The bear awakens
Dr. Farrukh Saleem
Tehran Times
September 15, 2008
The U.S. Army’s III Corps is in Iraq. The 4th Infantry Division is at
Camp Victory. The 3rd Infantry Division is in Baghdad. The 1st Armored
Division is in Tikrit. America’s 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigades have been
fighting in Iraq. America’s 25th Infantry Division and the 172nd
Infantry Brigade have been engaged in Iraq. America’s XVIII Airborne
Corps, 1st Armored Division and the 4th Infantry Division have also
been occupied in Iraq. The 10th Aerospace Expeditionary Forces (AEF)
and the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing are also busy fighting. The U.S.
Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has been supporting air
operations in the 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility (USS Theodore
Roosevelt has since gone back to its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia).
The carrier Strike Group USS Ronald Reagan is now in the northern
Arabian Sea.
While the war in Iraq goes on, the CIA’s paramilitary teams, the U.S.
Army Special Forces, Navy Seals and the U.S. Air Force’s air commandos
are all busy in Afghanistan. America’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, 101st
Airborne Division, 86th Combat Support Hospital, 24th Marine
Expeditionary Unit and 101st Combat Aviation Brigade are all fighting
the emboldened Taliban.
To be certain, the Russian Federation, the largest country in the world
that covers one-eighth of the world’s land area, has been in
hibernation since it splintered into Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova,
Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Russia’s
20-year hibernation made America the lone hegemonic global power.
Over those 20 years, here’s what America did to Russia: Three Soviet
Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were inducted into
NATO. Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania were also brought into
NATO. In 1994, the former Soviet state of Georgia was coaxed into
joining the NATO-run ‘Partnership for Peace’. Israeli trainers, along
with a hundred U.S. ‘military advisers’, began training the Georgian
military. In 2003, the CIA displaced President Eduard Shevardnadze (in
what is referred to as the ‘Rose Revolution’). In 2004, the CIA
financed the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. In 2008, at the Bucharest
Summit, Georgia was invited to join NATO. At the Caucasus, a mere
thousand miles from Moscow, America has been stitching a pro-America
belt comprising Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Abkhazia, South Ossetia
and Nagorno-Karabakh. To top it all, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil
pipeline was built to capture Caspian Sea’s oil wealth away from
Russian influence. Imagine; eight of the fifteen former Soviet states
are now part of NATO.
On 8 August 2008, the carnivorous Russian bear came out of its 20-year
hibernation. Ten thousand Russian troops, tanks, armored personnel
carriers, towed artillery, truck-mounted rocket launchers of the 58th
Army, 76th Air Assault Division, 98th Airborne Division, Russian Air
Force’s Sukhoi all-weather Su-24s, 25s, 27s, Tupolev Tu-22 supersonic
bombers and the Russian Black Sea Fleet invaded Georgia in a lightning,
efficiently executed campaign (Georgian army, navy and air force were
completely destroyed).
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil pipeline is on fire. America, pinned
down in Iraq and Afghanistan, is left with little to challenge a
resurging Russia. The reality of a powerful, assertive Russia is
dawning on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The American foreign policy
establishment has been caught napping.
On September 1, Dmitry Medvedev, the 43-year old President of Russia,
was at his presidential residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
President Medvedev told Russian television Channel One that ""Russia
will never yield to the world order where all decisions are taken by
the United States exclusively; the world should be multipolar.""
What’s next? Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania or the Black Sea? On
August 26, the destroyer USS McFaul, carrying humanitarian aid
supplies, docked at the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti. With most of
their boots in Iraq and Afghanistan, all that American destroyers can
now do is deliver humanitarian aid. Imagine; in another direct blow to
America’s foreign policy establishment, Azerbaijan has now shipped
200,000 barrels of oil to Iran.
With $600 billion in reserves, Russia is ‘resurging’ and America is
left with little to block that resurgence. On September 10, two Tupolev
Tu-160s, Russia’s supersonic, nuclear-capable, variable-geometry heavy
bombers, landed in Venezuela, a mere thousand miles from Florida. In
November, elements of Russia’s Northern Fleet are going to be in the
Caribbean. The American foreign policy establishment has been caught
sleeping!
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
