Washington Post
May 6 2008

A Warning Shot From Moscow?

In the Georgian Province of Abkhazia, a Possible Flashpoint for a New
War

Protesters burn a Soviet-era flag outside the Russian Embassy in
Tbilisi, Georgia, last Friday. (By Shakh Aivazov — Associated Press)

Before it happened, nobody imagined that the murder of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand in Sarajevo would set off World War I. Before the "shot
heard round the world" was fired, I doubt that 18th-century Concord
expected to go down in history as the place where the American
Revolution began. Before last weekend, when the Russian news agency
ITAR-TASS declared that the government of Georgia was about to invade
Abkhazia, nobody had really thought about Abkhazia at all. As a public
service to readers who need a break from the American presidential
campaign, this column is therefore devoted to considering the
possibility that Abkhazia could become the starting point of a larger
war.

If you haven’t heard of Abkhazia, don’t worry: It’s a pretty safe bet
that it’s probably not the priority of many people in the White House,
either, and it hasn’t even been one of those "can you name the general
who’s in charge of Pakistan" trick questions in the campaign. On the
contrary, Abkhazia ranks right up there with Nagorno-Karabakh,
Dagestan, South Ossetia and all the other forgotten Caucasian regions,
cities and statelets that no one wants to think about too hard but
where, occasionally, something really awful happens.

For the record, Abkhazia is a province of Georgia that declared its
independence in 1992. A small war followed, and ethnic cleansing of
Georgians from Abkhazia came after that. There have been some
U.N. attempts to make peace, and Georgia has tried offering Abkhazia
wide autonomy, but, mostly, Georgia and Abkhazia maintain an uneasy
stalemate, which occasionally turns into an extremely uneasy
stalemate. Usually this happens when an atmosphere of extreme
uneasiness is useful to Russia, which is Abkhazia’s closest military,
economic and political ally and has a long-term interest in the
destabilization of pro-American, pro-Western, pro-NATO Georgia.

Thus, when the Russian news agency announces that Georgia is about to
invade Abkhazia, it may mean that Georgia really is about to invade
Abkhazia. But it might also mean, as everyone in the region
understands, that Russia is about to invade Georgia — as a
"preemptive strike," of course.

Why would the Russians do that? Or even hint that they want to do
that? Russian politics having become utterly opaque, it’s hard to
say. Some think Russia began stirring up trouble in Abkhazia in recent
weeks to exact revenge for NATO’s recognition of Kosovo — or perhaps
to be able to strike quickly, had NATO decided at its recent summit to
offer Georgia a clear path to membership, which President Bush vocally
supported. Others think that recent Russian pronouncements, some of
which come close to recognition of Abkhazian independence, are related
to the inauguration this week of the new Russian president, Dmitry
Medvedev. Maybe Medvedev wants to demonstrate how tough he is, right
at the beginning. Or maybe someone else wants to demonstrate how tough
Medvedev is, on his behalf. In any case, someone, Abkhazian or
Russian, has shot down at least two and maybe four unmanned Georgian
military planes in the past six weeks in what looks like a pretty
obvious attempt to create a casus belli.

It might not work — and for the moment the Georgians say they have no
intention of declaring war. But Georgia holds parliamentary elections
this month, under the leadership of a president who might be grateful
for a chance to look bold. If the provocation works, or if Russia does
invade Georgia — an emerging democracy, an aspiring NATO ally, a
country with troops in Iraq and many implicit assurances of security
from Washington and Brussels — then the West will have to come up
with a major response, if not military then political and diplomatic.

The timing couldn’t be worse. There are many wonderful things about
the American political system, but one of the least wonderful is the
amount of energy a presidential campaign sucks out of public
life. Between now and January, the current president is a lame duck:
Could he make any credible response to a Russian invasion of Abkhazia,
should such a thing happen? Is anybody ready to debate a whole new
part of the world? Last weekend, the American media focused
unprecedented attention on . . . the Guam primary, in which 4,500
people cast ballots and Barack Obama won by seven votes.

Of course, from another perspective, the timing couldn’t be better: If
you wanted to attack an American ally, or if you just wanted to
destabilize and unnerve an American ally, wouldn’t this be the perfect
moment? Perhaps if the Russians don’t take the opportunity, someone
else will.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress