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Crisis in the Caucasus. What Were They Smoking in the White
House?
By Eric Margolis
19/08/08 "Lew
Rockwell" -- - The Bush administration appears to have pulled off its latest
military fiasco in the Caucasus. What was supposed to have been
a swift and painless takeover of rebellious South Ossetia by
America’s favorite new ally, Georgia, has turned into a disaster
that left Georgia battered, Russia enraged, and NATO badly
demoralized. Not bad for two days work.
Equally important, Russia’s Vladimir Putin swiftly and
decisively checkmated the Bush administration’s clumsy attempt
last week to expand US influence into the Caucasus, and made the
Americans and their Georgian satraps look like fools.
We are not facing a return to the Cold War – yet. But the
current US-Russian crisis over Georgia, a tiny nation of only
4.6 million, and its linkage to a US anti-ballistic missile
system in Eastern Europe, is deeply worrying and increasingly
dangerous.
On 7 August, Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, ordered
his US and Israeli-advised and equipped army to invade the
breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has been struggling for
independence from Georgia since 1992. Most of its people were
Russian citizens who wanted union with Russian North Ossetia.
If not directly behind Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia,
Washington had to have been at least fully aware of
Saakashvili’s plans. The Georgian Army was trained and equipped
by US and Israeli military advisors stationed with its troops
down to battalion level. CIA and Israel’s Mossad operated
important intelligence stations in Tbilisi and coordinated plans
with the Saakashvili, whose political opponents have long
accused him of being very close to CIA and the Pentagon.
Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia was launched while the world
was absorbed by the Beijing Olympics, and Prime Minister Putin
was in the Chinese capital. The attack was clearly planned to be
a lightening strike that would occupy all of South Ossetia and
then Abkhazia before Moscow could react, presenting the Kremlin
with a fait accompli.
Who in Bush’s or Cheney’s office approved this stupid adventure?
Why did the very smart Israelis get sucked into this imbroglio?
Saakashvili’s stealth "coup de main" quickly turned into a
disaster. Russia’s 58th Army responded by routing Georgian
forces and delivering a humiliating strategic and psychological
blow to the Bush administration. Saakashvili fell right into
Moscow’s trap.
Georgia and Russia have been feuding since 1992 over two
Georgian ethnic enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, whose
people differ in ethnicity and language from Georgians and who
wanted to rejoin Russia.
The young, US-educated Saakashvili became Georgia’s president in
2003 after an uprising, believed organized by CIA and financed
by US money, overthrew the former leader, Eduard Shevardnadze. I
came to know and respect Shevardnadze in Moscow when he was
Mikhail Gorbachev’s principal ally and architect of Soviet
reform.
Had the able, clever Shevardnadze still been in power, this
misadventure would never have happened.
Saakashvili quickly became the golden boy of US rightwing
neoconservatives and their Israeli allies, who held him a model
of how to turn former Russian-dominated states into "democratic"
US allies. Georgian critics claim Saakashvili kept power by
intimidation, bribery, and vote rigging. The youthful Georgian
leader, his head swelled by promises of US support and NATO
membership, launched a war of words against Moscow.
Amazingly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a supposed
Russian expert, even publicly assured Saakashvili that the US
would "fight" for Georgia. Washington’s latest fiasco falls
squarely into her lap.
US money, military trainers, advisers, and intelligence agents
poured into the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Israeli arms
dealers, businessmen and intelligence agents quickly followed,
reportedly selling some $200 million or more of military
equipment to the Georgian government.
By expanding its influence into Georgia, the Bush administration
brazenly flouted agreements with Moscow made by president George
H.W. Bush not to expand NATO into the former USSR. President
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both violated this pact. Under
the feeble Yeltsin regime, bankrupt Russia could do nothing. But
under Putin, newly wealthy Russia finally pushed back after a
long series of provocations fromWashington.
