Transatlantic Politics

If elected president of the US, senator Barack Obama would not trade eastern European security for Russian help on Iran, his senior foreign policy advisor, Gregory B. Craig, told EUObserver in an interview.

"[But] that doesn’t mean that you trade away our security commitments to the new members of NATO, that’s not even thinkable. I always remember the notion that the expansion of NATO was not a threat to Russia, that this was a decision not by NATO to move east, but a decision by the new democracies from the former Soviet space to integrate with the West."

"The notion that you choose to co-operate with Russia vis-a-vis Iran at the expense of central and eastern Europe, I just don’t accept that. That’s not viable and it won’t happen that way," Mr Craig said.

Russia’s aggressive stance toward neighbours who want to be part of NATO and the EU is a historical throwback, he added. "I think the notion that Russia has a veto over what they decide inside of Ukraine or Georgia is very 19th to 20th century. In a 21st century world, with global impacts, global trends, Russia suffered enormously economically as a result of its intervention in Georgia."

Hmm..let’s see..

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Following the Russian military invasion, Georgia might soon be left out from the vital energy corridor now trasiting its territory, if Azerbaidjan comes to terms with Armenia over the frozen conflict in the Azeri region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to  Iranian Ambassador to Baku, Naser Hamidi-Zare, Iran is willing to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Iran proposed to mediate between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the resolution of the conflict” Hamidi-Zare said, adding that Tehran has held discussion on this issue with both parties of the conflict.

Why the sudden interest in Tehran for this very old conflict? Apart from an obvious image gain if it were to succeed in the mediator role, Iran wants to counter the US influence in the region. Early plans of the now functional Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline took into consideration another route, through Azerbaijan and Armenia, right on the border with Iran (see map). But with the US sanctions over Iran and the frozen conflict right in the middle of the shortest route from Baku to Turkey,, Georgia was then seen as a safer alternative.

But following the brutal "unfreeze" of the 2 Georgian frozen conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, now recognized as independent republics by the Kremlin, Azerbaijan is already hesitant in committing fully its exports through Georgia, rerouting some of these through Russia. And if its conflict with Armenia was to be solved, guess where the shortest route for its large oil and gas supplies would be? Exactly. Through Armenia.

Another key player in this whole energy game is Turkey, so far at odds with Armenia over a historical event it won’t recognize - the genocide against Armenians during World War 1 and over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Ankara being a strong supporter of Azerbaijan.

Diplomatic ties were broken off between Armenia and Turkey in 1993, as a sign of support for Azerbaijan. But in the aftermath of the Georgian conflict, Turkish President Abdullah Gul made a historic visit to Erevan, the pretext being a football game between the two countries. And during the UN plenary in New York on September 26, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan sat down with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts in an attempt to move forward the discussions, so far championed by US envoy to the region Matthew Bryza.

Armenian media hope that Turkey’s increasing distance from the US and closer ties to Russia could work in its favour over the frozen conflict, and could end-up rerouting future Caspian-EU energy links through its territory instead of Georgia. Turkey is favoring both Russian and Iranian gas to be transported by the planned Nabucco pipeline, which is to reduce Europe’s dependancy on Russian gas. The US has so far insisted that Azeri gas and possibly gas from Turkmenistan would suffice for the pipeline.

Yet the Georgian conflict sees regional powers such as Turkey and Iran regrouping and arguably reinforcing their positions on the energy front. Russia can only encourage this.

P.S. According to EUObserver, an alleged Armenian-Russian connection during the Georgian conflict was highlighted in the European Parliament by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs committe Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, who asked EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana in a public hearing on 10 September if Russian bases in Armenia were used to launch missiles at Georgia during the conflict. Mr Solana said he could not confirm the information.

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Russia’s offensive against Georgia is taking place not only on the ground, but also on the airwaves. Last night, Cold War relic Mikhail Gorbachev blamed  Georgia on Larry King Live  for having started the war by using "sophisticated weapons against a small town, against a sleeping people", in a "barbaric assault".

