible to reunite the two breakaway regions with
Georgia any time soon. For better or worse Abkhazia is ever more
securely tied to Russia, as confirmed by President Sergei Bagapsh’s
visit to Moscow last month to commemorate 200 years since Abkhazia was
absorbed into the Russian empire. Though not Moscow’s favourite in the
2004 elections, Bagapsh has agreed to establish a joint military ground
force for the next 49 years and to upgrade an existing Russian base at
Gudauta, where 1,700 Russian troops are presently stationed. He also
proposed that Abkhazia join the Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan Customs
Union even though neither Minsk nor Astana has recognised Abkhazia as a
sovereign state. Ironically, says analyst Sergei Markedonov, if even a
half dozen European countries were to recognise Abkhazia, "maybe
Bagapsh would favour European integration.” Carnegie Moscow Centre
analyst Alexei Malashenko suspects that Turkey may set things in
motion. "Turkey is ready to establish special relations with Abkhazia.”
The mouse’s defeat in
2008 also was an important incentive for Ukrainians to turn against
their Orange revolutionaries last month. Incumbent Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovich is merely expressing the will of the people when he
dismisses any future move to join NATO and tones down the anti-Russian
rhetoric. When Saakashvili goes, a similar move will surely take place
in Georgia, as a future president tries to repair relations with
Russia, though -- hopes the Pentagon -- leaving by-then existing US
bases in place.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
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