Agency outlines prospects for Armenia in USA’s Middle East plans
Mediamax news agency, Yerevan
24 Jan 05
The Armenian news agency Mediamax has praised government’s decision to
send peacekeepers to Iraq as this move is in line with processes going
on in the Middle East. The USA will probably prefer Armenian President
Robert Kocharyan’s pragmatic policy to the opposition’s pro-Russian
orientation, it said. The following is an excerpt from report in
English by Armenian news agency Mediamax; subheadings as published:
On 18 January, with a difference in only several hours 46 Armenian
peacekeepers and Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan left for
the Middle East. The peacekeepers’ destination was Kuwait, and the
Armenian foreign minister’s – Egypt. Despite the fact that the visits
were not interrelated, this coincidence became very symbolic.
Non-combatant unit of the Armenian armed forces, which includes
sappers, medical officers and drivers, will stay in Kuwait for two
weeks. After it, they will leave for Iraq where they will serve as
part of multinational division under the Polish command.
Vardan Oskanyan arrived in the capital of Egypt to sign a memorandum
with the Arab League countries on granting Armenia with a status of a
special invitee to this organization. According to Oskanyan, “the
signing of this document is undoubtedly a historic event. I consider
that it opens the new page for the further development and
intensification of the Armenian-Arab relations”.
According to the official Egyptian news agency MENA, Arab League
Secretary-General Amr Musa has said at the meeting with Oskanyan that
Condoleezza Rice, designated US Secretary of State, used “new
language” when talking about the USA’s Middle East policy at last
week’s confirmation hearing in the Senate. “We hope that the new
language used by Rice will transform into new actions,” the
secretary-general of the Arab League countries said.
We would like to mention that it is hardly that the Armenian foreign
minister deliberately scheduled the terms of signing the memorandum
with the League so that it would coincide with the dispatch of the
Armenian peacekeepers to Iraq, thus softening the hypothetical
negative reaction of the Arab countries to the decision of official
Yerevan.
However, the symbolism does not become smaller from this. The
coincidence, which took place, was the vivid example of the fact that
Armenia can play certain role in the US project on the democratization
of the region, which is now more often called the Greater Middle East.
The first step
On 24 December 2004 the Armenian National Assembly ratified at the
closed meeting the memorandum on the dispatch of 46 Armenian medical
officers, drivers and sappers to Iraq. 91 deputies voted for and 23 –
against the ratification. In particular, the factions of Justice
opposition bloc and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Dashnaktsutyun Party, which makes part of the ruling coalition, voted
against the dispatch of Armenian humanitarian contingent to Iraq.
The dispatch of the peacekeepers to Iraq, being a purely foreign
policy event, has become a subject of internal political speculations
in the course of the several last months. By the highest standards,
nobody in Armenia wanted to risk the lives of its citizens in Iraq
reigned by chaos and uncertainty. The problem should be considered
exclusively in the context of political necessity. If the Armenian
authorities managed to advance serious reasons in defence of their
position, the opposition again demonstrated lack of principles and
absence of any ideological motivation.
Mediamax learned from the informed sources that the higher echelons of
the Armenian leadership gave a command to speak about the motives of
the dispatch of Armenian contingent to Iraq as rare as possible. It is
obvious that Armenia w ould never send its servicemen to Iraq but for
certain commitments before the USA. The main burden of “explanatory
work” fell on the shoulders of Armenian Defence Minister Serzh
Sarkisyan, who, to give him his due, managed to formulate the motives
of official Yerevan’s decision in accordance with the stylistics
commonly accepted in the Euro-Atlantic community.
Still in December the head of the Defence Ministry said that “Armenia
is obliged to dispatch a contingent to Iraq”. “If we bear losses in
case of the dispatch of our contingent to Iraq, they will be
considerably small than if we stay aside these processes,” Serzh
Sarkisyan said.
On 18 January, the day of the dispatch of the peacekeepers to Kuwait,
the defence minister said that “Armenia is being involved in a
process, which, despite the ambiguous perception on the part of the
international community, as well as by Armenian society, is one of the
most important components of building international security”. This
has become first such statement of Armenia, which was the only country
in the South Caucasus that did not support the USA’s war against Iraq.
