The Mazeika Report
August 13, 2008
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Bush Warns Russia on Georgia, Sends Rice to Tbilisi (Update1)
By Holly Rosenkrantz
Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said the U.S. would stand behind its ally Georgia and warned Russia that it must respect the ``territorial integrity'' of the Black Sea nation.
A U.S. military cargo plane is heading to Georgia with relief supplies and Bush said he directed Defense Secretary Robert Gates to organize a humanitarian aid effort. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to Georgia to confer with President Mikheil Saakashvili.
``Russia's ongoing actions raise serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region,'' Bush said today at the White House in Washington. He said he was concerned about reports that Russian forces continue to move through Georgia in spite of an agreement on a cease-fire.
``The United States and the world expect Russia to honor that commitment'' to halt military operations, Bush said. He held out the threat that the U.S. would withdraw its support for Russia's ``aspirations'' in diplomatic, economic and security organizations.
The conflict has further strained relations between the U.S., which considers Georgia one of its closest allies in the region, and its former Cold War foe.
Georgia today accused Russia of sending troops beyond the South Ossetia conflict zone in violation of a cease-fire agreed to by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Saakashvili. A Russian official denied the claim, saying the troops are eliminating Georgia's ability to renew attacks.
Russian Movements
``We're concerned about reports that Russian forces have entered and taken positions in the port city of Poti, that Russian armored vehicles are blocking access to that port, and that Russia is blowing up Georgian vessels,'' Bush said.
The European Union brokered the cease-fire to end five days of fighting. EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels to push the peace deal forward. The 27-nation bloc may send military personnel to monitor the cease-fire, said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Bush said he supports the EU effort and Rice will stop in Europe to coordinate efforts to end the crisis. The U.S. will use its aircraft and naval forces to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies, the president said.
``We expect Russia to honor its commitment to let in all forms of humanitarian assistance,'' he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anGKoC74FVIA&refer=worldwide#
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Russian Offensive Imperils U.S. Aims on Iran, Energy (Update2)
By Janine Zacharia
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's military campaign in Georgia may threaten the U.S. strategic aims of preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb and securing Central Asian energy supplies for Europe.
The Russian-Georgian fighting ``will imperil U.S.-Russian diplomacy no matter what,'' said Cliff Kupchan of New York-based Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. The U.S. and European reactions will make Russia ``more obstinate at the Security Council,'' where President George W. Bush seeks to impose tougher United Nations sanctions on the Iranian government, he said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today ordered a halt to the five-day offensive, saying Russia had achieved its goals and punished the Georgian ``aggressor.''
Georgia's role in a U.S.-backed energy corridor to Europe for oil and natural gas from former Soviet areas of Central Asia, a route that skirts Russia, may be in doubt. That strategy counted on Russia respecting Georgia's sovereignty.
Bush returned from the Olympic Games in China and expressed concerns that Russian forces may be engaged in an effort ``to depose Georgia's duly elected government.''
Peace Mission
The U.S. backs a peace mission to Russia and Georgia led by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, acting respectively on behalf of the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. President Nicolas Sarkozy also arrived in Moscow just as Medvedev ordered Russian troops to halt combat, to press the EU effort.
The European offer calls for the withdrawal of Russian forces, the dispatch of international observers to replace Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and a pledge not to use force, a senior U.S. official told reporters in Washington yesterday.
The official likened Russia's military operation to past Soviet invasions of Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia and said it appeared the Russians planned the incursion for some time.
American assumptions about Russian acquiescence in major policy issues may now be undercut, said Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
The conflict is the ``first demonstration of Russian military power to break one of the former Soviet states, and that sort of gets to the stability of the framework that the U.S. thought was going to govern the post-Cold War world,'' he said.
`No Leverage'
Kupchan said the U.S. now has ``virtually no leverage on Russia.'' An envoy at a higher level than Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza, whose area of interest includes the Caucasus, should be sent to the region, he said.
Concerns about an outbreak of hostilities between Georgia and Russia had been building among American policy makers.
In a visit last month to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was ``extremely important'' for the separatist disputes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be resolved peacefully. She cautioned that violence ``should not be carried out by any party.''
After the fighting erupted on Aug. 7, the U.S. criticized Russia for a disproportionate use of force.
Troops From Iraq
The U.S. facilitated the return of as many as 2,000 Georgian soldiers from Iraq to Georgia -- a move Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized as ``interference'' -- without planning to commit any military support of its own, according to officials.
