Looks like there would be a down side for Obama not negotiating . . . (Hint: Get rid of the Polish and Czech missiles)

Belarus President Seeks to Deploy Russia Missiles

By ALAN CULLISON

MINSK, Belarus -- President Alexander Lukashenko is in talks with Moscow about placing in Belarus advanced Iskander missiles that could hit targets deep inside Europe.

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, left, who met Oct. 26 near Moscow with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, says that Belarus would like to deploy missiles even if it doesn't reach an agreement with Moscow.
The talks raise the ante in the debate over a U.S. plan to deploy missile defense in Europe. They also complicate Western hopes for warmer ties with Belarus, which some in the U.S. and Europe hope could help to counterbalance an increasingly hostile Kremlin.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lukashenko said that he would like to see closer relations with the West but that he sympathizes with Russia on two flashpoints that have rocked relations -- the conflict in Georgia and U.S. plans to place antimissile systems in Europe to counter a potential threat from Iran.

Mr. Lukashenko said he "absolutely supports" Russia's plans to place Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad that would target the U.S. missile system. Kaliningrad is a Russian enclave in Europe that borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and missiles there could reach the proposed U.S. missile sites in Poland.

Mr. Lukashenko said Russia also had proposed putting Iskander missiles in Belarus, which is situated between Russia and Poland. And if a deal on the issue isn't reached, Belarus itself would like to deploy the missiles, he said.

"Even if Russia does not offer these promising missiles, we will purchase them ourselves," said Mr. Lukashenko, who said the technology for the Iskander optics and fire-control systems comes from Belarus. "Right now we do not have the funds, but it is part of our plans -- I am giving away a secret here -- to have such weapons."

Analysts said it is far from clear that Russia would really need to place missiles inside Belarus. The Kremlin has offered to give up its Kaliningrad plans if Washington drops its missile-defense system. Mr. Lukashenko's missile ambitions also could be a bargaining chip in his maneuvering between Russia and the West.

Though closely allied with and heavily dependent on Moscow, Mr. Lukashenko, a former collective-farm boss who has kept a tight grip on Belarus since he was elected president 14 years ago, has resisted the Kremlin's embrace.

But financial necessity may be tugging harder at Minsk than before. On Wednesday, Russia announced that it agreed to grant Belarus a $2 billion stabilization loan to shore up the government's finances, which have been strained by the credit crisis.

Under loan terms, Belarus agreed to pay for future oil and gas debts in rubles, a major priority of the Kremlin, which has sought to expand the use of the Russian currency beyond its borders.

Advisers to Mr. Lukashenko said he has lately put out feelers to improve relations with the U.S. and Europe, which slapped his government with sanctions in 2006 after he was accused of rigging his re-election. Sanctions were eased this year, after Mr. Lukashenko ordered the release of some political prisoners.

Like other leaders of former Soviet states, he has resisted Moscow pressure to side with the Kremlin in its conflict with Georgia by recognizing the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. So far the only countries to confer recognition are Russia and Nicaragua.

But he signaled he may tip toward Moscow on the issue and echoed Russia's argument that the West paved the way for the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions by recognizing Kosovo.

Original article posted here.

Lukashenko, in His Own Words

Below, excerpts from Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's interview with The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. The interview was conducted in Russian, and translated by the Journal.

On the release of political opponent Alexander Kozulin earlier this year:

"The West perceived this as some kind of step toward democracy. You are welcome, thank you very much. You know, strictly between us, sometimes I think if they could find five or six more political prisoners here and told us to free them, and that then perhaps we would make a few more steps forward, we would do it readily. We could free even more. But they haven't found any more."

On the possibility of recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia:

"If you [the West] recognized Kosovo, why not recognize Abkhazia? I don't see any problems here. There is a precedent[hellip] Europe and America understand our position and our situation. And I will be honest, they are no longer pushing it as rigidly with us as before. So I don't think there would be negative repercussions for our relations or the like. I think this question is finished. It is no longer as acute as it was two months ago."

On the financial crisis:

"And I warned the Americans and others. No one listened to me. As it turned out, I was right. Now in America they are talking about an alternative to this ultraliberal market system, where everything is allowed, where you can eat more than what you make, and spend more than what you earn."

On Barack Obama:

"I look at Obama, a young man, a good-looking person. That is my first impression, I feel sorry for him. He looks 100% like Lukashenko, when I came to power after the downfall of the Soviet Union. The store shelves were empty, a severe financial crisis."

RUSSIA-GEORGIA CRISIS: U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing 9.9.08 (Lies, lies and more lies)

Full version of chopped up CNN Putin interview

Fanning the Georgian flames

US shrinks from arming Georgia

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - As if the outgoing administration of US President George W Bush didn't already have enough on its plate, the question of whether and how to re-arm Georgia in the aftermath of its thrashing last month by Russia is moving steadily up an increasingly crowded foreign policy agenda.

Moscow has already signaled that any move to supply the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili with the advanced weapons that he has long sought - including the powerful hand-held anti-tank rockets and Stinger surface-to-air missiles which contributed heavily to Russia's defeat in Afghanistan - will significantly increase tensions with Washington, which soared to a post-Cold War high in the wake of the Russian intervention.

But besides pledging to continue its push for Georgia's admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)- something with which Washington's European allies would have to go along with - the Bush administration has so far declined to make any promises in regard to military aid.

Indeed, even Vice President Dick Cheney, who had reportedly pushed hard for sending such advanced equipment to Georgia even before last month's war, refrained from making any promises last Thursday during his high-profile visit to the Georgian capital.

"Over time, I'm sure, people will look at what happened with the military here and what the needs are," an official who accompanied Cheney on his four-hour stay in Tbilisi told US reporters on the vice president's plane. "But I think the focus for the moment is on the humanitarian and long-term economic needs."

The issue is nonetheless likely to loom large in the coming months, particularly if foreign policy plays a key role in the ongoing presidential election campaign, which moved into high gear on Friday with the end of the Republican National Convention.

In his acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night, Senator John McCain called for "solidarity" with Georgia in a speech that was remarkably light on foreign policy issues. From the moment that hostilities between Georgia and Russia began, McCain, who considers Saakashvili a friend and who he spoke with frequently by phone during the crisis, has consistently called for stronger action against Russia than the administration has been willing to take, including expelling it from the Group of Eight (G-8) nations.

While McCain has not explicitly endorsed filling Saakashvili's wish list, some of his key neo-conservative advisers, such as Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations and Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, have pressed the administration to take such a course. Their appeal has been supported by two of McCain's closest senate colleagues.

"Specifically, the Georgian military should be given the anti-aircraft and anti-armor systems necessary to deter any renewed Russian aggression," wrote independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, in the Wall Street Journal late last month. "We avoided giving the types of security aid that could have been used to blunt Russia's conventional onslaught. It is time for that to change," according to the two senators.

Their advice was published just as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev formally recognized the two breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, in defiance of a personal appeal by Bush for him not to do so.

While Bush and other top administration officials strongly denounced Medvedev's move - Cheney on September 4 called it "an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change [Georgia's] borders by force". The administration has so far moved relatively cautiously, ignoring appeals for stepped-up military aid to rebuild Georgia's battered forces and upgrade its weaponry. The emphasis instead has been on the delivery of humanitarian and economic assistance.

"The first order of business should not be some sort of punishment," Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried told the Washington Times. "Russia has to decide how much it wants to isolate itself from the world. We don't want to have a bad relationship with Russia. We've never wanted that."

