AZERBAIJAN: BETWEEN THE KREMLIN AND THE WHITE HOUSE OR HOW CAN WE LIVE IN A TWO-POLAR WORLD?

Day.Az
Aug 19 2008
Azerbaijan

The world has changed after 8 August 2008

No matter what some Russian political analysts say, it has again
become two-polar. The Kremlin, with its military aggression against
Georgia, has made the entire world understand that the process of
transformation of the USSR into a new state having the same big claims
for supremacy in the world has finished. From now on, the entire world
should proceed from the fact that Russia is a real counterbalance to
the USA in its struggle for supremacy in the world. It is especially
important for such small countries as Azerbaijan to understand it
because the fight between the USA and Russia for influence in the
South Caucasus is now entering into a new heated phase of development.

Washington’s bloodless victory

Let us start from what we state: only one country the USA has won
in Russia’s military aggression against Georgia. Judge yourselves:
the USA did not take part in the military operations in the area of
the Russian-Georgian conflict. Consequently, there could not be any
casualties on its side. In return, both Georgian and Russian armies
sustained losses with injuries and deaths. I am not mentioning the
fact that thousands of Georgians and Ossetians have become refugees
as a result of this transient war.

Now let us speak about the diplomatic consequences of this war. For
the time being Georgia has only obtained a chance to look like a
small country which needs protection from Russian aggression in the
eyes of the world community. Plus, it obtained a chance to make its
admission to NATO much more realistic.

But has this country managed to return South Ossetia and Abkhazia
under its jurisdiction? No. Has it managed to protect its towns,
as well as its population, in safety? No. Is there a risk that the
people of Georgia will find these casualties excessive? Of course,
especially if the USA does not take real action to restore Georgia’s
territorial integrity, that is, Tbilisi’s control over South Ossetia
and Abkhazia. Such action will not take place. The USA does not have
such plans. They [in the USA] are more accustomed to moving towards
their targets at the expense of others’ blood. In this particular case
those targets have already been achieved. Now Russia has real chances
to confront international condemnations of its action, becoming an
outlaw country. It is highly likely that the process of condemning
Russia will go on. Now Mr Rogozin, who tries to put a brave face on
a sorry business, admits that the relations between NATO and Russia
will change. Now the anti-missile defence system is being installed
in Poland.

Who has lost from it? Of course, Russia. Who has won? Of course, the
USA. The White House has managed to put Russia into a very unpleasant
situation without a single shoot made and a single soldier lost. Can
we say that the White House was not ready for the fact that Washington
was not ready for Russia’s using military force against Georgia? No,
of course. It is ridiculous to say that the super power, which managed
to enact the break-up of the USSR, did not have information about such
an issue of near future. It was clear to everyone that the Kremlin was
deprived of control over a big political and economic bloc following
the end of the cold war and the military alliance NATO started to
move towards its borders. It seemed that Russia would try to regain
its sharply fallen status at the very first opportunity.

The USA understood very well that [Georgian President] Mikheil
Saakashvili’s attempt to resolve the problem with separatists in South
Ossetia in a military way may lead to military aggression from Russia,
which supports separatists in all the areas of the former USSR. This
is not only because the Kremlin has never concealed its rejection of
Saakashvili’s Georgia and the Kremlin had a formal excuse under the
cover of protection of "Russian citizens" to get involved in this
conflict, but also because the US electronic intelligence eavesdrops
on the entire modern system of satellite communication. Almost all the
private and state information communicated by phone, fax or via e-mail
is intercepted. In particular, the tasks of the US Agency for National
Security, a gigantic centre watching the entire world, employing about
100,000 people and having a budget of 16 billion dollars, also include
eavesdropping on phone conversations, faxes, e-mails and satellite
signals that have the least of interest for the USA. It is at least
inappropriate to say under these circumstances that Washington was
not ready for Russia’s military aggression against Georgia.

In these conditions a hypothesis is emerging that Georgia has simply
been set up by the USA in its geopolitical war with Russia.

Another big question for me personally is that who has committed the
biggest crime: Russia, which openly and impudently demonstrates its
aggressive face of a super power or the USA, which acted delicately and
stealthily to achieve its targets through the blood of small Georgia?

What are we for the USA and Russia?

I am convinced that we have witnessed only the first stage of
confrontation between Russia, which has finally become strong, and
the USA, for influence in the South Caucasus region. It logically
comes from this fact that the confrontation between the co-chairs of
the OSCE Minsk Group will be strongly aggravated. Azerbaijan needs
to take it into account and try to make sure that either Russia or
the USA is out as the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. This is
because the differences between Washington and Moscow in the views
on the future of the South Caucasus, as well as on the settlement
of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan,
may lead to very unpleasant consequences for us.

Despite the big differences in the views on the future of the entire
South Caucasus region between Moscow and Washington, we can not but
admit that the attitude of both Russia and the USA to Azerbaijan is
purely that of a consumer. For example, a private idea prevails in
Russia that Azerbaijan is only a province of Russia, which broke
off due to the weakness of the Russian state, while the USA views
Azerbaijan as another oil filling station, which needs to be under
its control in order not to move towards Russia.

It seems that the fight for our oil may be strongly aggravated and
assume the most unexpected proportions. This fight is not just for our
oil. It should be noted that the USA does not control only one of the
five countries which have the biggest oil reserves in the world Iran. A
couple of years ago such countries were only two, but they have already
"liberated" Iraq. It leads to an idea that Washington will definitely
try to bring Tehran under its control. It is natural that under the
new conditions of a two-polar world, when Russia has demonstrated to
the entire world its status of a reviving super state, Washington’s
"Iran plans" may encounter tough rejection by the Kremlin. Naturally,
Azerbaijani will feel all the "beauty" of this confrontation.

What shall Azerbaijan do under these circumstances? It should try to
benefit from the confrontation of super powers in our region. But we
need to understand that both the USA and Russia are the countries
which do not care about international law and accept only one law
that of force. So, we should become the strongest state in the
South Caucasus in all the meanings of this word economically,
democratically, diplomatically and intellectually. We need to
secure solid and written guarantees of support from one of the two
currently existing superpowers, on the issue of their military and
political assistance in the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity. As the developments in Georgia show, we must not believe
simple promises of assistance as much as the statements of Moscow
and Washington that they want to see Azerbaijan as an independent
and developed nation. For them we are just a small country rich
in oil, which has an unresolved territorial conflict. For them we
are just another stage of confrontation for supremacy in the region
and in the world. If this is the case, we will proceed from our own
pragmatic interests, understanding that we will not be able to avoid
confrontation between the two superpowers in a new two-polar world.