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As Long As Serzh Sargsyan Remains President
Igor Muradyan, Political Analyst
Comments - 30 August 2014, 13:54
We have already noted that with all his intellectual misery Serzh
Sargsyan played a huge role in preventing access of all kinds of
obsolete politicians of the vulgar past to government, as well as
commitments between them and foreign interested centers of power.
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, Raffi Hovannisian and their
myrmidons can confirm this as Serzh Sargsyan's behavior towards them
had a lot of unexpected turns, especially towards Robert Kocharyan.
There was hardly anything important in Serzh Sargsyan's position. Most
probably, it was determined by personal interests but, one way or
another, the pro-government, pro-Russian and opposition-pro-Russian
groups must be grateful to him for such a position. It did not give
them a lot of joy but illusions and "favorable" expectations occurred.
Serzh Sargsyan's attempts to normalize relations with Turkey and
penetrate into the Eurasian Union were perceived by their opponents
from different camps quite originally; in other words, this is good,
of course but he cannot cope with these issues so we will resolve them
when we come to government. Here is ethic and logic typical of
Yerevan, and generally this is denoted with other wording.
At the same time, Serzh Sargsyan has led Armenia into a stalemate
tightly and lastingly, and even if the Eurasian and Customs Unions
blast like bubbles, Armenia will hardly make fun of it because nobody
knows how to creep out of this ugly situation. Simply there is nobody
to resolve these issues.
Serzh Sargsyan who is related to the Karabakh war and army building
has strived to gather around him not only people who are not related
to the idea of statehood, including the Karabakh idea, people who are
depressed by the former history of unification of the homeland but
also striving for depriving Armenia of independence.
The actual Armenian elite are riffraff while there is no alternative
yet. Hopes on armed forces and the young generation are still
expectations but still there is hope, and therefore bold people must
understand that the worse the better.
Serzh Sargsyan has lost even the miserable team which he had been able
to get together from among the wastes of the Armenian ethnicity and is
completely lost ahead of new political threats.
Surprisingly, he apparently thinks that the current situation of the
country and the state of the ruling regime is not bad, and there are
good expectations.
Now that it is clear that the pro-Russian economic and political, as
well as military "unions" will soon collapse, Serzh Sargsyan is trying
to demonstrate shrewdness and ability to calculate at least two moves
ahead with the help of venal mass media. All this is bullshit, and in
reality there is complete political failure and inadequacy.
In any case, such radical assessments are self-defeating because it
turns out that such a failure politician as the president of Armenia
has been able to thwart such strong plans as the integration of
Armenia with the European Union all by himself. Apparently, there were
stronger circumstances which forced Serzh Sargsyan to walk into the
blind alley and lead Armenia into international isolation.
The developments in Ukraine with which so much is linked in terms of
reconstruction of the Armenian statehood and sovereignty have at the
same time demonstrated the nature and characteristics of the policy of
the West and, first of all, leading European states. Germany
officially announced that it is not likely to supply weapons to
parties of conflicts. Practically, similar positions are held by
countries which preferred confrontation with Russia.
In the case of Armenia, limitations of supply of arms by the countries
of the Western community are even tougher than in the case of Ukraine
or Georgia. The Western states pretend that their position is
principled and complies with the international law. However, everyone
understands that refusal to supply arms to Armenia means strengthening
Armenia's dependence on Russia, its main supplier of arms.
Everyone understands another thing, namely a strong army is the main
factor of supporting peaceful coexistence in the South Caucasus. All
the other arguments are relative and often illusory.
However, this is not the full understanding of the situation. With its
capacities, Azerbaijan is much stronger than Armenia which has no
ability to buy arms in international markets. Therefore, observing and
maintaining balance of forces in the South Caucasus, primarily between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, supposes supply of arms to Armenia by Western
states as a priority.
At the same time, the signals that Armenia received prior to
"September 3" were rather weak and unconvincing. Separate countries of
the West might have been interested in containing Azerbaijan's
aggression with the help of Russia which supplies weapons to Armenia
but Russia has shifted the game to a different dimension and supplies
Azerbaijan with a quantity of weapons which cannot comply with the
objectives of observing balance of forces because balance of forces in
the South Caucasus means Armenia's absolute advantage in the sphere of
defense.
