CounterPunch
March 5 2010

Fanning the Flames of Another War in the Caucasus?
By ERIC WALBERG

Will there be another war in the Caucasus? This is a smoldering issue
on more than one front, finds Eric Walberg, in the first of a two-part
analysis of the spectre of conflict in this crucial crossroads

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world expected a new era of
peace and disarmament. But what happened? Instead of diminishing, US
and NATO presence throughout Europe, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and
Central Asia rapidly increased, and the world experienced one war
after another — in the Caucasus, Yugoslavia , Iraq and Afghanistan ,
each one hotter and more horrible than the last. And we are far from
seeing the end to the savagery now unleashed by the anti-communist
jinni.

Though a pokey backwater for the past millennium, the south Caucasus
is now a key battleground, the `critical strategic crossroads in 21st
century geopolitics’, writes analyst Rick Rozoff, the focus of
ambitious energy transit projects and a military corridor reaching
from Western Europe to East Asia, controlled (or not so `controlled’)
from Washington and Brussel.

Surely peace in this vital region should be a paramount goal for both
Russia and the West, for their own reasons — Russia because, well
because it is there and its cultural and economic links are vital to
Russia ‘s well being. The US, if only to benefit economically, since
peace everywhere is a boon to economic well being and logically should
be blessed by the world’s superpower, whether or not it is a
benevolent one.

But this logic has been betrayed — egregiously, in the case of US
abetting Georgia in its disastrous war against Russia in 2008, less
obviously in likely covert US and other involvement in Chechnya and
its neighbours, as well as in the Armenia-Azerbaijan stand-off over
Nagorno Karabakh.

Topping the list in recent times are Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where
firebrand Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili struts and threatens,
running from one NATO gathering to another, embracing one US military
envoy after another, as he shakes his fist at his northern nemesis and
vows to retake his breakaway territories Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
now fully fledged republics. This pits a NATO hopeful against a NATO
foe, and despite the fact that NATO expressly forbids membership to
any country with disputed borders, it continues to vow that Georgia
will soon be a full member, a project that can only mean war with
Russia.

US encouragement for Saakashvili in his failed 2008 war with Russia
was, to put it mildly, an embarrassment for the US and should be a
warning to politely distance itself from further abetting a
dangerously unpredictable character. Despite the likelihood that
Saakashvili’s extreme pro-West policies will be reversed by a future
government, the US navy is conducting war exercises at this very
moment with Georgia in the Black Sea, and the Pentagon is preparing to
build three military bases in Georgia and dispatch of up to 25,000 US
servicemen to the country by 2015. It seems the embarrassment is also
a `window of opportunity’, a chance to put facts on the ground which a
future government would find very difficult to change.

Georgia is a tempting morsel for other reasons. US special envoy to
AfPak Richard Holbrooke just last week visited Georgia to arrange
transit of arms to his killing fields via Georgia. Saakashvili offered
Georgia’s Black Sea ports Poti and Batumi as docks for military supply
ships and the country’s airports as refuelling points for cargo
planes. `The route to Afghanistan is already used extensively, because
almost 80 per cent of cargo which is not going through Pakistan is
going through Georgia, and only 20 per cent through Russia,’ boasts
Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Security
in International Studies.

Saakashvili is pursuing a propaganda campaign aiming to destabilise
the region through direct and indirect provocation of Russia and
support of terrorists with the tacit approval of Washington and
Brussels. He has launched a Russian-language TV station First Caucasus
beamed into South Ossetia, much like Reagan’s TV Marti set up in 1985
for Cubans. He has also reached out to Abkhazians and Ossetians to try
to convince them to subvert their current governments and join
Georgia.

The idea, according to analyst at the Strategic Cultural Foundation
Nicolai Dimlevich, is to foment instability throughout the Caucasus
and in Transcaucasia and then call for all the zones of conflict to be
passed into UN, EU and/or NATO hands for safekeeping, since Russia
would be proven to be incapable of ensuring the security of local
populations. In this scenario, the US and NATO `benefit’ from war in
the region, as it is an opportunity to weaken Russia and extend
control over the region. Terrifying thoughts, but unfortunately
perfectly `rational’.

