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  • Fanning the Flames of Another War in the Caucasus?

    CounterPunch
    March 5 2010

    Fanning the Flames of Another War in the Caucasus?
    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 Brussel.

    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. You can reach him at
    http://ericwalberg.com/



    http://www.counterpu nch.org/walberg03052010.html
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