So far, US actions have been largely limited to its pledge to push Georgia's and Ukraine's membership in NATO, effectively shelving Russia ascension to the World Trade Organization, and to suspend a bilateral strategic dialogue and review a number of other bilateral military cooperation agreements.

In the immediate aftermath of the five-day war, Washington also quickly sealed a long-pending bilateral accord that would permit it to build missile defense systems in Poland. That move drew particularly harsh criticism from Moscow, which has also reiterated a vow to strongly oppose any efforts to admit Georgia and Ukraine to NATO - a military alliance which it sees as aimed at encircling and containing Russia.

Aside from those moves the administration has focused on supplying humanitarian and economic assistance to Georgia - albeit via military transport aircraft and warships in the Black Sea. In conjunction with the European Union (EU) it has also helped arrange a US$750 million line of credit to help Tbilisi finance the repair of the substantial infrastructural damages it incurred in the war.

In addition, Washington has pledged $1 billion in economic and reconstruction assistance, more than half of which will be sent over the next five months. That amount would make the Caucasian nation the fourth biggest US aid recipient after Israel, Iraq, and Egypt.

The administration's relative caution, particularly with respect to military aid, appears motivated by several factors.

Increasing tensions with Moscow further could seriously jeopardize other top foreign policy interests, according to senior officials and independent analysts, including Washington's hopes for applying additional pressure, particularly through the UN Security Council, on Iran to halt its nuclear program. It could prompt Russia to suspend an agreement that lets NATO use Russian and Central Asian bases and air space to supply its troops in Afghanistan.

A more aggressive stance could also harm relations with key European allies, such as Germany, France, and Italy, which are eager to ramp down tensions, in part due to their own heavy investments in Russia's economy and dependence on gas supplies.

US officials are also reluctant to address the question of additional military aid in light of the Georgian armed forces' poor performance during the war - the army retreated in chaos at the first contact, while all of its warships were destroyed in port - and what some of them describe as the recklessness of Saakashvili himself in ordering the attack on Tskhinvali that triggered Russia's offensive.

Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.

Original article posted here.

Updates on the Grand Chessboard

Putin's Ruthless Gambit
The Bush Administration Falters in a Geopolitical Chess Match

By Michael T. Klare

"TomDispatch" -- - Many Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin's jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the age-old ethnic politics of southeastern Europe, with assorted minorities using contemporary border disputes to settle ancient scores.

Neither of these explanations is accurate. To fully grasp the recent upheavals in the Caucasus, it is necessary to view the conflict as but a minor skirmish in a far more significant geopolitical struggle between Moscow and Washington over the energy riches of the Caspian Sea basin -- with former Russian President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin emerging as the reigning Grand Master of geostrategic chess and the Bush team turning out to be middling amateurs, at best.

The ultimate prize in this contest is control over the flow of oil and natural gas from the energy-rich Caspian basin to eager markets in Europe and Asia. According to the most recent tally by oil giant BP, the Caspian's leading energy producers, all former "socialist republics" of the Soviet Union -- notably Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- together possess approximately 48 billion barrels in proven oil reserves (roughly equivalent to those left in the U.S. and Canada) and 268 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (essentially equivalent to what Saudi Arabia possesses).

During the Soviet era, the oil and gas output of these nations was, of course, controlled by officials in Moscow and largely allocated to Russia and other Soviet republics. After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, however, Western oil companies began to participate in the hydrocarbon equivalent of a gold rush to exploit Caspian energy reservoirs, while plans were being made to channel the region's oil and gas to markets across the world.


Rush to the Caspian
In the 1990s, the Caspian Sea basin was viewed as the world's most promising new source of oil and gas, and so the major Western energy firms -- Chevron, BP, Shell, and Exxon Mobil, among others -- rushed into the region to take advantage of what seemed a golden opportunity. For these firms, persuading the governments of the newly independent Caspian states to sign deals proved to be no great hassle. They were eager to attract Western investment -- and the bribes that often came with it -- and to free themselves from Moscow's economic domination.


But there turned out to be a major catch: It was neither obvious nor easy to figure out how to move all the new oil and gas to markets in the West. After all, the Caspian is landlocked, so tankers cannot get near it, while all existing pipelines passed through Russia and were hooked into Soviet-era supply systems. While many in Washington were eager to assist U.S. firms in their drive to gain access to Caspian energy, they did not want to see the resulting oil and gas flow through Russia -- until recently, the country's leading adversary -- before reaching Western markets.

What, then, to do? Looking at the Caspian chessboard in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton conceived the striking notion of converting the newly independent, energy-poor Republic of Georgia into an "energy corridor" for the export of Caspian basin oil and gas to the West, thereby bypassing Russia altogether. An initial, "early-oil" pipeline was built to carry petroleum from newly-developed fields in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast, where it was loaded onto tankers for delivery to international markets. This would be followed by a far more audacious scheme: the construction of the 1,000-mile BTC pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to Tbilisi in Georgia and then on to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Again, the idea was to exclude Russia -- which had, in the intervening years, been transformed into a struggling, increasingly impoverished former superpower -- from the Caspian Sea energy rush.

Clinton presided over every stage of the BTC line's initial development, from its early conception to the formal arrangements imposed by Washington on the three nations involved in its corporate structuring. (Final work on the pipeline was not completed until 2006, two years into George W. Bush's second term.) For Clinton and his advisors, this was geopolitics, pure and simple -- a calculated effort to enhance Western energy security while diminishing Moscow's control over the global flow of oil and gas. The administration's efforts to promote the construction of new pipelines through Azerbaijan and Georgia were intended "to break Russia's monopoly of control over the transportation of oil from the region," Sheila Heslin of the National Security Council bluntly told a Senate investigating committee in 1997.
Clinton understood that this strategy entailed significant risks, particularly because Washington's favored "energy corridor" passed through or near several major conflict zones -- including the Russian-backed breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With this in mind, Clinton made a secondary decision -- to convert the new Georgian army into a military proxy of the United States, quipped and trained by the Department of Defense. From 1998 to 2000 alone, Georgia was awarded $302 million in U.S. military and economic aid -- more than any other Caspian country -- and top U.S. military officials started making regular trips to its capital, Tbilisi, to demonstrate support for then-president Eduard Shevardnadze.

In those years, Clinton was the top chess player in the Caspian region, while his Russian presidential counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, was far too preoccupied with domestic troubles and a bitter, costly, ongoing guerrilla war in Chechnya to match his moves. It was clear, however, that senior Russian officials were deeply concerned by the growing U.S. presence in their southern backyard -- what they called their "near abroad" -- and had already had begun planning for an eventual comeback. "It hasn't been left unnoticed in Russia that certain outside interests are trying to weaken our position in the Caspian basin," Andrei Y. Urnov of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in May 2000. "No one should be perplexed that Russia is determined to resist the attempts to encroach on her interests."


Russia Resurgent

At this critical moment, a far more capable player took over on Russia's side of the geopolitical chessboard. On December 31, 1999, Vladimir V. Putin was appointed president by Yeltsin and then, on March 26, 2000, elected to a full four-year term in office. Politics in the Caucasus and the Caspian region have never been the same.

