PUTIN, IRAN AND THE CAUCASUS
American Thinker, AZ
June 12 2006
The antique media and the punditry continue to dismiss or ignore the
overall geo-strategic picture concerning our stand-off with Iran over
the development of nuclear weapons technology. Largely unnoticed is the
US and Coalition’s successful maneuvers to establish an outer cordon
around Persia and the other radical Islamist states in the region. A
critical ally in establishing this blockade is the Republic of Georgia.
For centuries, Georgia has occupied the strategically vital land bridge
between the Black and Caspian Seas. This has historically placed the
country at the mercies of two powerful neighbors: Russia and Persia.*
It is no different today, given Russia’s covert and overt support
of the mullahs’ nuclear program and the requirement for secure trade
routes. For Putin, his fellow Russian nationalists, and Ahmadinejad
the task at hand is simple: defend and maintain the Eurasian lines
of communication and commerce to permit the flow of banned materials
and to control both legitimate and criminal enterprises in the region.
Russian Domination of Georgia
In the heyday of the Silk Road, Georgia controlled the land passages
through the Caucasus Mountains and port facilities on the Black Sea.
In the late 1700s, its leaders signed a protectorate treaty with the
Russian Empire for help in defending itself from an imminent Persian
invasion. When the Persians attacked in 1795, the Russians ignored
repeated pleas to honor its treaty commitments, and in 1864, simply
annexed the entire country.
Georgia enjoyed a few years of independence in the wake of the
Russian Revolution, but the invasion of the Red Army in 1921 put
an end to dreams of a return to a sovereign kingdom. The Post-WW II
Soviet buildup in the small country again highlighted its strategic
importance. NATO member Turkey was just a few hours away, so Georgia
had the dubious honor of hosting the second largest Soviet base during
the Cold War.
Outside of its military significance, the supposedly classless
communist empire had other interests in Georgia which provided
further incentive for the new breed of Russian Nationalists and the
remaining nomenklatura to doggedly fight any Western expansion into
the Caucasus. Controlling the Silk Road and Black Sea ports also
meant controlling suitable areas for gas and oil pipelines and a
generations-old illicit drug trade. The ability to easily transfer
nuclear technology and know-how to Persia was an added benefit. Once
again at the center of the storm, the Georgians’ fear of Persia is
now only matched by the dread of again coming under the thumb of
the Russians.
Georgia finally started to shed the last vestiges of the Russian Empire
in November of 2003 when they ushered President Edvard Shevardnadze
out of the statehouse during the Rose Revolution.
However, Putin was not about to let another state of the Former
Soviet Union slip away without a fight, especially one that sits on
strategic terrain and if allowed to pursue democracy, would certainly
put Russia’s money interests at risk.
Russia Counters Western Moves
As part of GWOT operations, the Bush administration decided that
radical Islamists would not receive a free ride into Europe from
the Central Region. In 2002, the US responded to Georgia’s request
for assistance in its counter-terrorism program and deployed Special
Forces to train Georgian units and to conduct operations in the Chechen
terrorist haven of the Pankisi Gorge. The military assistance program
has evolved resulting in the establishment of several Georgian combined
arms brigades and a small air force.
The first evidence of resistance to the pursuit of a full-fledged
democracy was the agonizingly slow withdrawal of Russian troops from
Georgian territory. In some cases, Putin stubbornly refused to honor
agreements stipulating integrity of Georgia’s traditional borders by
maintaining a garrison in South Ossetia and by ostensibly “helping”
staff a UN peacekeeping force in the breakaway Georgian province of
Abkhazia. Putin was even so bold as to station troops at a Soviet-era
listening post overlooking a NATO training base before reluctantly
withdrawing them in 2005!
Then an additional 20,000 Russians were withdrawn to the south into
Armenia. From Putin’s point of view, Armenia is the last hope to
secure commerce and pipeline routes into south Asia to leverage his
own and the mullahs’ vast energy resources and to export commercial
and military technology. From the Georgians’ perspective, they are
sandwiched between two large Russian combat contingents.
