Bush administration’s Georgia ties complicate possible Baku appointment

The Cable (Laura Rozen’s reported, daily online column)

Foreign Policy(Washington, DC)
Friday, June 12, 2009

Two Washington Russia hands tell The Cable that a senior State
Department official who liaised intensively with the Georgian
leadership, including during the Russian-Georgian conflict last
summer, is being recommended by supporters as U.S. ambassador to
Azerbaijan.

They express some concern that the appointment of Matthew Bryza, the
deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs,
as Washington’s man in Baku might potentially put a wrinkle in Obama’s
efforts to "reset" relations with Russia and send mixed signals about
the kind of relationship he is trying to build.

But an associate close to Bryza says it is inaccurate that Moscow
would perceive him as hostile or too close to Tbilisi, and noted that
Bryza has strong and positive relationships with Russian
officials. Bryza has a strong record in pressing the Georgian
government hard not to even think about using force, the associate
said on condition of anonymity.

Bryza, a career Foreign Service officer who previously served at the
U.S. embassy in Moscow, was an NSC director on Europe during Bush’s
first term, and served as the deputy to Assistant Secretary of State
for Europe Daniel Fried during Bush’s second term. The two Washington
Russia hands said they were told that Fried, now the U.S. ambassador
at large on Guantánamo detainee issues, was recommending Bryza for the
Baku envoy appointment, and had recently raised the matter with
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Fried and Bryza declined to comment.

Clinton "makes her own decisions and not based on any single person’s
recommendation," an administration official said on condition of
anonymity.
Bryza was seen as having gone "beyond what someone in his position
would usually do" in showing support for Mikheil Saakashvili in the
run-up and during the Georgian-Russian conflict last summer, a what he
said," but with "frequent public demonstrations that he was" close to
the Georgian president.

But Bryza was also representing the preferences of the administration
he then served, the former official acknowledged. "A lot of people in
the U.S. government have responsibility for the aggressiveness of
Georgia last summer and the mistaken belief there that the U.S. was
going to come to their support" more than it did, the former official
said.

Among the concerns would be the potential scuttling of a
Russian-proposed plan for U.S.-Russian cooperation on a radar site in
Azerbaijan, the former official said. Azerbaijan carefully modulates
its behavior toward Moscow, tilting toward the West while taking care
not to provoke Russian ire.

"He is very close to the Georgians, even for our administration," a
former Bush administration foreign-policy hand said of Bryza. "It
wouldn’t surprise me if he was paying a price now for his service
during the Bush administration."

It would be a mistake to pick officials based on whether it pleases
Moscow, the current administration official countered. "We should not
make choices about ambassadors to third countries based principally on
Russian sensitivities," he said, on condition of anonymity. "They
don’t own their former empire. We don’t conduct our relations with
Baku through Moscow. We have to work with Russia and understand their
concerns. But to understand is not to give them veto power over other
countries or [over] our relations with other countries."

Sources worried about Moscow’s opinions on the Baku appointment, he
continued, "obviously don’t understand what Obama is trying to do with
Russia. There is no Russian sphere of influence that we will
recognize."

In other former East bloc appointments, current U.S. ambassador to
Georgia John Tefft is in the mix for U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. And
the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria, Nancy McEldowney, is going to be
named principal deputy assistant secretary to Assistant Secretary for
Europe and Eurasian Affairs Phil h career FSOs are very well regarded,
the former Clinton administration official said.

Laura Rozen can be reached at laura.rozen@foreignpolicy.com.

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