Russia has been able to beat the West but the letter did not care much
until Russia demonstrated ambitions for dominance in Ukraine, the
Black Sea and the South Caucasus. Currently, Turkey and Israel, partly
Belarus and Azerbaijan have broken the balance of forces though this
notion is relative.
At the same time, it would have been unfair to deny the Western
perspective of Armenia in terms of defense and security prior to
"September 3", especially considering the perspective. Defense
cooperation between the Western states and Armenia was procrastinated
and pedaled without a valid reason. Armenia was required to revise the
armed forces without any guarantee that the results of such revision
would be possessed by Turkey and eventually Azerbaijan.
For a long time after the collapse of the USSR through the beginning
of the 2000s the Western community openly supported Azerbaijan's
interests and only when the relations of the United States and Turkey
and NATO were questioned, the importance of Armenia in the region
grew. Now the United States is busy with geopolitical plagiarism and
is considering Armenia as one of the many factors of containing
Turkey's regional expansion, and Azerbaijan as a geopolitically and
ideologically unacceptable state.
Russia was weak and had to support Armenia. Now Putin has been made
believe that Russia has strengthened enough to shift to large-scale
expansion in different directions. Such a Russia which is ready to
agree with Turkey and Azerbaijan on anything in prejudice of Armenia's
interests is threat N 1 to Armenia.
The United States and NATO have to move on to strengthening their
positions in Eastern Europe, including establishment of military
bases, and this supposes, inter alia, distance between Armenia and
Russia. In addition, such exhausted ideas as normalization between
Armenia and Turkey as a means of achieving independence of Armenia are
no longer effective and are not being considered by actual circles.
The United States and NATO are creating a "zone" of European security
and without the participation of Armenia, with consideration of Iran's
role, this objective cannot be implemented fully.
It would be possible to achieve such frontiers without high risks had
the Armenian government possessed two qualities: necessary political
intellect and determination. Serzh Sargsyan did what he could, he is a
functionary of particular type and he was not even able to use the
resources that he had. He capitulated to the Russians, ceding the
country's sovereignty, and now as long as he remains the president,
the West will not supply a single bullet to Armenia nor will the West
grant serious economic preferences.
Even now that the pro-Russian blocs are falling obviously apart, Serzh
Sargsyan continues to thwart the plans of the United States and NATO
in favor of Putin. No doubt his conductor Edward Nalbandyan who acts
as the fulfiller of Russia's will is mainly responsible for this
policy.
Nevertheless, even if hypothetically the president of Armenia had not
given in to Russian rule, it should be acknowledged that he was doing
it with high risks because the West did not make due initiatives for
ensuring Armenia's security. Even a decisive and legitimate president
would have found himself in a difficult situation, let alone Serzh
Sargsyan.
Therefore, he needs certain understanding, as well as the entire
intellectual and socially miserable Armenian society which has
capitulated to not only Putin but also Serzh Sargsyan who is not
capable of putting forth questions to his patrons and partners.
Now it is important to understand how guilty Serzh Sargsyan is for his
choice and how decisive the parallel government can be. My friends and
opponents were unable to answer this question in a quite frank
discussion. Now the question is not about Serzh Sargsyan, there is no
such question any more, but about further policy and politicians in
order not to have to justify and defend forthcoming politicians.
The pro-Western course is for serious and bold people for whom the
nation's sovereignty is not lip service. The United States and NATO
have bigger understanding that "there is no alternative to
geopolitical expansion" towards the Black Sea - South Caucasus -
Caspian and are transforming their relations with new partners in
those regions at a higher pace.
The United States and its genuine partners are facing three important
objectives in Eastern Europe: lead to due division of the policy of
the international isolation of Russia, minimize pretensions of
opponents to enlargement and expansion of mission of the alliance and
proposal of integration to the countries of the region, launch a
large-scale policy of supplying arms to the countries of Eastern
Europe on acceptable terms.
The United States will implement adequate objectives independently
from NATO if such issues as NATO's objectives are not resolved during
the summit in Cardiff but the alliance had to agree with such
initiatives. This is a chance for Armenia but Armenia needs an
appropriate real government or parallel government which would be
capable of binding agreements with the United States and NATO. For the
time being, there is no government in Armenia.
http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/comments/view/32910#sthash.UdLOYDa2.dpuf
Igor Muradyan, Political Analyst
Comments - 30 August 2014, 13:54
We have already noted that with all his intellectual misery Serzh
Sargsyan played a huge role in preventing access of all kinds of
obsolete politicians of the vulgar past to government, as well as
commitments between them and foreign interested centers of power.