Even before assuming the presidency, Putin indicated that he believed state control over energy resources should be the basis for Russia's return to great-power status. In his doctoral dissertation, a summary of which was published in 1999, he had written that "[t]he state has the right to regulate the process of the acquisition and the use of natural resources, and particularly mineral resources [including oil and natural gas], independent of on whose property they are located." On this basis, Putin presided over the re-nationalization of many of the energy companies that had been privatized by Yeltsin and the virtual confiscation of Yukos -- once Russia's richest private energy firm -- by Russian state authorities. He also brought Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas supplier, back under state control and placed a protégé, Dmitri Medvedev -- now president of Russia -- at its helm.
Once he had restored state control over the lion's share of Russia's oil and gas resources, Putin turned his attention to the next obvious place -- the Caspian Sea basin. Here, his intent was not so much to gain ownership of its energy resources -- although Russian firms have in recent years acquired an equity share in some Caspian oil and gas fields -- but rather to dominate the export conduits used to transport its energy to Europe and Asia.

Russia already enjoyed a considerable advantage since much of Kazakhstan's oil already flowed to the West via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which passes through Russia before terminating on the Black Sea; moreover, much of Central Asia's natural gas continued to flow to Russia through pipelines built during the Soviet era. But Putin's gambit in the Caspian region evidently was meant to capture a far more ambitious prize. He wanted to ensure that most oil and gas from newly developed fields in the Caspian basin would travel west via Russia.

The first part of this drive entailed frenzied diplomacy by Putin and Medvedev (still in his role as board chairman of Gazprom) to persuade the presidents of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to ship their future output of gas through Russia. Success was achieved when, in December 2007, Putin signed an agreement with the leaders of these countries to supply 20 billion cubic meters of gas per year through a new conduit along the Caspian's eastern shore to southern Russia -- for ultimate delivery to Europe via Gazprom's existing pipeline network.


Meanwhile, Putin moved to undermine international confidence in Georgia as a reliable future corridor for energy delivery. This became a strategic priority for Moscow because the European Union announced plans to build a $10 billion natural-gas pipeline from the Caspian, dubbed Nabucco" after the opera by Verdi. It would run from Turkey to Austria, while linking up to an expanded South Caucasus gas pipeline that now extends from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Erzurum in Turkey. The Nabucco pipeline was intended as a dramatic move to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas -- and so has enjoyed strong support from the Bush administration.
It is against this backdrop that the recent events in Georgia unfolded.


Checkmate in Georgia
Obviously, the more oil and gas passing through Georgia on its way to the West, the greater that country's geostrategic significance in the U.S.-Russian struggle over the distribution of Caspian energy. Certainly, the Bush administration recognized this and responded by providing hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the Georgian military and helping to train specialized forces for protection of the new pipelines. But the administration's partner in Tbilisi, President Mikheil Saakashvili, was not content to play the relatively modest role of pipeline protector. Instead, he sought to pursue a megalomaniacal fantasy of recapturing the breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia with American help. As it happened, the Bush team -- blindsided by their own neoconservative fantasies -- saw in Saakashvili a useful pawn in their pursuit of a long smoldering anti-Russian agenda. Together, they walked into a trap cleverly set by Putin.

It is hard not to conclude that Russian prime minister goaded the rash Saakashvili into invading South Ossetia by encouraging Abkhazian and South Ossetian irregulars to attack Georgian outposts and villages on the peripheries of the two enclaves. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly told Saakashvili not to respond to such provocations when she met with him in July. Apparently her advice fell on deaf ears. Far more enticing, it seems, was her promise of strong U.S. backing for Georgia's rapid entry into NATO. Other American leaders, including Senator John McCain, assured Saakashvili of unwavering U.S. support. Whatever was said in these private conversations, the Georgian president seems to have interpreted them as a green light for his adventuristic impulses. On August 7th, by all accounts, his forces invaded South Ossetia and attacked its capital city of Tskhinvali, giving Putin what he long craved -- a seemingly legitimate excuse to invade Georgia and demonstrate the complete vulnerability of Clinton's (and now Bush's) vaunted energy corridor.

Today, the Georgian army is in shambles, the BTC and South Caucasus gas pipelines are within range of Russian firepower, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia have declared their independence, quickly receiving Russian recognition. In response to these developments, the Bush administration has, along with some friendly leaders in Europe, mounted a media and diplomatic counterattack, accusing Moscow of barbaric behavior and assorted violations of international law. Threats have also been made to exclude Russia from various international forums and institutions, such as the G-8 club of governments and the World Trade Organization. It is possible, then, that Moscow will suffer some isolation and inconvenience as a result of its incursion into Georgia.

None of this, so far as can be determined, will alter the picture in the Caucasus: Putin has moved his most powerful pieces onto this corner of the chessboard, America's pawn has been decisively defeated, and there's not much of a practical nature that Washington (or London or Paris or Berlin) can do to alter the outcome.


There will, of course, be more rounds to come, and it is impossible to predict how they will play out. Putin prevailed this time around because he focused on geopolitical objectives, while his opponents were blindly driven by fantasy and ideology; so long as this pattern persists, he or his successors are likely to come out on top. Only if American leaders assume a more realistic approach to Russia's resurgent power or, alternatively, choose to collaborate with Moscow in the exploitation of Caspian energy, will the risk of further strategic setbacks in the region disappear.

Michael T. Klare is professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books).

Original article posted here.

