ABC Newspaper , Spain
Aug 13 2008

Georgian leader’s "worst’ decision" was to use force

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili made one of his worst decisions
when he chose to use force to solve a problem his country has had
since 1991. He did not take into account the likelihood that Russia
would behave in the worst way – as it did – and respond with such a
level of violence that a nation as small as Georgia had no chance of
resisting. After observing for decades how Russia dealt with the
problem of Chechnya, it was not reasonable to hope that the Kremlin
would behave with any moderation regarding a region like South
Ossetia, whose inhabitants it claimed to be defending. Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin with his own style of a forceful Russian military
response, did not have a moment’s doubt when he ordered the Army to
respond as forcefully as possible, with no concern for possible
civilian victims.

After a precarious ceasefire, the world is now rediscovering a
territory that is small in area but huge in complexity and full of
political and military land mines. Russia is trying to maintain its
monopoly on the transit of hydrocarbon fuels that come from the
Caspian Sea and Central Asia, crossing Georgia -because the alternate
route through Armenia is closed by Turkey – and it does not want its
southern border with the Muslim Middle East to be controlled by hands
it considers unstable. Kremlin leaders are especially alarmed over the
possibility that Georgia -and even worse, Ukraine – might enter the
Atlantic Alliance. After this short and intense war, it is hard to
determine whether the Alliance will try to speed up any ties with
Georgia, because the predictable Russian reaction could not worsen the
already-delicate NATO-Russian relations or, fearing that the situation
will be aggravated, they will decide to place Georgia’s NATO
aspirations on hold for a time. The Russian offensive, which President
Medvedev announced had ended yesterday, has given the West an idea of
Russia’s military capacity and its determination to use it when it
sees its interests threatened.

Russia’s petroleum wealth has revitalized the country’s economy, and
the long era of "Putinism" has restored classic imperial images, for
which NATO should prepare for a period of serious instability with its
principal neighbour: giving in to Russia’s demands could undermine our
credibility, but resisting what Russia is doing has a price that we
will have to be ready to pay.

Most of the consequences of this crisis will fall on the Atlantic
Alliance and the European Union because the UN has again gotten mired
down in its own contradictions. The origin of the Security Council’s
right of veto lie in the victory in World War II, and it is useless to
negotiate condemnations or demands when the country at whom they are
directed has this right. Nor has the UN done anything to defend
International law in the case of independence for Serbian Kosovo
region, the first effects of which we are seeing in the case of South
Ossetia. The UN would not be able to deny the Ossetians what it has
conceded to the Kosovar Albanians, and it is quite probable that fear
that this tendency would spread was one of the reasons Saakashvili
made such an erroneous decision. Maybe it is now impossible for
Georgia to regain sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as the
president had promised the most nationalist faction of his
followers. Russia has destroyed the military capability of his
country, not to mention the immediate costs. Recent plans to for new
gas pipelines across Georgia have gone up in smoke.

[translated from Spanish]