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, Raffi Hovannisian and their
myrmidons can confirm this as Serzh Sargsyan's behavior towards them
had a lot of unexpected turns, especially towards Robert Kocharyan.
There was hardly anything important in Serzh Sargsyan's position. Most
probably, it was determined by personal interests but, one way or
another, the pro-government, pro-Russian and opposition-pro-Russian
groups must be grateful to him for such a position. It did not give
them a lot of joy but illusions and "favorable" expectations occurred.
Serzh Sargsyan's attempts to normalize relations with Turkey and
penetrate into the Eurasian Union were perceived by their opponents
from different camps quite originally; in other words, this is good,
of course but he cannot cope with these issues so we will resolve them
when we come to government. Here is ethic and logic typical of
Yerevan, and generally this is denoted with other wording.
At the same time, Serzh Sargsyan has led Armenia into a stalemate
tightly and lastingly, and even if the Eurasian and Customs Unions
blast like bubbles, Armenia will hardly make fun of it because nobody
knows how to creep out of this ugly situation. Simply there is nobody
to resolve these issues.
Serzh Sargsyan who is related to the Karabakh war and army building
has strived to gather around him not only people who are not related
to the idea of statehood, including the Karabakh idea, people who are
depressed by the former history of unification of the homeland but
also striving for depriving Armenia of independence.
The actual Armenian elite are riffraff while there is no alternative
yet. Hopes on armed forces and the young generation are still
expectations but still there is hope, and therefore bold people must
understand that the worse the better.
Serzh Sargsyan has lost even the miserable team which he had been able
to get together from among the wastes of the Armenian ethnicity and is
completely lost ahead of new political threats.
Surprisingly, he apparently thinks that the current situation of the
country and the state of the ruling regime is not bad, and there are
good expectations.
Now that it is clear that the pro-Russian economic and political, as
well as military "unions" will soon collapse, Serzh Sargsyan is trying
to demonstrate shrewdness and ability to calculate at least two moves
ahead with the help of venal mass media. All this is bullshit, and in
reality there is complete political failure and inadequacy.
In any case, such radical assessments are self-defeating because it
turns out that such a failure politician as the president of Armenia
has been able to thwart such strong plans as the integration of
Armenia with the European Union all by himself. Apparently, there were
stronger circumstances which forced Serzh Sargsyan to walk into the
blind alley and lead Armenia into international isolation.
The developments in Ukraine with which so much is linked in terms of
reconstruction of the Armenian statehood and sovereignty have at the
same time demonstrated the nature and characteristics of the policy of
the West and, first of all, leading European states. Germany
officially announced that it is not likely to supply weapons to
parties of conflicts. Practically, similar positions are held by
countries which preferred confrontation with Russia.
In the case of Armenia, limitations of supply of arms by the countries
of the Western community are even tougher than in the case of Ukraine
or Georgia. The Western states pretend that their position is
principled and complies with the international law. However, everyone
understands that refusal to supply arms to Armenia means strengthening
Armenia's dependence on Russia, its main supplier of arms.
Everyone understands another thing, namely a strong army is the main
factor of supporting peaceful coexistence in the South Caucasus. All
the other arguments are relative and often illusory.
However, this is not the full understanding of the situation. With its
capacities, Azerbaijan is much stronger than Armenia which has no
ability to buy arms in international markets. Therefore, observing and
maintaining balance of forces in the South Caucasus, primarily between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, supposes supply of arms to Armenia by Western
states as a priority.
At the same time, the signals that Armenia received prior to
"September 3" were rather weak and unconvincing. Separate countries of
the West might have been interested in containing Azerbaijan's
aggression with the help of Russia which supplies weapons to Armenia
but Russia has shifted the game to a different dimension and supplies
Azerbaijan with a quantity of weapons which cannot comply with the
objectives of observing balance of forces because balance of forces in
the South Caucasus means Armenia's absolute advantage in the sphere of
defense.