Russia not so scared, and calling the West's bluff

Russia recognises Georgian rebels

Russian president speaks to BBC President Dmitry Medvedev has declared that Russia formally recognises the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Mr Medvedev told the BBC Russia had tried to preserve Georgian unity for 17 years, but that the situation had changed after this month's violence. He said Moscow now felt obliged to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as other countries had done with Kosovo. The decree, in defiance of a plea from the US, has provoked a wave of protest. Georgia accused Russia of an unconcealed annexation of its territory, and said the decrees had no legal force. This is an unconcealed annexation of these territories, which are a part of Georgia Giga Bokeria Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Foreign reaction in quotes UK urges Russia to 'abide by law' Q&A: Conflict in Georgia The US and France called the Russian move regrettable, while the UK said it categorically rejected it. Nato said the declaration violated numerous UN Security Council resolutions that Russia itself had endorsed. However the leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have had de facto independence since the early 1990s, thanked Russia. Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake South Ossetia by force. Russian forces subsequently launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia and an EU-brokered ceasefire. 'No easy choice' In an announcement on Russian state television, President Medvedev said he had signed a decree to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. He instructed the Russian foreign ministry to open negotiations on formal diplomatic relations with the two regions and called on other states to follow his country's example. Mr Medvedev said he had "taken into account the expression of free will by the Ossetian and Abkhaz peoples" and accused Georgia of failing over many years to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the problem. Many South Ossetians feel closer to Russia than Georgia "That was no easy choice to make, but it is the sole chance of saving people's lives," he added. The move followed votes in both houses of parliament on Monday, which called on Moscow to recognise the regions' independence. In an interview with the BBC at his residency in Sochi, on the border with Abkhazia, Mr Medvedev later said Russia had been obliged to act following a "genocide" started by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili against separatists in South Ossetia. The president compared Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to the West's recognition of Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. He also denied that Russia had breached the ceasefire agreement with Georgia, saying pursuing the security of the two regions included addressing their status. "The most important thing was to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe to save the lives of people for whom we are responsible, because most of them they are Russian citizens," he said. "So we had to take a decision recognising the two states as independent." Mr Medvedev said relations with the West were deteriorating sharply and that a new Cold War could not be excluded, but that Russia did not want one. "There are no winners in a Cold War," he said. Violation Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria responded to the Russian announcement angrily, saying: "This is an unconcealed annexation of these territories, which are a part of Georgia." Western countries, including the US, Germany, the UK and France immediately condemned the move. SOUTH OSSETIA & ABKHAZIA South Ossetia Population: About 70,000 (before recent conflict) Capital: Tskhinvali President: Eduard Kokoity Abkhazia Population: About 250,000 (2003) Capital: Sukhumi President: Sergei Bagapsh Profile: South Ossetia Profile: Abkhazia US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking from the West Bank city of Ramallah, said the decision was "regrettable". "Since the United States is a permanent member of the Security Council this simply will be dead on arrival in the Security Council," she said. Late on Monday, the US state department had warned that recognition of the two provinces' independence would be "a violation of Georgian territorial integrity" and "inconsistent with international law". In a statement, it said President George W Bush had called on Russia's leadership to "meet its commitments and not recognise these separatist regions". In the two breakaway regions, however, Moscow's move was warmly welcomed. The leader of South Ossetia's separatist government, Eduard Kokoity, said he would ask Moscow to set up a military base on his territory. In the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali there were scenes of jubilation while residents in Abkhazia took to the streets to celebrate the news, firing into the air. "We feel happy," said Aida Gabaz, a 38-year-old lawyer in the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi. "We all have tears in our eyes. We feel pride for our people." 'New understanding' Earlier on Tuesday, Russia cancelled a visit by Nato's secretary general, one of a series of measures to suspend co-operation with the military alliance. In Abkhazia, hundreds danced and embraced near a government building Russia's ambassador to Nato said the trip would be delayed until relations between the two were clarified. Dmitry Rogozin said a "new understanding" needed to be reached between Russia and Nato. The BBC's Humphrey Hawksley, in Moscow, says the recognition is bound to dramatically heighten tensions in Russia's already fragile relationship with the West. He says this and a series of other announcements indicate that Russia is preparing itself for a showdown. Although most of Russia's forces pulled out of the rest of Georgia last Friday, it is maintaining a presence both within the two rebel regions and in buffer zones imposed round their boundaries. Port control Some Russian troops also continue to operate near the Black Sea port of Poti, south of Abkhazia, where Russia says it will carry out regular inspections of cargo. HAVE YOUR SAY Russia is right to recognise South Ossetia and guarantee its security Branco, Bulgaria Send us your comments The US said on Tuesday that its warships would deliver aid to Georgia's port of Poti, which is under Russian control. The move could mean US and Russian forces coming face to face. Earlier, the head of European security organisation, the OSCE, Alexander Stubb, accused Russia of trying to empty South Ossetia of Georgians. Speaking to the BBC's Europe Today programme, he said: "They are clearly trying to empty southern Ossetia from Georgians, which I don't think goes by any of the books that we deal with in international relations". At a checkpoint in South Ossetia, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse said a South Ossetian commander said many Georgian civilians had already left of their own accord, because they were scared of the guns. Original article posted here.

The death of law and Russia's rise

Putin's war enablers: Bush and Cheney

Russia's escalating war on Georgia reveals the consequences of the Bush administration's long assault on the international rule of law.

By Juan Cole

Aug. 14, 2008 | The run-up to the current chaos in the Caucasus should look quite familiar: Russia acted unilaterally rather than going through the U.N. Security Council. It used massive force against a small, weak adversary. It called for regime change in a country that had defied Moscow. It championed a separatist movement as a way of asserting dominance in a region it coveted.

Indeed, despite George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's howls of outrage at Russian aggression in Georgia and the disputed province of South Ossetia, the Bush administration set a deep precedent for Moscow's actions -- with its own systematic assault on international law over the past seven years. Now, the administration's condemnations of Russia ring hollow.

Bush said on Monday, responding to reports that Russia might attack the Georgian capital, "It now appears that an effort may be under way to depose [Georgia's] duly elected government. Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century." By Wednesday, with more Russian troops on the move and a negotiated cease-fire quickly unraveling, Bush stepped up the rhetoric, announcing a sizable humanitarian-aid mission to Georgia and dispatching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region.

While U.S. leaders have tended to back Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, there are two sides to every dispute, and in the ethnically diverse Caucasus it may be more like a hundred sides. Abkhazia and Ossetia are claimed by Georgia, but they have their own distinctive languages, cultures and national aspirations. Both fought for independence in the early 1990s, without success, though neither was Georgia able to assert its full sovereignty over them, accepting Russian mediation and peacekeeping troops.

The separatist leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia now speak of Saakashvili in terms reminiscent of the way separatists in Darfur speak of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Sergei Bagapsh of Abkhazia and Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia have come out against conducting any further talks with Georgia, calling instead for Saakashvili to be tried for war crimes. Kokoity told Interfax, "There can be no talks with the organizers of genocide." The Russian press is full of talk of putting Saakashvili on trial for ordering attacks on Ossetian civilians.

All sides have committed massacres and behaved abominably. There are no clean hands involved, notwithstanding the strong support for Georgia visible in the press of most NATO member countries. (Georgia has been jockeying to join NATO, something Moscow stridently opposes.) Still, not everyone in NATO agrees that Saakashvili is a hero. While traveling with the negotiating team of President Nicolas Sarkozy, one French official observed that "Saakashvili was crazy enough to go in the middle of the night and bomb a city" in South Ossetia. The consequence of Russia's riposte, he said, is "a Georgia attacked, pulverized, through its own fault."

An emboldened Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sarcastically likened Russia's actions to Bush's foreign policy. Pointing to the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Putin said, "Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages ... And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed 10 Ossetian villages at once, who ran over elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilians alive in their sheds -- these leaders must be taken under protection."

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Bush officials repeated ad nauseam the mantra that Saddam Hussein had killed his own people. Thus, they helped create a case for unilateral "humanitarian intervention" of the sort Putin says Russia is now pursuing. Washington had failed to get a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a war on Iraq, and Iraq had not attacked the United States, so no principle of self-defense was at stake. But since all governments (even the United States under Abraham Lincoln) repress separatist movements, often ruthlessly, Bush was turning actions such as Saakashvili's attack on South Ossetia into a more legitimate cause for an outside power (especially one bordering it) to wage war against Georgia.

Indeed, Putin's invoking Bush's Iraq adventure points directly to the way in which Bush has enabled other world powers to act impulsively. With his doctrine of preemptive warfare, Bush single-handedly tore down the architecture of post-World War II international law erected by the founders of the United Nations to ensure that rogue states did not go about launching wars of aggression the way Hitler had. While safeguarding minorities at risk is a praiseworthy goal, the U.N. Charter states that the Security Council must approve a war launched for this purpose or any other, excepting self-defense. No individual nation is authorized to wage aggressive war on a vigilante basis, as Bush did in Iraq or Russia is now doing in the Caucasus.

Eight years ago, the United States would have been in a position to condemn Russia for its unilateral war without necessarily seeming hypocritical. After all, even the Korean War had been sanctioned by the United Nations, and President Dwight Eisenhower had condemned the 1956 tripartite attack on Egypt by Britain, France and Israel for violating the U.N. Charter.

Bush's recent argument, that a democratically elected government should not be overthrown (no matter what its behavior, apparently), was intended to sidestep comparisons between his own unilateral wars of aggression and ones such as the current Russian intervention. He was implying that his invasion of Iraq toppled a government that lacked the legitimacy enjoyed by Saakashvili's.

In fact, Bush's foreign policy includes a long list of actions intended to undermine elected governments.

Whether the United States was actively involved in the attempted coup in 2002 against Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela, or merely cheered it on, it is clear that Venezuelan popular sovereignty meant nothing to Bush if it resulted in a government unfriendly to and critical of Washington.