The failed war against Russia in 2008 also left behind storm clouds in
Saakashvili’s own Tbilisi , where opposition to his reckless political
gambits has hardened. Even as Saakashvili blusters, key Georgian
opposition figures have been visiting Moscow since late last year,
disowning their president’s plans. `We are prepared to receive those,
who come not for fighting and trickery, but for making some changes,’
Russian Deputy Minister Gregory Karasin told reporters in Geneva
recently. Karasin quoted Georgian parliament’s ex-speaker, current
leader of the Democratic Movement-United Georgia, Nino Burjanadze:
`When Saakashvili made a decision to wage war in summer 2008, I am
quoting her `he intended to make Russia bend on its knees and to cause
tension in relations with Russia, but Saakashvili lost the war and put
the country in a tragic situation.’ We want to have open and pleasant
relationship with Georgia.’

Former Georgian prime minister Zurab Noghaideli was received by
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in December, the first time that
the Russian leader openly met with a Georgian opposition leader. He
openly advocates cooperation between his Movement for a Just Georgia
and United Russia, and has developed close ties with the Union of
Georgians in Russia. Noghaideli has repeatedly stated that without a
radical change in Georgia’s foreign policy priorities his country’s
`destruction will continue’, warning that `there is danger of
Georgia’s further dismemberment’ if Tbilisi’s current course
continues.

`Saakashvili understands that his rule is in danger, and therefore he
is prepared to plunge the country into a new war. He prefers to be a
president banished from Georgia by Russia than to be banished by his
own people,’ said Burjanadze, condemning the TV station beamed into
Ossetia which features a talk show hosted by the late Chechen rebel
leader Dzhokhar Dudayev’s widow. Giorgi Khaindrava, a former Cabinet
member and now an opposition leader, said. if the channel devotes
coverage to the insurgency in Russia’s north Caucasus, Putin may
declare it a terrorist threat and use force to shut it down. `This
isn’t just fantasy. It could happen.’

The entire spectrum of Georgia’s politicians agree. Conservative Party
leader Kakha Kukava says, ` Russia doesn’t have any strategic plan
towards Georgia nowadays. It is in Saakashvili’s interests to provoke
Russia and attract international attention to obtain support.’ Even
`some of the people close to President Saakashvili may also agree, but
they can’t say so openly because they’re afraid of him,’ asserts
Noghaideli.

Perhaps Saakashvili’s bluster is just hot air. But the war exercises
with the US and the planned US bases aren’t. Nor is the fact that the
south Caucasus has become a transit route for drugs to Europe and
Russia. Russian Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov said
last week that the ports of Batumi and Poti are `the main ones in drug
trafficking, and the Georgian city of Kabuleti is one of the key
points of trafficking of Afghan heroin.’

Only Saakashvili seems to think it’s possible to reunite the two
breakaway regions with Georgia any time soon. For better or worse
Abkhazia is ever more securely tied to Russia , as confirmed by
President Sergei Bagapsh’s visit to Moscow last month to commemorate
200 years since Abkhazia was absorbed into the Russian empire. Though
not Moscow’s favourite in the 2004 elections, Bagapsh has agreed to
establish a joint military ground force for the next 49 years and to
upgrade an existing Russian base at Gudauta, where 1,700 Russian
troops are presently stationed. He also proposed that Abkhazia join
the Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan Customs Union even though neither
Minsk nor Astana has recognised Abkhazia as a sovereign state.
Ironically, says analyst Sergei Markedonov, if even a half dozen
European countries were to recognise Abkhazia, `maybe Bagapsh would
favour European integration.’ Carnegie Moscow Centre analyst Alexei
Malashenko suspects that Turkey may set things in motion. `Turkey is
ready to establish special relations with Abkhazia.’

The mouse’s defeat in 2008 also was an important incentive for
Ukrainians to turn against their Orange revolutionaries last month.
Incumbent Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich is merely expressing
the will of the people when he dismisses any future move to join NATO
and tones down the anti-Russian rhetoric. When Saakashvili goes, a
similar move will surely take place in Georgia, as a future president
tries to repair relations with Russia, though — hopes the Pentagon —
leaving by-then existing US bases in place.

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at

http://www.counterpu nch.org/walberg03052010.html