As to the opposition, discussing the issue on the dispatch of the
peacekeepers to Iraq, it did not think about Armenia’s participation
or, vice versa, Armenia’s non-participation in the establishment of
stability in the Middle East at all, it was involved in achieving its
own aims. How, for example, can we explain the fact that last October
the secretary of the National Unity opposition faction, Aleksan
Karapetyan, spoke about the “unacceptability of the dispatch of
Armenian contingent to Iraq as it can turn into Armenians’ mass
emigration from the Arab countries” and on 25 December this faction
unanimously voted for the dispatch of the peacekeepers? It can be
explained, most likely, by the unwillingness to spoil the relations
with Washington and not by radical rethinking of its approaches to the
issues of providing regional security.
Yerevan’s Aykakan Zhamanak newspaper, which is one of the most radical
critics of the Armenian authorities, informed on 20 January about the
details of the meeting between the representatives of the Armenian
opposition and the delegation of advisers and assistants of the US
congressmen held in Yerevan in mid-January. According to the
newspaper, the leader of the National Unity Party, Artashes Gegamyan,
decided not put the Justice bloc in “inconvenient position” and told
the members of the US delegation that his opposition colleagues
abstained from voting on the issue of the dispatch of the peacekeepers
to Iraq.
Aykakan Zhamanak notes with indignation that the leader of the Justice
bloc, Stepan Demirchyan, who was Armenian President Robert Kocharyan’s
opponent at the second stage of the presidential elections of 2003,
kept silence and did not mention that he himself and his colleagues
did not abstain and voted against the dispatch of the peacekeepers to
Iraq.
Sometimes the Armenian opposition demonstrated elementary
unawareness. On 29 October, one of the leaders of the opposition
Republic Party, Albert Bazeyan, called to take into account the fact
that “Armenia is in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
and the forces of its member states are not present in Iraq”. The
Armenian defence minister’s answer was short: first, we are not the
first CSTO member state, the servicemen of which are taking part in
the operation on the stabilization of Iraq (the matter concerns CSTO
member state – Kazakhstan); second, “Armenia informed its allies in
CSTO of the intention to send a contingent to Iraq”.
It is natural that nobody has the right to condemn a political force
for its adherence to this or that position. However, in our case the
problem is that the opposition did not manage to bring even one
trustworthy argument in support of its thesis that the participation
of Armenian sappers and drivers in the restoration of Iraq would
negatively affect Armenia’s relations with the Arab world.
One of the Justice representatives and leader of the Democratic Party
of Armenia, Aram Sarkisyan, said in the interview published in Russian
Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 19 January: “A great number of Armenians have
been living on the territory of the Middle East countries for hundred
years after the genocide. The authorities of the Arab countries gave
them not only shelter but also an opportunity to develop their
individuality. That’s why, we find it wrongful to interfere in the
affairs of the Arab countries. We possess information that already
today a wave of anti-Armenian moods aroused in the Arab countries,
especially in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the United Arab
Emirates. Moreover, we do not rule out dramatic consequences for our
country as well after the decision of the Armenian leadership.”
There is not a single concrete evidence of “a wave of anti-Armenian
moods in Arab countries”. In case of existence of such a “wave” Vardan
Oskanyan would hardly decide to visit Egypt, and Amr Musa, in his
turn, would not hurry with granting Armenia with a special status in
the Arab League countries.
We are not so naive to explain the Armenian authorities’ decision on
the dispatch of Armenian peacekeepers by a desire to make a real
contribution to the democratization of Iraq. The Armenian president’s
negative approach to the US incursion into Iraq is well
known. However, Kocharyan proved that he possessed the political
resource necessary for making unpopular decisions. Moreover, Armenia
is sending a contingent to Iraq at a time when other countries stop
taking part in the peacekeeping operation, and this fact will,
undoubtedly, bring additional dividends to him in his relations with
the West.
The Armenian opposition, vice versa, again demonstrated that it is not
only unable to set tasks and solve them but also has difficulties to
formulate its strivings. Voting against the dispatch of the contingent
to Iraq, the Justice bloc was guided by two main factors: the desire
to oppose everything suggested by the authorities and the desire “not
to anger” Russia. In any case, the same Albert Bazeyan openly stated
in October that Moscow “would not like” the decision of official
Yerevan, and in case of the dispatch of the Armenian contingent to
Iraq “Russia may apply certain sanctions in relation to Armenia”.