An even more egregious example came with the destabilization and overthrow of the Hamas government, which won control of the Palestine Authority in January 2006. Bush insisted on allowing the participation in elections of Hamas, a fundamentalist party with a covert paramilitary that has struck at Israeli targets, including civilians. When the party unexpectedly won, however, Bush refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government, denying it funds and sympathizing with the Israeli attempt to overthrow it. Israeli security forces kidnapped elected Hamas representatives and cabinet ministers, and harmed civilians by blocking medical aid and food that might go to people via the Hamas government.

In 2007, Bush and the Israelis supported a takeover in the West Bank by forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization, lead by Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Similar attempts were made in Gaza, but they failed, leaving the elected Hamas government in charge of the small territory. Palestinian popular sovereignty, and Hamas' victory in what were widely judged to have been relatively free and fair elections, were disregarded by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Bush.

Bush and Cheney also repeatedly sided with military dictator Pervez Musharraf against elected civilian politicians in Pakistan. Even when the Pakistani Parliament, elected in open polls last February, initiated impeachment proceedings against Musharraf earlier this week, the Bush administration came out against the idea of Musharraf's going into exile if convicted, urging that he be allowed to stay "honorably" in Pakistan if he stepped down.

Bush's exceptionalism, whereby he implicitly maintained that no international laws or institutions would be allowed to constrain U.S. actions taken in the name of national security, grew out of the sole superpower status of the United States after fall of the Soviet Union. A unipolar world is, however, an exceedingly rare circumstance in modern world history, and it was unlikely to last very long. China may soon have the economic and technological clout to go toe to toe with the United States; and Russia, fueled by the energy boom, is recovering from its economic disaster of the 1990s.

The collapse of the Soviet economy produced tremendous misery and downward mobility. Uncertainty made couples unwilling to risk having children. In one of the great demographic reversals in history, the Russian Federation's population fell by 10 million in the years after 1991. Russian need for U.S. foreign aid and goodwill led Moscow to acquiesce for a time in the expansion of U.S. influence into Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Russia is now reemerging and flexing its muscles. The run-up in the price of oil and gas has filled Moscow's coffers, since it is one of the great producers of natural gas in the world (prices of natural gas tend to track with those of petroleum). Russia has reasserted its influence in countries such as Uzbekistan, which had briefly licensed a base to U.S. forces but then kicked them out, and in Turkmenistan, which recently agreed to pipe its natural gas through Moscow. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are increasingly acting like Gulf emirs, flush with petrodollars and assured of political leverage because of their control over energy resources.

In a unipolar world, the Bush doctrine of preemptive war allowed Washington to assert itself without fear of contradiction. The Bush doctrine, however, was never meant to be emulated by others and was therefore implicitly predicated on the notion that all challengers would be weaker than the United States throughout the 21st century. Bush and Cheney are now getting a glimpse of a multipolar world in which other powers can adopt their modus operandi with impunity. Bush's rhetoric may have sounded like that of President Woodrow Wilson, but his policy has often been to support the overthrow or hobbling of elected governments that he does not like -- and that has not gone unnoticed by countries that also count themselves great powers and would not mind following suit.

The problem with international law for a superpower is that it is a constraint on overweening ambition. Its virtue is that it constrains the aggressive ambitions of others. Bush gutted it because he thought the United States would not need it anytime soon. But Russia is now demonstrating that the Bush doctrine can just as easily be the Putin doctrine. And that leaves America less secure in a world of vigilante powers that spout rhetoric about high ideals to justify their unchecked military interventions. It is the world that Bush has helped build.

-- By Juan Cole

Original article posted here.

As weazl said earlier, after Russian (Medevdev) misstep, Russia having to put its foot down STRONGLY this time (read: Putin).

Georgia-Russia Shaky Cease Fire

Confusion in the Caucus region: are Russian tanks rolling back into Georgia?

By ZOE MAGEE

Russia responded angrily to President Bush's harsh words this morning about their handling of the situation in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, where Russian and Georgian troops have been fighting since last week.

Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters that Washington was playing a dangerous game by supporting Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili.

"We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States, but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership which requires joint action," Lavrov said.

While the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, was meeting at Meiendorf Castle with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, Lavrov minced no words in his criticism of Bush's remarks, calling it the work of "bad speech writers."

"Frankly speaking, once again I was surprised by the skills of the speech writers who prepared the statement of the U.S. president," Lavrov said.

"Bush's speech said nothing of how Georgia was armed all these years, including by the United States," he said, adding, "We have more than once warned our partners that this is a dangerous game."

The fighting erupted last week following an attack by Georgian troops on Thursday on the pro-Russian enclave of South Ossetia.

Earlier today, President Bush, responding to reports that the Russians were not abiding by a cease-fire warned Russia to "keep its word" and end attacks on Georgia, as he dispatched a military plane loaded with supplies for Georgian refugees.

The president spoke briefly in the White House Rose Garden after Georgian officials accused Russia of violating the cease-fire both sides agreed to on Tuesday.

"To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis," Bush said.

He announced that he will send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Paris and then Tblisi to help negotiate the peace plan and to show the administration's "unwavering support" for the Georgian government.

"The United States stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected," Bush said.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who was standing next to the president and Rice, is to coordinate humanitarian relief in the region.Original article posted here.

Brzezinski on Russia and Georgia.

Brzezinski: Russia's Invasion of Georgia Is Reminiscent of Stalin's Attack on Finland

by Nathan Gardels Nathan Gardels has been editor of New Perspectives Quarterly since it began publishing in 1985. He has served as editor of Global Viewpoint and Nobel Laureates Plus(services of Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media) since 1989. These services have a worldwide readership of 35 million in 15 languages. Gardels has written widely for The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Harper's, U.S. News & World Report and the New York Review of Books. He has also written for foreign publications, including Corriere della Sera, El Pais, Le Figaro, the Straits Times (Singapore), Yomiuri Shimbun, O'Estado de Sao Paulo, The Guardian, Die Welt and many others. His books include, "At Century's End: Great Minds Reflect on Our Times" and "The Changing Global Order." Since 1986, Gardels has been a Media Fellow of the World Economic Forum (Davos). He has lectured at the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) in Rabat, Morocco and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, China. Gardels was a founding member at the New Delhi meeting of Intellectuels du Monde and a visiting researcher at the USA-Canada Institute in Moscow before the end of the Cold War. He has been a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, as well as the Pacific Council, for many years. From 1983 to 1985, Gardels was executive director of the Institute for National Strategy where he conducted policy research at the USA-Canada Institute in Moscow, the People's Institute of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, the Swedish Institute in Stockholm and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Bonn. Prior to this, he spent four years as key adviser to the Governor of California on economic affairs, with an emphasis on public investment, trade issues, the Pacific Basin and Mexico. Gardels holds degrees in Theory and Comparative Politics and in Architecture and Urban Planning from UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Lilly, and two sons, Carlos and Alexander. Gardels plays the cello on his free time. 11.08.2008
Keywords: Russia, Putin, Georgia

On Sunday (Editor's note: August 10, 2008) I talked with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the elder statesman who was national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, about the Russian invasion of Georgia. He long tangled with Soviet power. Now he takes on Putin:


Nathan Gardels: What is the world to make of Russia's invasion of Georgia?