If Russia topples Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, relations with the U.S. ``will be just that much worse,'' Kupchan said.
Beyond being a democratic ally, Georgia is a link in a U.S.- backed southern energy corridor that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is a major part of that route and runs about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.
Robert Johnson, a specialist in energy at the Eurasia Group, said Georgia's reputation as a viable, alternative route for transporting oil and gas from Turkmenistan and elsewhere has been ``compromised'' because of the conflict.
Crude oil for September delivery fell as much as $1.16, or 1 percent, in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $113.61 a barrel at 8:56 a.m. London time.
Georgian officials said Russia is seeking to oust Saakashvili, while Russia said it was protecting the separatist Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Goals `Achieved'
``Russia has achieved its goals,'' said Alexander Rahr, a Russia specialist at the German Council of Foreign Relations in Berlin. ``Georgia will not be able to reunite with its regions in the coming decades.''
Russia was in part provoked by the U.S.-led push to bring Georgia and Ukraine, both former Soviet satellites, into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In April, Brussels-based NATO committed itself to adding Georgia and Ukraine without providing a timeframe or a clear path toward membership.
This pledge, along with the recognition of Kosovo's independence by the U.S. and Western allies, angered Russia, which is against further NATO expansion. The Russian invasion may trouble pro-Western democracies the U.S. has cultivated in the region.
Given the limited U.S. response so far in the Georgia crisis, ``there's a lot more anxiety about the credibility and value of American relationships, including security relationships,'' Sestanovich said.
Ukraine Ties
The senior U.S. official who briefed reporters late yesterday said Russia might be looking to take its war beyond Georgia and signaled the U.S. will be announcing ways to strengthen ties with Ukraine and other states of the former Soviet Union.
The official predicted those states will be determined to avoid losing the sovereignty won and maintained since the Soviet collapse.
While the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior U.S. officials cautioned Russia about damage to relations if it presses the assault on Georgia, a top Russian official disagreed about the fallout.
``Russian-American relations have a very important value for both our countries,'' the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters yesterday. ``We hope that without too much further propaganda we can move to the core of the matter of this difficult situation, and Russian-American relations will not suffer.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Janine Zacharia in Washington at jzacharia@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 12, 2008 06:29 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=home&sid=aOn7Dsue7Tyk
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Russia May Focus on Pro-U.S. Ukraine After Georgia (Update5)
By Henry Meyer
Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Now that Russia has humiliated Georgia with a punishing military offensive, it may shift its attention to reining in pro-Western Ukraine, another American ally in the former Soviet Union.
Moving to counter any threat, Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko today restricted the movement of Russia's Black Sea fleet, based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, citing national security. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow denounced the decision as a ``serious, new anti-Russian step.''
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's first order of business in confronting Ukraine likely will be to try to thwart its bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
``We still don't know who's next,'' said former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who was foreign minister under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, who helped end the Cold War. ``Ukraine most likely,'' because of its Russian- speaking population and naval base in the Crimea, Shevardnadze said in an interview today.
The U.S. has long seen Georgia and Ukraine as counterweights to Russia's influence in the region. Opposition leaders in the two countries came to power after U.S.-backed popular protests in 2003 and 2004. Their ascension advanced an American strategy that seeks to expand NATO to include both countries and secure energy routes from the Caspian Sea that bypass Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Turkey runs through Georgia.
Policy in Doubt
The future effectiveness of that policy is now in doubt, with Georgia's U.S.-educated president, Mikheil Saakashvili, 40, weakened by a five-day blitz that his American patrons were powerless to halt.
Medvedev, 42, and Putin, 56, say Russia began the offensive in response to a drive by Georgia to restore control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Now Russia has ousted Georgian forces from there and from Abkhazia, another separatist region, and destroyed much of the central government's military.
``Georgia will be enormously more careful in its actions in the future, and much less confident of its relationship with the United States,'' U.S.-based geopolitical advisory group Stratfor said in a research note.
NATO is scheduled to review the two countries' bids to join the Western military alliance in December. NATO leaders in April promised Ukraine and Georgia eventual membership while declining them fast-track status. Russia, which has also denounced U.S. plans to station missile defense sites in former Soviet satellites Poland and the Czech Republic, says the expansion of the Cold War-era alliance to its borders is a security threat.
`Similar Fate'
NATO should affirm the potential of Georgia and Ukraine to become alliance members in the face of Russia's incursion into Georgia, senior U.S. officials said yesterday in Washington.