Russia has been able to beat the West but the letter did not care much
until Russia demonstrated ambitions for dominance in Ukraine, the
Black Sea and the South Caucasus. Currently, Turkey and Israel, partly
Belarus and Azerbaijan have broken the balance of forces though this
notion is relative.
At the same time, it would have been unfair to deny the Western
perspective of Armenia in terms of defense and security prior to
"September 3", especially considering the perspective. Defense
cooperation between the Western states and Armenia was procrastinated
and pedaled without a valid reason. Armenia was required to revise the
armed forces without any guarantee that the results of such revision
would be possessed by Turkey and eventually Azerbaijan.
For a long time after the collapse of the USSR through the beginning
of the 2000s the Western community openly supported Azerbaijan's
interests and only when the relations of the United States and Turkey
and NATO were questioned, the importance of Armenia in the region
grew. Now the United States is busy with geopolitical plagiarism and
is considering Armenia as one of the many factors of containing
Turkey's regional expansion, and Azerbaijan as a geopolitically and
ideologically unacceptable state.
Russia was weak and had to support Armenia. Now Putin has been made
believe that Russia has strengthened enough to shift to large-scale
expansion in different directions. Such a Russia which is ready to
agree with Turkey and Azerbaijan on anything in prejudice of Armenia's
interests is threat N 1 to Armenia.
The United States and NATO have to move on to strengthening their
positions in Eastern Europe, including establishment of military
bases, and this supposes, inter alia, distance between Armenia and
Russia. In addition, such exhausted ideas as normalization between
Armenia and Turkey as a means of achieving independence of Armenia are
no longer effective and are not being considered by actual circles.
The United States and NATO are creating a "zone" of European security
and without the participation of Armenia, with consideration of Iran's
role, this objective cannot be implemented fully.
It would be possible to achieve such frontiers without high risks had
the Armenian government possessed two qualities: necessary political
intellect and determination. Serzh Sargsyan did what he could, he is a
functionary of particular type and he was not even able to use the
resources that he had. He capitulated to the Russians, ceding the
country's sovereignty, and now as long as he remains the president,
the West will not supply a single bullet to Armenia nor will the West
grant serious economic preferences.
Even now that the pro-Russian blocs are falling obviously apart, Serzh
Sargsyan continues to thwart the plans of the United States and NATO
in favor of Putin. No doubt his conductor Edward Nalbandyan who acts
as the fulfiller of Russia's will is mainly responsible for this
policy.
Nevertheless, even if hypothetically the president of Armenia had not
given in to Russian rule, it should be acknowledged that he was doing
it with high risks because the West did not make due initiatives for
ensuring Armenia's security. Even a decisive and legitimate president
would have found himself in a difficult situation, let alone Serzh
Sargsyan.
Therefore, he needs certain understanding, as well as the entire
intellectual and socially miserable Armenian society which has
capitulated to not only Putin but also Serzh Sargsyan who is not
capable of putting forth questions to his patrons and partners.
Now it is important to understand how guilty Serzh Sargsyan is for his
choice and how decisive the parallel government can be. My friends and
opponents were unable to answer this question in a quite frank
discussion. Now the question is not about Serzh Sargsyan, there is no
such question any more, but about further policy and politicians in
order not to have to justify and defend forthcoming politicians.
The pro-Western course is for serious and bold people for whom the
nation's sovereignty is not lip service. The United States and NATO
have bigger understanding that "there is no alternative to
geopolitical expansion" towards the Black Sea - South Caucasus -
Caspian and are transforming their relations with new partners in
those regions at a higher pace.
The United States and its genuine partners are facing three important
objectives in Eastern Europe: lead to due division of the policy of
the international isolation of Russia, minimize pretensions of
opponents to enlargement and expansion of mission of the alliance and
proposal of integration to the countries of the region, launch a
large-scale policy of supplying arms to the countries of Eastern
Europe on acceptable terms.
The United States will implement adequate objectives independently
from NATO if such issues as NATO's objectives are not resolved during
the summit in Cardiff but the alliance had to agree with such
initiatives. This is a chance for Armenia but Armenia needs an
appropriate real government or parallel government which would be
capable of binding agreements with the United States and NATO. For the
time being, there is no government in Armenia.
http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/comments/view/32910#sthash.UdLOYDa2.dpuf