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Fundamentally at stake is what kind of role Russia will play in the new international system. Unfortunately, Putin is putting Russia on a course that is ominously similar to Stalin's and Hitler's in the late 1930s. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has correctly drawn an analogy between Putin's "justification" for dismembering Georgia -- because of the Russians in South Ossetia -- to Hitler's tactics vis a vis Czechoslovakia to "free" the Sudeten Deutsch.

Even more ominous is the analogy of what Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor. In effect, morally and strategically, Georgia is the Finland of our day

The question the international community now confronts is how to respond to a Russia that engages in the blatant use of force with larger imperial designs in mind: to reintegrate the former Soviet space under the Kremlin's control and to cut Western access to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia by gaining control over the Baku/ Ceyhan pipeline that runs through Georgia.

In brief, the stakes are very significant. At stake is access to oil as that resource grows ever more scarce and expensive and how a major power conducts itself in our newly interdepedent world, conduct that should be based on accommodation and consensus, not on brute force.

If Georgia is subverted, not only will the West be cut off from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. We can logically anticipate that Putin, if not resisted, will use the same tactics toward the Ukraine. Putin has already made public threats against Ukraine.

Gardels: What, if anything, can the West do to contain this revived Russian behavior?

Brzezinski: Not only the West, but the rest of the international community, must make it clear that this kind of behavior will result in ostracism and economic and financial penalties. Ultimately, if Russia continues on this course, it must face isolation in the international community -- a longer range risk to its own well-being.

The United States, particularly, shoulders the major burden of mobilizing a collective international response. This invasion of Georgia by Russia is a very sad commentary on eight years of self-delusion in the White House regarding Putin and his regime. Two memorable comments stand out. First, when Bush first met Putin and said he looked into his soul and could trust him. Second, not long ago, Condi Rice claimed that American relations with Russia have never been better in history!

Gardels: John McCain has already suggested that Russia be expelled from the G8. Is that something you would contemplate?

Brzezinski: The G8 is an impotent fiction anyway. But it has to be much more than
that. It has to be a concerted effort on all levels -- at the United Nations, in the Atlantic Council, in the EU or in NATO, in consultation with the Japanese, the Chinese and others -- to convey to Russia that, whatever grievances it may have, it cannot resolve them by a deliberate policy of dismembering an adjoining state and trying to obtain political domination over it.

Gardels: Is the West obliged to help Georgia resist the Russian attack with some kind of military support?

Brzezinski: The question is not what obligation the West may have at the moment. The question is about our longer term interest. If a Russia, which misjudges its power and its capacities embarks now on a blatantly nationalistic and imperialistic course, we will all suffer.

Therefore it is all the more important that Russia be stopped now by mobilizing a concerted, global effort to oppose and condemn the Russian invasion. Ultimately, that could lead to economic and financial sanctions, though one would hope that other Russian leaders, including its business elite, will have cooler heads and be more aware of Russia's own vulnerabilities. Russia is not ready to sustain a new cold war.

Gardels: Should the Atlantic Alliance urgently induct Georgia into NATO as one response?

Brzezinski: The West desisted from extending the NATO "membership action plan" to Georgia -- a preparatory stage for becoming a member -- out of deference to Russian objections. It is now clear that the deference shown to Putin, in the face of his obvious ambitions, has been counterproductive. In view of what has happened, NATO ought to extend the membership action plan to Georgia, therefore reinforcing the commitment NATO made in Bucharest last March
to the effect that NATO intends, at some future point, to include Georgia.

Gardels: You haven't mentioned Dmitri Medvedev, the the Russian president, once, but only Putin. Does Medvedev have any function in this?

Brzezinski: As much to do with it as the formal head of state of the Soviet Union in 1950 had to do with the running of the Soviet government. Does anyone remember his name? But the real ruler of the Soviet Union had a name that most still remember -- and it rhymes with Putin.....

Original article posted here.

Neither Bush, McCain or Obama know how do deal with Georgia. No policy difference

Obama Emerges to Talk About Georgia

By Michael Falcone

Barack Obama delivered a statement on the Russia-Georgia situation. (Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated Press)

KAILUA, Hawaii — Senator Barack Obama, on vacation on the island of Oahu, emerged today to issue this statement on the situation between Russia and Georgia. He made the remarks from the palm-tree lined driveway of his vacation home here. Here is his statement as delivered:

I want to just speak briefly about the situation in Georgia. It’s a situation that continues to deteriorate because of Russia’s escalation of the use of military force. At this point I have spoken to President Saakashvili, and conveyed my deep regret over the loss of life, and the suffering of the people of Georgia.

For many months, I have warned that there needs to be active international engagement to peacefully address the disputes over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, including a high-level and neutral international mediator, and a genuine international peacekeeping force – not simply Russian troops.

No matter how this conflict started, Russia has escalated it well beyond the dispute over South Ossetia and has now violated the space of another country. Russia has escalated its military campaign through strategic bombing and the movement of its ground forces into the heart of Georgia. There is no possible justification for these attacks.

I reiterate my call for Russia to stop its bombing campaign, to stop flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and to withdraw its ground forces from Georgia. The Georgian government has proposed a cease-fire and the Russian government should accept it. There is also an urgent need for humanitarian assistance to reach the people of Georgia, and casualties on both sides.

The United States, Europe and all other concerned countries must stand united in condemning this aggression, and seeking a peaceful resolution to this crisis. We should continue to push for a United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for an immediate end to the violence. This is a clear violation of the sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of Georgia – the UN must stand up for the sovereignty of its members, and peace in the world.

I welcome the visit of the French and Finnish foreign ministers to Georgia as a first step toward mediation. There should also be a United Nations mediator to address this crisis, and the United States should fully support this effort. We should also convene other international forums to condemn this aggression, to call for an immediate halt to the violence, and to review multilateral and bilateral arrangements with Russia, including Russia’s interest in joining the World Trade Organization.

The violence taking place along the Black Sea is just miles from Sochi, the site for the Winter Olympics in 2014. It only adds to the tragedy and outrage of the current situation that Russia has acted while the world has come together in peace and athletic competition in Beijing. This action is wholly inconsistent with the Olympic ideal.

While returning to a pre-August 8th military posture is a necessary first step towards resolving this crisis, we cannot tolerate the unacceptable status quo that led to this escalation. That means Russian peacekeeping troops should be replaced by a genuine international peacekeeping force, Georgia should refrain from using force in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and a political settlement must be reached that addresses the status of these disputed regions.

Going forward, the United States and Europe must support the people of Georgia. Beyond immediate humanitarian assistance, we must provide economic assistance, and help rebuild what has been destroyed. I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a membership action plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship.

The relationship between Russia and the West is long and complicated. There have been many turning points, for good and ill. This is another turning point.

Let me be clear: we seek a future of cooperative engagement with the Russian government, and friendship with the Russian people. We want Russia to play its rightful role as a great nation, but with that role comes the responsibility to act as a force for progress in this new century, not regression to the conflicts of the past. That is why the United States and the international community must speak out strongly against this aggression, and for peace and security.

Mr. Obama declined to take questions afterward. Earlier today, the Illinois senator’s Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, also talked about the situation while campaigning in Erie, Pa.

Original article posted here.

And with Israel in the mix, look for Russia to keep hitting hard

Israel 'has a hand in S. Ossetia war'
Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:39:36 GMT
Israel has provided Georgia with military assistance amid an ongoing armed conflict in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The Israeli web site Debkafiles which is believed to have close links with the regime's intelligence and military sources, reported that last year, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had commissioned from Israeli security firms up to 1,000 military advisers to train the country's armed forces.

