PUNDIT VIEWS US, ARMENIAN LEADERS’ EFFORTS TO AVERT NEW RUSSIA-GEORGIA WAR

Grani.ru
July 7 2009
Russia

[Article by Andrey Piontkovskiy: "Obama and Sargsyan"]

Of course [commentator] Yuliya Latynina is right. For everyone except
professional warhead-counters the main point of interest in the Moscow
summit is whether it will be a remake of the Vienna meeting between
Khrushchev and Kennedy. Back then, Khrushchev looked closely into
the eyes of the young intellectual and decided that he was weak. What
happened next is well known.

Today’s [7 July] lunch at [Putin residence] Novo-Ogarevo is also very
interesting. Of course Putin is not going to send missiles to Cuba or
to Venezuela. But he badly wants to send tanks to Tbilisi and fulfil
his treasured dream, which he shared with friend Nicolas [Sarkozy].

I have already explained in detail (and my colleague Leonid
Radzikhovskiy reiterated it yesterday) why this war with its frankly
Hitlerite aims, if it does happen, will be a moral and constitutional
disaster for Russia.

For Barack Obama a second Georgian war would be a major political
unpleasantness. Therefore he is taking certain measures to prevent
it. In this specific instance his personal interests, unlike Putin’s
personal interests, coincide with Russia’s national interests.

First he announced that he will send Vice President Biden to Tbilisi in
mid-July – apparently as a kind of human shield. During the talks with
Medvedev on 6 July he openly raised the question of the possibility
of a "resumption of military conflict." Obama spoke about this at
the press conference without waiting for a question about Georgia:

[The following paragraph published in English] For instance, we had
a frank discussion on Russia – on Georgia, and I reiterated my firm
belief that Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be
respected. Yet even as we work through our disagreements on Georgia’s
borders, we do agree that no one has an interest in renewed military
conflict. And going forward, we must speak candidly to resolve these
differences peacefully and constructively.

[The following paragraph as translated from the Russian] "For instance,
we discussed the question of Georgia. I reiterated our firm belief that
Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. We
also disagree with one another on the subject of Georgia’s borders. But
none of us is interested in a military conflict. Therefore we must
resolve all these differences peacefully."

As you can see, the translation [into Russian] on the Kremlin website
has markedly doctored the original. For instance, the elements
"we do agree, renewed conflict, frank, we must speak candidly"
have disappeared, elements that indicate that the question of a
second Georgian war was raised by Obama and that he received certain
assurances ("we do agree").

Obama did what he could. At the moment it appears that a war will
most likely not begin, but the credit for this belongs to an equal
or probably greater extent to another president. No, not the Russian
president, of course, but the Armenian president – Serzh Sargsyan.

A surprising event took place in Yerevan on 26 June. The president of
Armenia, Russia’s only remaining ally not only in the Caucasus but
in the entire post-Soviet space, at the height of the anti-Georgian
fury of all the pro-Kremlin media, ostentatiously and in a ceremonial
atmosphere presented Mikheil Saakashvili with the highest award of
the Armenian state – the Order of Honour.

Things like that do not happen by chance in the Caucasus. Serzh
Sargsyan, who is dependent in many ways on Moscow, would never permit
himself simply to annoy the Kremlin. He was risking too much for the
sake of such a dubious pleasure. This was a carefully considered
demarche, a conscious attempt to stop the madmen in the Russian
political and military leadership who were planning a second Georgian
war that would be devastating for the entire Caucasus and for Russia.

It seems to me that this move operated on our so-called geopoliticians
more effectively than any other arguments. Because if they lose
Armenia too, what kind of "zone of privileged interests" will they
be left with? As if by order, the active phase of the psychological
preparations for war – articles and interviews by people like Dugin
and Dorenko about the inevitability of a Georgian attack on Russia –
came to a halt.

However, it only remains for us to pose the question put by a certain
high-ranking Russian diplomat, which has already become a classic –
"What if Putin, at the last moment, finally blows the roof off and
ruins everything?"

And we can add another question: "Why, in any case, should the fate
of a great country depend on the mental state of a person who has
more than once publicly displayed highly deviant behaviour?"