But two questions remained unanswered. First, why should Armenia
always do things which Russia likes? Second, why did Bazeyan think
that Moscow would not like Armenia’s decisions? The absence of answers
to these questions reveals the main problem of the Armenian opposition
Justice bloc – its leaders continue to mechanically defend Russian
interests even at a time when they are not asked. Not to mention that
the dispatch of the Armenian sappers and doctors to Iraq can hardly be
called an event, which touches upon Russia’s interests.
Long-term choice
The task of sending the peacekeepers to Iraq was solved by the
Armenian authorities quite successfully. At the same time, there are
serious reasons to doubt that official Yerevan has a formulated
strategy of relations with a huge region, which the Americans call the
Greater Middle East. Or, if we reformulate the question, will Armenia
recognize itself a constituent part of Greater Middle East? The only
official, who has stated Armenia’s belonging to the Greater Middle
East until now, is the Armenian ambassador to Washington, Arman
Kirakosyan. Speaking at the conference in Virginia University on 12
November, he said that “being a part of the Greater Middle East,
Armenia has been and is concerned about the situation in Iraq”.
Active talks on the Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) started in
February 2004, when the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat
published a “leaked” US-compiled document. The original document was
meant to signal a new US plan for reform of the Middle East and some
other Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. A
number of non-Arab countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and
Turkey have been mentioned as candidates for the initiative. However,
speculation is growing that the US plan may also have an impact on
other Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Central
Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan
and Tajikistan.
The essence of the GMEI was reflected in the speech by US President
George Bush in November 2003 before the most influential
neoconservative organization in Washington, the American Enterprise
Institute. In his speech, Bush spoke of a “freedom deficit” in the
Middle East.
“In many nations of the Middle East, democracy has not yet taken
root. And the questions arise: are the peoples of the Middle East
somehow beyond the reach of liberty? I, for one, do not believe it. I
believe every person has the ability and the right to be free,” the US
president said. If we take into account the fact that the idea of
spreading liberty was the key moment in the US president’s
inauguration speech last week, there must be no doubt that the
negative and in some cases openly hostile attitude of the Arab leaders
towards the GMEI will not make the US administration give up their
plans on the practical realization of the initiative.
Many people in our country may ask – what does Armenia have to do
here? The adherents of such an approach may say that Armenia should
work out tactics of behaviour in case of aggravation of situation
around Iran, its direct neighbour, and should stay aside from the
Greater Middle East. However, the case in point is that the GMEI
authors, as well as the experts, who carried out the “modernization”
of this initiative, have already included the South Caucasus and
Armenia into the wider Black Sea region, which they consider to be the
key for the successful realization of the GMEI.
Passage omitted: quote from article published in the Policy Review
The case in point is not whether Armenia believes in the possibility
of successful realization of the GMEI ideas or how much democratic the
USA’s intention to implant democracy is. The matter is that this
process exists, develops and, most likely, will be actively put into
life during George Bush’s second term whether Armenia wants it or
not. And here comes a situation, which contains big challenge for
Armenia – should it observe the situation from the outside or take
active participation in the process?
If we judge by the persistence and determination with which the
Armenian authorities solved the issue of the dispatch of the
peacekeepers to Iraq we can draw a conclusion that Yerevan realized
the necessity to assume a certain role. On the other hand, the
Armenian authorities like their Azerbaijani and Georgian counterparts
must consecutively work on themselves and one another for a long time
in order to solve the existing democratic and economic problems and
conflicts.
The mediations over these themes are much more important than the
hackneyed speculations whether the USA is going to “export” to Armenia
the “rose revolution” from Georgia or the “orange revolution” from
Ukraine. First, the comparison between the behaviour of the
authorities and the opposition on the Iraq proves that it is
advantageous for the West to deal with Kocharyan. Second, even if we
assume that the USA is really going to “export” a revolution to
Armenia, we must understand why they want to have more compliant
partners in Yerevan. Third, the Armenian leadership has to more
decisively establish order inside its own country, to more actively
get rid of corruption and other negative things hampering the normal
development of the country.
Still in June 2001, president Robert Kocharyan, meeting Belgian
senators in Brussels, said that “being at the junction of
civilizations, Armenia is the guard of European values”. It looks as
if it is high time for the “guard” to begin acting and prove its
readiness to defend these values in practice.