Russia also flexed its muscles by continuing to play with the flow
of natural gas supplies just as it did with Ukraine. Earlier this
year, a mysterious group of “terrorists” blew up a gas pipeline in
Russian-controlled South Ossetia, which is within Georgia’s traditional
boundaries. Not coincidentally, the detonation was located in the
very southern part of Ossetia, meaning the province and its Russian
troop garrison received all of the gas it needed, while Georgia had
to deal with another electrical power crisis.
To help the sometimes shaky electrical power situation, a new pipeline
is planned from the oil-rich Caspian Sea basin through Georgia to the
Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. But Georgia needs
significant infrastructure modernization before this can become a
viable conduit for energy stockpiles and trade revenue.
Make no mistake; we should expect the “Pipeline Wars” to continue as
Putin attempts to outmaneuver the West to hang on to energy and trade
routes in the region. In this regard, the balance of geo-political
maneuvers seems to be tipping to the US and the West, in that recent
overtures to Azerbaijan have nominally moved this country into
our camp.
Putin’s US Apologists
In a rather surprising commentary in the Washington Times last month,
Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large of the Times and UPI, takes
up for Putin and assails a US policy that is supposedly causing the
Russian “democracy” to shrink. It’s amazing that de Borchgrave misses
the entire point of our maneuvers in the Global War on Terror, while
soft-pedaling Russian and Persian cooperation on both the mullahs’
nuclear program and on conventional weapons deals.
Apparently, he views GW as the aggressor because he has dared to take
action to block lines of commerce between a fanatical terrorist state
and a former enemy of now-dubious intentions.
De Borchgrave’s fellow member of the Council on Foreign Relations,
Charles A. Kupchan, opines that the “bloom is off the Rose revolution,”
and tries to make the case that Georgia’s struggle for freedom and
democracy is somehow going down the tubes because the current Georgian
President, Mikheil Saakashvili, dares to fight for his country’s
territorial integrity. He notes in the port town of Sukhumi in the
breakaway province of Abkhazia that,
…resorts that were once the envy of the Soviet elite lay battered
and vacant. Despite the warm sunshine, the boardwalk was devoid of
tourists, populated instead by locals drinking Turkish coffee and
playing backgammon.
It’s ironic that he writes from the port of Sukhumi and claims that
these poor people are being taken advantage of by Georgia. How does
he think the Russians were able to build all of these now-abandoned
resorts on the Black Sea coast? Sukhumi is the major port for opium
originating in Afghanistan to be shipped to Europe. Abkazhia is
therefore a criminal economic cash cow and had been for generations of
Russian/Soviet elites who have taken their cut of this profitable dope
smuggling operation. Now that we back Saakashvilli in his attempt to
regain what rightfully belongs to Georgia, the UN dreams up a plan to
station peacekeepers on the border between the Abkhazia and Georgia –
Russian peacekeepers of course.
The economic aspect of the War on Terror is more than just drying up
financial resources of terror groups. Operation Iraqi Freedom stuck
a dagger in the heart of the Russia – France – Iraq financial nexus
and their allies in the UN. Russian and French economic, military and
technical support to Saddam showed how so-called allies will pursue
their slimy business deals with oil-rich tyrants even if it means
opposing the establishment of a new democracy. The common actor in both
the Iraq and Iran money for dictatorship programs is of course, Putin.
Vice-President Cheney recently admonished Putin for his aggression
against Russia’s neighbors while simultaneously letting his own
country slide into a nationalistic autocracy. Putin’s call for a new
arms race openly communicates what has been going on under the radar
for several years. Rising energy prices have enabled oil-rich Russia
and its ally to the south to mount a steady conventional and nuclear
weapons buildup. Money from contracts for refurbishing Persian nuclear
facilities and ancillary services would further fuel the development of
a more capable Russian military. And all of this depends on ages-old
trade routes through countries that are no longer easy pickings for
Putin or the Persian mullahs.
So the next time Ahmadinejad spouts off with one of his rants, keep
in mind that he has a more rational partner to the north who needs
the mullahs as a source of revenue. We must realize that by design,
Putin is of little or no help in negotiations over Persia’s nascent
nuclear program. And perhaps he is more of a hindrance than an ally
in the larger War on Terror.
* Georgians generally refer to their large southern neighbor as
“Persia,” and do not use the term “Iran,” since they view it as a
modern artificial construct.
Douglas Hanson is the national security correspondent for The American
Thinker. He recently returned from the Caucasus.