Some corrections from the head of Transparency International’s office in Tbilisi, Mark Mullen:

Before the foreign media arrived during the present crisis, very little information was available about events in these areas, because the Russian leadership will not allow a sizable neutral force to be present. Georgia does not want to "retake" Abkhazia and South Ossetia . Georgia has consistently said that Russia may be a part of any international force, but Russia consistently says its troops must be the only force present.  The world didn’t notice this until Aug. 9, but the shelling of Georgian villages in South Ossetia was all over Georgian news in the week before Russian troops entered. Last week, a Georgian minister went to Gori and Tskhinvali, begging to discuss a ceasefire with Yuri Popov, the head of the Russian peacekeepers. Popov refused even to speak with him.

Also, on the history of the separatist regions, Mullen notes that "the roots of the tragedy extend to 1921, when the Abkhaz and South Ossetian autonomous republics were set up by the Bolsheviks to punish the three-year-old democratic and Western-looking Georgian republic and to give Russia a ready excuse to invade whenever it wanted to do so."

Georgian president President Mikheil Saakashvili, who also appeared on CNN’s "Larry King Live" Thursday, said he was "profoundly shocked" that Mikhail Gorbachev would use a television appearance "for basically vindicating lies and deceptions."

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Condoleezza Rice spoke yesterday at a press briefing before travelling to Paris and Tbilisi about the importance to grant Georgia the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), an intermediate stage before granting full membership of the Alliance.

One of the reasons for NATO Membership Action Plan and, ultimately, for NATO membership, is that it allows states to overcome longstanding difficulties, differences and conflicts under the umbrella of a collective security organization, defense organization of democracies. I have noted before that had anyone said that you would be able to resolve, for instance, differences between Hungary and Romania, between Bulgaria and Turkey in peaceful ways — no one would have believed it when the Soviet empire broke up. But in fact, under the umbrella of NATO, that has been taking place.
 
And so if you now look across Central and Eastern Europe, one thing that is also very different from just a few decades ago is that the countries that were liberated after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Baltic states and the aspirants – Albania, Croatia, Macedonia and others are now – have made the transition and are making the transition into transatlantic institutions. That allows them both to resolve their differences and to have a reason, a spur, for internal reform and further democratization, the appropriate relationship between civilian and military leaders and so forth and so on. 

That is why Membership Action Plan has been so valuable, and it’s why the United States continues to stand for Membership Action Plan for Georgia and Ukraine.

She also fiercly condemned Russia’s military invasion beyond the South Ossetian borders and alluded to banning Russia from international organizations such as the WTO, the G8 and the OECD.

When you start bombing ports and threatening to bomb airfields and bombing a city like Gori and bringing troops in a flanking maneuver on the western flank of Georgia and tying up the main roads between Georgia – between Tbilisi and Gori, that’s well beyond anything that is needed to protect Russian peacekeepers. And that is why Russia is starting to face international condemnation for what it is doing.

 
This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed.

Meanwhile, a common naval exercise between Russia, US, France and UK in the Pacific was cancelled, and NATO refused the participation of a Russian vessel in common maneuvres in the Mediterranean. But are these gestures enough to protect Georgia from a brutal takeover by Russia?

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The Russian troops are marching towards Tbilisi. Georgia could fall by tomorrow morning. According to Stratfor,

"Russian forces do not excel at night fighting, so if there is to be another push it will occur at dawn Aug. 12 with air and then armored strikes on Mtskheta. Should that happen there will be literally nothing to stop the Russians from attacking Tbilisi directly".

President Saakashvili said in a televised address that the situation is "extremely grave" and that the Georgian troops are being regrouped around the capital.

"This is occupation attempt, attempt to totally occupy Georgia, attempt to destroy Georgia. Russia’s goal is to put an end to existence of the Georgian state. We are receiving only moral and humanitarian help from the international community, but we need more than that. We want them to stop these barbaric aggressors.”

He also called on the population to gather outside the Parliament at 3pm on August 12 “to show the enemy that we are united and strong.”

Here are some frequently updated blogs and websites on the Georgian events:

http://russiangeorgianwar.blogspot.com/

http://stateminister.blogspot.com/

http://www.geoee.co.cc/

http://smr.gov.ge/en/home

Also, an online petition to stop Russia’s aggression.

 Update: 

President Bush just called on Russia to reverse the course and accept Georgia’s immediate cease-fire. Moscow is jeopardizing its relationship with the US and the European countries, says Bush. As if Putin cared… One comment to this post pointed out in a "sad smile" the uselesness of an online petition in trying to stop Putin. Seems like Bush’s statements are not much more than an online petition.

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