According to the report, the Israeli advisors also helped Tbilisi with military intelligence and security operations. Georgia also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel.

The report added the Israeli advisers were deeply involved in the Georgian army's preparations to attack and capture the capital of South Ossetia on Friday.

The web site quoted "its military experts" as saying a project to pump Caspian oil and gas to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan instead of the Russian pipeline network is in the interest of Tel Aviv.

The regime therefore has been negotiating with Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan to go ahead with the construction of pipelines to transfer oil to terminals in Ashkelon and Eilat.

The report added that Moscow had demanded Tel Aviv to halt its military assistance to Georgia and even warned the regime of a diplomatic row.

Israel, however, said that its military cooperation with Georgia had been “defensive.”

Georgia captured the capital of South Ossetia on Friday, triggering a response from Russia which has stationed its peacekeepers in the breakaway region since the 1990s conflicts.

Ties between the two former Soviet republics have been strained over several issues, including Georgia's NATO membership bid.

Original article posted here.

Once again, excellent analysis of Georgia conflict by Asia Times. Two articles worth reading

Saakashvili overplays his hand

By Brian Whitmore

In an effort to prod the West to Tbilisi's side in its rapidly escalating armed conflict with Russia, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is invoking the ghosts of Cold War battles past - Moscow's suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan in 1979.

The Georgian leader's strategy is clear. Tbilisi's small army is no match for the Russian military machine. Saakashvili's only chance of success in his bid to regain control of the Moscow-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia, therefore, is to globalize the conflict and turn it into a central front of a new struggle between Moscow and the West.

"What Russia has been doing against Georgia for the last two days represents an open aggression, unprecedented in modern times," Saakashvili said in a televised address on August 8. "It is a direct challenge for the whole world. If Russia is not stopped today by the whole world, tomorrow Russian tanks might reach any European capital. I think everyone has understood this by now."

So far, the West has not taken the bait. The United States and the European Union are sending envoys to Georgia to try to broker a ceasefire and Western leaders have issued predictable statements calling on both sides to show restraint.

Most European leaders, wary of antagonizing Moscow, have strived to come across as more or less balanced in the conflict. Even Georgia's closest ally in the West, the United States, has thus far offered little more than rhetorical support.

Speaking in Beijing on August 9, US President George W Bush stepped up Washington's criticism of Moscow, calling for a halt to the shelling of Georgian targets. "Georgia is a sovereign nation and its territorial integrity must be respected," Bush said. "We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for an end to the Russian bombings and a return by the parties to the status quo of August 6."

Trying to move West
Since coming to power after the country's 2003 Rose Revolution, Saakashvili has relentlessly sought to move Georgia into the Western orbit and out of Moscow's sphere of influence. To do that, however, the Georgian leader needed to resolve the standoffs over the pro-Moscow regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from Georgia with Russian assistance following wars in the early 1990s.

Prior to Saakashvili's rise, Russia was the only international player in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, with troops in both regions under a Commonwealth of Independent States-sanctioned "peacekeeping" mission.

"Saakashvili has been trying to internationalize the conflicts in Georgia since he has come to office," says Sabine Freizer, the Europe program director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank. "It has been very much his strategy to make this an international conflict between the traditional West and Russia, speaking in language of the Cold War and saying that this is really the last frontier. He's been racking up those kind of expressions in the past few days, but this is really nothing new."

The United States has been largely receptive to Saakashvili's efforts, championing Tbilisi's attempt to join NATO, helping to train Georgia's armed forces, and offering diplomatic support on the Abkhaz and South Ossetian conflicts.

Europe, on the other hand, has been largely divided. Some EU members like Germany and France, wary of antagonizing Moscow, have been reluctant to offer Georgia anything more than lukewarm support. Newer member states like Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states, with fresh memories of Soviet domination, have been more forceful in support of Tbilisi.

Georgia moved into South Ossetia on August 7 in a large-scale operation to regain control of the Moscow-backed separatist region, following days of clashes in which both sides exchanged gun and mortar fire. Each side accuses the other of initiating the hostilities. The offensive sparked a furious reaction from Russia, which sent troops, military aircraft, and tanks to repel Georgian forces. It was the Russian military's first offensive outside its borders since the 1991 Soviet breakup.

It came as no surprise that the strongest European condemnation of Russia's incursion into South Ossetia thus far came from Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitekunas, who said Moscow crossed "red lines" and committed "aggression and an outrageous violation of international law". Poland, likewise, has called for an emergency summit on South Ossetia.

Some analysts say that with the West divided, Saakashvili may have felt the need to try to resolve the conflicts in Georgia's favor quickly, before the Bush administration - which has been a very strong supporter of Tbilisi - leaves office:

"Why precisely now? What made Saakashvili decide that this was the right moment politically? In my opinion, one of the reasons is that Mikheil Saakashvili believes the current US administration has certain obligations toward him and the next presidential administration - particularly if this is a Democratic administration - won't feel it has any of these obligations and may modify the overall stance on Georgia," Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of the Moscow-based journal Russia in Global Affairs, told RFE/RL's Russian Service in a recent interview.

If that is indeed the case, Saakashvili appears to have badly miscalculated by failing to anticipate Russia's robust response. And now that the long-simmering confrontation has escalated from a diplomatic and political clash into armed conflict, the West's options are increasingly limited.

"I really think he [Saakashvili] has taken it a step too far because if we were really going to push back the Russians, you would need something like a military intervention and that is not going to happen," Freizer says.

Analysts say the West does have some leverage over Russia. The EU, for example, could suspend negotiations over a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Moscow; the NATO-Russia Council could be dissolved; Russia could be prevented from joining the World Trade Organization, or even kicked out of the Group of Eight.

But its energy wealth, and the influence that buys, will likely prevent anything more than a mild rebuke. Moreover, the United States and the European Union badly need Russia's cooperation on issues like curbing Iran's nuclear program.

But in the end, Moscow's efforts to be viewed as a responsible global player will certainly suffer a serious blow due to the conflict.
"Russia's image is going to take a battering," Freizer says. "Russia has been trying increase its international legitimacy as a defender of international law, not only in the Caucasus but also we've been seeing this in the Balkans as well with the positions Russia has been taking on Kosovo. It is going to be more difficult for them to stand in front of the Security Council as the big defender of international law while they're bombing civilian targets and Georgian cities."

Original article posted here.





Russia bids to rid Georgia of its folly

By John Helmer

MOSCOW - One word explains why the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union have obliged themselves to sit on their hands, while Russia's defends its citizens, and national interests, in the Caucasus, and liberates Georgians from the folly of their unpopular president, Mikheil Saakashvili. That word is Kosovo.

Russia sent troops into the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia to take on Georgian troops that had advanced into the territory. Four days of heavy fighting have seen thousands of casualties and the Georgian forces withdrawing. Russian troops were reported on Monday to be continuing fighting in parts of Georgia, including around the capital Tbilisi.

Eight hundred years of Caucasian history explain why Saakashvili has brought such destruction and ignominy on his countrymen over the past few days. Queen Tamar, the greatest of the Georgian sovereigns (1184-1213), is responsible for the habit Georgian rulers have displayed for the past millennium of treating neighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ossetia and the Black Sea coast of Turkey as protectorates. But as Tamar also taught her countrymen, Georgian ambition always runs out of gas when the neighbors prove to be just as ambitious, richer or tougher.

