by Larry Jones
On August 7, the eve of the extravagant
opening of the 2008 Olympics, the nation of Georgia – once part of the
former Soviet Union – invaded South Ossetia, a small piece of land on
the southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. South Ossetia is within
the borders of Georgia, and a close Russian neighbor. It considers itself
independent and thus it is commonly referred to as a “breakaway state,” as is nearby Abkhazia. It relies heavily on Russia
for support, both economic and military.
The Russian military response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia
was swift and deadly. It included hundreds of armed soldiers, heavily
armored tanks, and air bombings. Attack helicopters and fuel trucks accompanied
a long convoy of trucks heading into Ossetia. Hundreds on both sides
were killed. Georgian homes and official buildings were destroyed. A
few days after fighting began, France, as the current head of the European
Union, brokered a cease fire which did not hold. Then last Saturday
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a truce with Georgia, considered
a definitive step toward ending the fighting. However, Russian soldiers
were dug in just 30 miles from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, so it
was uncertain how permanent the cease fire would be.
All the established media in the U.S. have reported George Bush’s
position, strongly blaming Russia and generally referring to its “invasion,”
while not referring to Georgia’s original moves into South Ossetia
as an “invasion.” There are no really good guys in this conflict,
so it’s important to understand the underlying causes of this long
simmering antagonism between Russia and Georgia and the role of the
United States and the European Union in all this. The short view
is the current American political role in the conflict. The long view
involves oil and goes back to the demise of the Soviet Union and the
presidency of Bill Clinton.
AMERICAN POLITICAL ROLE
To anyone with a sense of reality, statements on Georgia and Russia
coming from Bush and his would be successor McCain have been rather
strange. The President, whose own actions have produced a long list
of war crimes, stated that “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable
ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.” That
was undoubtedly not intended as a mea culpa
for his regime’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the authorization
of torture that will forever be identified with the Bush years. Bush
also demanded that Russian troops leave the area.
John McCain told an audience at the Aspin Institute on the 14th: “My
friends, we have reached a crisis, the first possibly serious crisis
internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.” The
first serious crisis?? Act of aggression?? One would have to assume
that McCain has been nodding off during the entire Bush presidency.
But that’s not the case.
McCain has been by far the most bellicose of the ruling class spokespersons
on this issue. He is
getting his foreign policy advice from Randy Scheunamann, a man who
has long been paid handsomely to lobby for Georgia in Congress and earlier
was a director of the neo-con outfit, Project for a New American Century,
which helped engineer the war in Iraq.
Columnist Robert Scheer wrote a few days ago: “It is inconceivable
that [Georgian President Misha] Saakashvili would have triggered this
dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans
he trusted, like Scheunamann.” And Scheunamann has helped McCain become
friends with Saakashvili.
It was Washington in 2003 which created the so-called “Rose Revolution”
in Georgia with the help of the right wing National Endowment for Democracy,
a group which receives annual congressional funding. “Sadly,” says
Steve Weissman in a Truthout piece, “Misha Saakashvili turned out
to be just about democratic as Putin, manipulating elections, using
force against his opponents and greatly restricting press freedom during
a state of emergency in 2007. Under his leadership,Georgia remains famously
corrupt, and he has proved every bit as warm and compassionate toward
the breakaway Ossetians and Abkhassians as [now Prime Minister Vladimir]
Putin has been toward the Georgians.”
Nevertheless, McCain and the Bushites still refer to the Georgian regime
as a democracy which must be defended. After all, Georgia did send 2,000
troops to Iraq. The U.S. Army has provided training for the Georgian
military. Across the spectrum of official politics in the U.S., Georgia
is regarded as a vitally important U.S. ally in the Caucasus and Central
Asia. McCain spoke by phone with Saakashvili after the invasion, and
reported that “I told him that I know I speak for every American
when I said to him, ‘Today, we are all Georgians.'” Americans aware
of what’s really going on here would not agree, in particular with
McCain’s identification of ruling class interests with the interests
of the people, either in this country or Georgia.
The Bush administration is sending in American troops and supplies on
a “vigorous and ongoing” humanitarian mission. But it will include
U.S. aircraft and naval forces and its timeframe is indeterminate. The
future possibility of a clash with Russia could even be in the offing.
Since the U.S. has provided Georgia with military equipment and training
for years, the Georgian government expects Washington to bail them out
when they get in trouble and they have said as
much in recent days. At a rally in Tiblisi, Saakashvili said he expects
“that Georgian ports and
airports will be taken under the control of the U.S. defense ministry.”
As for Barack Obama, the conflict between Russia and Georgia over South
Ossetia and Abkhazia is the first major foreign-policy crisis faced
by Barack Obama. He needed to appear like a potential commander-in-chief.
First he urged restraint for both nations. But that changed when he
saw that the ruling class was united in holding Russia responsible for
the conflict, so he
joined them and spoke out against the Russian actions. “There is
no possible justification for these attacks,” he said, and urged
Russia to stop its campaign. He also urged the world to condemn Russia.
Once again this shows that in reality we have two candidates, each of
which is committed to maintaining and protecting America’s “interests,”
in this case (surprise) control over oil production and shipping. The
candidates” views are not exactly identical, but they make it clear
that we cannot vote away the murderous and wily ways of U.S. imperialism.
THE OIL CONNECTION
The United States helped open a pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey three
years ago. It was designed specifically to avoid Russian territory.
It runs through Georgia. It and other pipelines through Georgia underlie
the Russia/Georgia conflict. Michael Klare, defense analyst for Nation
magazine and author of “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics
of Energy” appeared on Democracy Now recently and stated that the
current conflict “has to do with the fact that the US has eyed the
Caspian Sea, which lies just to the east of Georgia, as an energy corridor
for exporting Caspian Sea oil and gas to the West, bypassing Russia.
And this was the brainchild of Bill Clinton, who saw an opportunity,
when the Soviet Union broke apart, to gain access to Caspian oil and
gas, but he didn’t want this new energy to flow through Russia or
through Iran, which were the only natural ways to export the energy.”
Previous to the Clinton/Bush policy to pipe oil through Georgia, all
the pipelines from the Caspian
Sea oilfields ran through Russia and, prior to its collapse, the Soviet
Union. But now both the European Union and the United States are seeking
to prevent Russia from controlling the oil and natural gas flow to Europe
and other parts of the West, including the U.S.
There is a certain Cold War aspect to what’s going on here between
the U.S. and Russia. It seems clear that the U.S. wants to weaken Russian
political and economic power in Europe. Says Klare, “It’s a geopolitical
contest between the US and ” Russia for influence in Europe.”
The Baku-Tablisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline runs very near the breakaway enclaves
of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. By Russia’s fighting to keep those
breakaway nations in their sphere of influence, there is a constant
reminder that the Russians could easily sever the pipelines. In fact
they are reported to have tried to bomb one of the pipelines in the
current conflict, but apparently failed.
There sometimes seems to be different foreign policies coming out of
Washington. Condoleezza Rice and the State Department often speak of
cooperating with Russia, while Vice President Dick Cheney and his neo-cons
want to go full speed back to the Cold War or ahead toward World War
III. A McCain-Russian standoff may get there there more quickly, but
Obama has shown that he can do a lot of military saber rattling and
has even threatened to use nuclear weapons in defending U.S. “interests.”
The other option is for great numbers of people in this country to take
independent political action to turn things completely around.
Larry Jones is a long time political
activist and former United Church of Christ minister who lives in Honolulu.