``Russia may find it convenient to raise the level of tension with Ukraine in the run-up to the December NATO review,'' Citigroup Inc.'s London-based David Lubin and Ali Al- Eyd wrote in a note to clients. ``If the conflict with Russia decelerates or reverses Georgia's integration with the West, a similar fate could also affect Ukraine.''
Ukraine, a country of 46 million people that's almost as big as France, has a large Russian-speaking population in the south and east that opposes NATO entry and looks to Moscow. Russian officials warn that if Yushchenko pushes Ukraine into NATO, the nation may split in two. Russia has made its displeasure with Ukraine clear, temporarily cutting off gas supplies to the country 2 1/2 years ago and reducing deliveries last March.
Show of Solidarity
Yushchenko, 54, yesterday flew to the Georgian capital Tbilisi to show solidarity with Saakashvili along with the leaders of four ex-Communist eastern European nations that joined NATO as a bulwark against Russia.
Today, he cited national security needs when he insisted Russia's Black Sea fleet coordinate its movements with Ukranian authorities. Russia has leased the port since 1991, and ships from there took part in hostilities against Georgia.
``The previous liberalized regime for Russian fleet movements gave the opportunity for Russia to cross Ukrainian state borders and to move across the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea without any control,'' Yushchenko said in a decree, published on his Web site.
`A Warning'
The military operation in Georgia will serve ``as a warning'' to Ukraine that it should desist from petitioning for NATO entry, said Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ``Otherwise, Moscow may intervene to protect the allegedly threatened interests of the Russian population.''
Russian Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu today rounded on Ukraine for its public support of Georgia in the conflict.
``One week before these events, we send a column of humanitarian aid to Ukraine to help flood victims and the next we find they're offering military aid, arms for the destruction of civilians,'' Shoigu told reporters in Moscow.
Germany and France opposed NATO entry for Georgia, a country of 4.6 million people that is almost as big as the U.S. state of South Carolina, and Ukraine because of the Georgian separatist disputes and opposition to membership among some Ukrainians. They now will feel their concerns have been justified, said Cliff Kupchan of New-York based Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm.
NATO Membership
``Considering both European reticence and possible fears about Ukraine, I think it is very much on the slow track,'' he said, referring to NATO membership for both states.
The assault by Russian artillery, tanks and bombers inflicted significant damage on Georgia's armed forces, which last month increased their size to 37,000 soldiers. Russia's military has 1.13 million personnel. The U.S. trained and equipped Georgia's military and in 2006 approved almost $300 million in aid over five years.
Ukraine has about 214,000 soldiers, which include 84,000 paramilitary troops, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
``A substantial part of our military power has been destroyed,'' said Georgian National Security Council chief Kakha Lomaia. ``However, we did preserve the core of our army, and have managed to regroup it close to the capital.''
An airbase in Senaki was destroyed and three Georgian ships were blown up in the Black Sea port of Poti, he said.
Base Bombed
A month ago, about 1,000 U.S. soldiers joined 600 Georgians and 100 from Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia in joint exercises at the Vaziani military base near Tbilisi. Russia repeatedly bombed the base during this month's war.
``The American role in the region has been weakened,'' Jan Techau, a European and security affairs analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, said in an interview. ``It's a reassertion of Russia's dominant role in the region.''
Ian Hague, a Bank of Georgia board member and fund manager with $1.8 billion in the former Soviet Union, said the attack on Georgia discouraged Western investments in energy infrastructure by raising the risk premium.
``It's somewhat reminiscent, in 1939, when Stalin attacked Finland,'' former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told Bloomberg Television. ``I think this kind of confrontation is the best kind of answer as to why they are seeking to be members of NATO.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at Hmeyer4@bloomberg.net.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayrpPV6nJ4Qk&refer=worldwide#
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Putin Makes His Move
By Robert KaganMonday, August 11, 2008; A15
The details of who did what to precipitate Russia's war against Georgia are not very important. Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama.
The events of the past week will be remembered that way, too. This war did not begin because of a miscalculation by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. It is a war that Moscow has been attempting to provoke for some time. The man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" has reestablished a virtual czarist rule in Russia and is trying to restore the country to its once-dominant role in Eurasia and the world. Armed with wealth from oil and gas; holding a near-monopoly over the energy supply to Europe; with a million soldiers, thousands of nuclear warheads and the world's third-largest military budget, Vladimir Putin believes that now is the time to make his move.