The number 300 explains what tougher means - that's the count of Russian artillery pieces that have been deployed to South Ossetia alone, once Saakashvili dispatched his United States and Israel-trained troops into action at Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. That push, according to Russian military thinking, was not intended to hold Tskhinvali for Georgia, but to destroy it, and withdraw swiftly back into Georgia - ending the South Ossetian secession by liquidating its people.

Just how tough Russia's war aims are now - as distinct from the methods - remains to be seen. According to Georgian sources, there is no safe haven for the attackers in Georgia itself, as Russian artillery pounds Georgian military units within range; the Russian air force bombs every military unit and depot on Georgian territory; and the Russian Black Sea fleet counter-fires against Georgian naval vessels off Ochamchire, the Abkhazian regional port.

For all Russians, not only those with relatives in Ossetia, the near-total destruction by Georgian guns of Tskhinvali is a war crime. The deaths of about 2,000 civilians in the Georgian attack, and the forced flight of about 35,000 survivors from the town - the last census of Tskhinvali's population reported 30,000 - has been described by Russian leaders, and is understood by Russian public opinion, as a form of genocide. Ninety percent of the town's population are Russian citizens.

To Russians, the Georgian attack of August 8 looks like the very same "ethnic cleansing", which the US and European powers have treated as a crime against humanity, when committed on the former territory of federal Yugoslavia.

But Russians view the international war that broke up Yugoslavia as a practice run for breaking up the Russian Caucasus, first by arming the Chechen secessionist Dzhokar Dudayev; then by financing anti-Russian terrorism in the Russian provinces of Chechnya and Ingushetia; and now by the Georgian military thrust against South Ossetia.

Since the US and the European Union have so recently compelled Serbia to accept the Albanian takeover of Serbia's Kosovo province, the overwhelming Russian view is that this will not be allowed to happen again. "Ossetia is not Kosovo" is a widespread refrain in Moscow today.

"If [former Yugoslav president] Slobodan Milosevic should be put on trial, the opinion here is - so too should Saakashvili," says a leading Moscow analyst.

But is it now a Russian war aim to drive Saakashvili from power? Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the weekend that Saakashvili "must go". Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, on a mediation mission on Monday between the Georgian and Russian capitals, will hear the same view in Moscow.

The Russian argument is that, since coming to power in 2003, Saakashvili has militarized his country with US, NATO and Israeli arms, military training and money, for no purpose except to threaten Russia, and the minority nationalities of the region, who seek the protection of Moscow - the Abkhazians and the Ossetians.

Saakashvili, the Russian argument runs, has initiated military escalation over the past year because his political base has cracked and his domestic support is dwindling. The Georgian political opposition at home, and in exile abroad, agrees. They charge the president and his family, including the powerful Timur Alasaniya, Saakashvili's uncle, of growing corruptly rich off the arms trade and of seizing the country's resource, port and trading concessions for themselves and their supporters. Alasaniya, brother to Saakashvili's mother, holds the official position of Georgian representative to a United Nations Commission on Disarmament in New York (no relation to Irakly Alasaniya, Georgia's ambassador to the United Nations).

The leaders of the Georgian opposition nearly succeeded in toppling Saakashvili last autumn. The president was forced to impose military rule in Tbilisi, while his former defense minister, Irakly Okruashvili, publicly accused him of murder and corruption. Okruashvili is currently in Paris, where he has been granted political asylum by the French government. In June, a French court rejected Saakashvili's warrant for the arrest and extradition of his former friend and now bitterest critic. Okruashvili is uncompromised by early career links to Moscow, unlike a number of political party leaders in Tbilisi. Okruashvili is a likely candidate to replace Saakashvili, if and when Georgian public opinion turns against the president.

But this cannot happen while Russian military operations continue against Georgian targets. Leading opposition figures inside the country, like Shalva Natelashvili, head of the Georgian Labor Party, believe they must remain silent for the time being. According to Irakly Kakabadze, an independent opposition organizer based in New York, "Once the bombing stops, I believe Saakashvili will not survive." In the spring, Kakabadze was arrested and imprisoned in Tbilisi by Saakashvili security men trying to disrupt a street protest against the president's regime.

Public opinion in Georgia already pins the blame on Saakashvili for the folly and loss of the Ossetian adventure. Even before it began last week, opposition leaders were calling for an end to the militarization of the country. However, as one opposition leader said on Monday, the bombing has to stop, "Otherwise, the Russians are making Saakashvili the victim."

The problem for Russians is that halting the military campaign doesn't put a stop to Saakashvili's menaces. Nor is there any confidence in Moscow, on either side of the Kremlin wall, that Rice and Kouchner can be trusted to control Saakashvili, even if they promise to do so.

If a ceasefire is agreed this week, Georgians and Russians might then be able to agree that Saakashvili bears personal responsibility for the war that began on August 8. However, neither Saakashvili's domestic critics, nor the Russian government, expect the Americans to abandon their man now - let alone escort him to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague.

With the Georgian presidential alternative Okruashvili under their wing in Paris, what the French do next may bridge the gap which Saakashvili's artillery tore apart last Friday.

John Helmer has been a Moscow-based correspondent since 1989, specializing in the coverage of Russian business.

Original article posted here.

Putin and the Moron

Vladmir Putin attacks the West's 'cynical support' for Georgia

Kevin O'Flynn, Moscow

A defiant Vladimir Putin hit out at America and the West today for its “cynical support” of Georgia, saying that Russia would continue its military operation until “its logical end”.

The Russian Prime Minister blasted the West for continuing to support President Saakashvili despite Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, which he said “wiped from the face of the earth ten Osettian villages”.

“The scale of cynicism is surprising and the skill to present white as black and black. The trick to present the aggressor as the victim of an aggression and to place the responsibly for the effects on the victims,” Mr Putin said.

He criticised the United States for transporting 800 Georgian soldiers from Iraq, some of whom have been deployed in Gori on the border of South Ossetia.

“It is lamentable that some of our partners are not helping us but are trying to stand in the way. I mean among other things the transfer of the Georgian military contingent from Iraq actually to the conflict zone by the military transport planes of the United States,” he said at Cabinet meeting today to discuss the military operation.

Russia warned the West that “the Georgian side was preparing aggression,” said Mr Putin. “Nobody was listening. And this is the result. We have finally come to it. However, Russia will of course carry out its peacekeeping mission to its logical end.”

Earlier Moscow denied that its army would intensify its assault on Georgia and move farther into the country. But this afternoon the Russian military confirmed that it had starting fighting in the west Georgian city of Senaki to prevent Georgian troops from regrouping there.

European diplomats, including Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, were set to head to Moscow with a ceasefire deal after meeting Mr Saakashvili in Tbilisi on Monday.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Secretary-General of Nato, said that he was “seriously concerned” about Russia’s response and its “lack of respect for the territorial integrity of Georgia,” a spokesperson said.

The statement followed President Bush’s comments in Beijing, where he was watching the Olympics. He said that he had spoken “firmly” to Mr Putin, who was directing the Kremlin’s actions in Georgia.

“I was very firm with Vladimir Putin,” Mr Bush told NBC Sports. “I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia. We strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia.”

The Russian foreign ministry said: “Georgia must fulfil two fundamental conditions — withdraw all of its armed units to the border of the safety zone stipulated by the 1992 agreement and sign an agreement on the non-use of force with South Ossetia.”

The ministry said that 1,600 Ossetians died in Georgia’s attack, lower than the figure of 2,000 previously given. The Georgian Government has accused Russia today of committing war crimes similar to the Balkan conflict. Both claims were impossible to independently verify.

Original article posted here.