Russia’s tough deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, sneeringly
observed that Georgia had become a "US satellite." He was
absolutely right. And Ivanov, a former KGB colleague of Vlad
Putin, knows a satellite when he sees one. Georgia provided the
US oil and gas pipeline routes from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and
Kazakhstan that bypassed Russian territory. Russia was furious
its Caspian Basin energy export monopoly had been broken, vowing
revenge.
Now that the Russians have checkmated the US and client Georgia,
South Ossetia and Abkhazia will likely move into Russia’s orbit.
The west rightly backed independence of Kosovo from Serbia. The
peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, who are ethnically and
linguistically different from Georgians, should have as much
right to secede from Georgia.
Besides thwarting Bush’s clumsy attempt to further advance US
influence into Russia’s Caucasian underbelly, Putin delivered a
stark warning to Ukraine and the Central Asian states: don’t get
too close to Washington. Putin put the US on the strategic
defensive and showed that NATO’s new eastern reaches – the
Baltic, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Caucasus – are largely
indefensible.
It’s a good thing Georgia was not admitted to NATO, as the White
House had reportedly promised Saakashvili. Had Georgia been
admitted before this crisis, the US and its NATO allies would
have been in a state of war with Russia. Disturbingly, Germany’s
conservative prime minister, Angelika Merkel, rushed to Tbilisi
to assure Saakashvili that her nation still backed NATO
membership for Georgia.
Is the west really ready to be dragged into a potential nuclear
war for the sake of South Ossetia? Are American and German
troops ready to fight in the Caucasus? Georgia is a bridge too
far for NATO.
President George Bush, VP Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain all
resorted to table pounding and Cold War rhetoric against Russia.
McCain, whose senior foreign policy advisor is a neoconservative
and was a registered lobbyist for Georgia, demanded that the US
and NATO "punish" Russia and put it into diplomatic isolation.
Unfortunately, the indignant John McCain’s could not even
properly pronounce "Abkhazia."
America’s neocon amen chorus demanded a confrontation with
Russia, chanting their usual mantras about Munich, appeasement
and the myths of World War II. One certainly wondered if the
Caucasian fracas was not staged by the Republicans to provide
Sen. McCain with the "three a.m. phone call" he has been longing
for and a chance to sound tough. This he did, even though his
rhetoric was empty and his solutions vapid. Barack Obama ducked
the issue or issued a few tepid bromides about halting "Russian
aggression."
Meanwhile, hypocrisy flew thicker than shellfire. Bush, who
ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, and is
threatening war against Iran, accused Russia of "bullying" and
"aggression." Putin, who crushed the life out of Chechnya’s
independence movement, piously claimed his army was saving
Ossetians from Georgian ethnic cleansing and protecting their
quest for independence.
Bush and McCain demand Russia be punished and isolated. The
humiliated Bush is sending some US troops to Georgia to deliver
"humanitarian" aid. Equally worrisome, the US rushed to sign a
pact with Warsaw to station anti-missile missiles and
anti-aircraft batteries, manned by US troops, in Poland. This
response is dangerous, highly provocative, and immature. The
next president will have to deal with the Bush administrations
reckless and foolish acts in the Mideast, Eastern Europe,
Afghanistan and now, the Caucasus
The west must accept Russia has vital national interests in the
Caucasus and the former USSR. Russia is a great power and must
be afforded respect. The days of treating Russia like a banana
republic are over. Have we learned nothing from World War I or
II, both of which began with flare-ups in obscure Sarajevo and
the Danzig Corridor?
The US’s most important foreign policy concern is keeping
correct relations with Russia, which has thousands of nuclear
warheads pointed at North America. Georgia is a petty sideshow.
US missiles in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic are a
dangerous, unnecessary provocation that is sowing dragon’s teeth
for future confrontation.
Eric Margolis, contributing foreign editor for Sun National
Media Canada, is the author of War at the Top of the World. See
his website.
Copyright © 2008 Eric Margolis
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