Georgia's unhappy fate is that it borders a new geopolitical fault line that runs along the western and southwestern frontiers of Russia. From the Baltics in the north through Central Europe and the Balkans to the Caucasus and Central Asia, a geopolitical power struggle has emerged between a resurgent and revanchist Russia on one side and the European Union and the United States on the other.
Putin's aggression against Georgia should not be traced only to its NATO aspirations or his pique at Kosovo's independence. It is primarily a response to the "color revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia in 2003 and 2004, when pro-Western governments replaced pro-Russian ones. What the West celebrated as a flowering of democracy the autocratic Putin saw as geopolitical and ideological encirclement.
Ever since, Putin has been determined to stop and, if possible, reverse the pro-Western trend on his borders. He seeks not only to prevent Georgia and Ukraine from joining NATO but also to bring them under Russian control. Beyond that, he seeks to carve out a zone of influence within NATO, with a lesser security status for countries along Russia's strategic flanks. That is the primary motive behind Moscow's opposition to U.S. missile defense programs in Poland and the Czech Republic.
His war against Georgia is part of this grand strategy. Putin cares no more about a few thousand South Ossetians than he does about Kosovo's Serbs. Claims of pan-Slavic sympathy are pretexts designed to fan Russian great-power nationalism at home and to expand Russia's power abroad.
Unfortunately, such tactics always seem to work. While Russian bombers attack Georgian ports and bases, Europeans and Americans, including very senior officials in the Bush administration, blame the West for pushing Russia too hard on too many issues.
It is true that many Russians were humiliated by the way the Cold War ended, and Putin has persuaded many to blame Boris Yeltsin and Russian democrats for this surrender to the West. The mood is reminiscent of Germany after World War I, when Germans complained about the "shameful Versailles diktat" imposed on a prostrate Germany by the victorious powers and about the corrupt politicians who stabbed the nation in the back.
Now, as then, these feelings are understandable. Now, as then, however, they are being manipulated to justify autocracy at home and to convince Western powers that accommodation -- or to use the once-respectable term, appeasement -- is the best policy.
But the reality is that on most of these issues it is Russia, not the West or little Georgia, that is doing the pushing. It was Russia that raised a challenge in Kosovo, a place where Moscow had no discernible interests beyond the expressed pan-Slavic solidarity. It was Russia that decided to turn a minor deployment of a few defensive interceptors in Poland, which could not possibly be used against Russia's vast missile arsenal, into a major geopolitical confrontation. And it is Russia that has precipitated a war against Georgia by encouraging South Ossetian rebels to raise the pressure on Tbilisi and make demands that no Georgian leader could accept. If Saakashvili had not fallen into Putin's trap this time, something else would have eventually sparked the conflict.
Diplomats in Europe and Washington believe Saakashvili made a mistake by sending troops to South Ossetia last week. Perhaps. But his truly monumental mistake was to be president of a small, mostly democratic and adamantly pro-Western nation on the border of Putin's Russia.
Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia's attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition, complete with virulent nationalisms, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even -- though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities -- the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives. Yes, we will continue to have globalization, economic interdependence, the European Union and other efforts to build a more perfect international order. But these will compete with and at times be overwhelmed by the harsh realities of international life that have endured since time immemorial. The next president had better be ready.
Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post. His most recent book is "The Return of History and the End of Dreams." He served in the State Department in the Reagan administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/10/AR2008081001871_pf.html
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Russia's Power Play
By George F. WillTuesday, August 12, 2008; A13
Asked in 1957 what would determine his government's course, Harold Macmillan, Britain's new prime minister, replied, "Events, dear boy, events." Now, into America's trivializing presidential campaign, a pesky event has intruded -- a European war. Russian tanks, heavy artillery, strategic bombers, ballistic missiles and a naval blockade batter a European nation. We are not past such things after all. The end of history will be postponed, again.
Russia supports two provinces determined to secede from Georgia. Russia, with aspiring nations within its borders, generally opposes secessionists, as it did when America, which sometimes opposes secession (e.g., 1861-65), improvidently supported Kosovo's secession from Russia's ally Serbia. But Russia's aggression is really about the subordination of Georgia, a democratic, market-oriented U.S. ally. This is the recrudescence of Russia's dominance in what it calls the "near abroad." Ukraine, another nation guilty of being provocatively democratic near Russia, should tremble because there is not much America can do. It is a bystander at the bullying of an ally that might be about to undergo regime change.
Vladimir Putin, into whose soul President George W. Bush once peered and liked what he saw, has conspicuously conferred with Russia's military, thereby making his poodle, "President" Dmitry Medvedev, yet more risible. But big events reveal smallness, such as that of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
On ABC's "This Week," Richardson, auditioning to be Barack Obama's running mate, disqualified himself. Clinging to the Obama campaign's talking points like a drunk to a lamppost, Richardson said that this crisis proves the wisdom of Obama's zest for diplomacy and that America should get the U.N. Security Council "to pass a strong resolution getting the Russians to show some restraint." Apparently Richardson was ambassador to the United Nations for 19 months without noticing that Russia has a Security Council veto.
This crisis illustrates, redundantly, the paralysis of the United Nations regarding major powers, hence regarding major events, and the fictitiousness of the European Union regarding foreign policy. Does this disturb Obama's serenity about the efficacy of diplomacy? Obama's second statement about the crisis, in which he tardily acknowledged Russia's invasion, underscored the folly of his first, which echoed the Bush administration's initial evenhandedness. "Now," said Obama, "is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint."
John McCain, the "life is real, life is earnest" candidate, says he has looked into Putin's eyes and seen "a K, a G and a B." But McCain owes the thug thanks, as does America's electorate. Putin has abruptly pulled the presidential campaign up from preoccupation with plumbing the shallows of John Edwards and wondering what "catharsis" is "owed" to disappointed Clintonites.
McCain, who has called upon Russia "to immediately and unconditionally . . . withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory," favors expelling Russia from the Group of Eight, and organizing a league of democracies to act where the United Nations is impotent, which is whenever the subject is important. But Georgia, whose desire for NATO membership had U.S. support, is not in NATO because some prospective members of McCain's league of democracies, e.g., Germany, thought that starting membership talks with Georgia would complicate the project of propitiating Russia. NATO is scheduled to review the question of Georgia's membership in December. Where now do Obama and McCain stand?
If Georgia were in NATO, would NATO now be at war with Russia? More likely, Russia would not be in Georgia. Only once in NATO's 59 years has the territory of a member been invaded -- the British Falklands, by Argentina, in 1982.
What is it about August? The First World War began in August 1914. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact effectively announced the Second World War in August 1939. Iraq, a fragment of the collapse of empires precipitated by August 1914, invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
This year's August upheaval coincides, probably not coincidentally, with the world's preoccupation with that charade of international comity, the Olympics. For only the third time in 72 years (Berlin 1936, Moscow 1980), the Games are being hosted by a tyrannical regime, the mind of which was displayed in the opening ceremonies featuring thousands of drummers, each face contorted with the same grotesquely frozen grin. It was a tableau of the miniaturization of the individual and the subordination of individuality to the collective. Not since the Nazi's 1934 Nuremberg rally, which Leni Riefenstahl turned into the film "Triumph of the Will," has tyranny been so brazenly tarted up as art.
A worldwide audience of billions swooned over the Beijing ceremony. Who remembers 1934? Or anything.
georgewill@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102156_pf.html
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Russia's Dare
Maybe now the West will see Vladimir Putin for what he is.
Monday, August 11, 2008; A14
MUCH THAT had been in the category of speculation about modern Russia hardened over the weekend into ugly fact. Many had suspected that Vladimir Putin never intended to allow a mere constitution to force him to cede power after eight years in the Kremlin, and the president-turned-prime-minister certainly seemed to be in charge of Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia. Many had theorized that a nation willing, in the service of imperial ambition, to manipulate oil and gas supplies, impose trade blockades, unleash cyber-attacks, and sponsor or at least tolerate assassinations of enemies abroad might not hesitate to wield outright military force; that supposition, too, was confirmed. Having watched Mr. Putin's destruction of a free press in Russia, some might have wondered how far he would go in distorting reality. His brazen invocation of the Big Lie to justify Russia's aggression -- accusing Georgia of "complete genocide" -- provided an answer.
The question now is how the United States and Europe will respond to a reality that can no longer be denied. In the short term, as the Bush administration has said, the allies' goal must be an end to Russia's attacks on Georgia and a cease-fire in the disputed Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. That should be followed by the introduction to those provinces of a neutral peacekeeping force -- no one can take seriously any longer the fiction of Russian "peacekeepers" -- and international mediation. Russian objection would, if nothing else, provide one more clarifying moment.
This weekend's fighting was provoked by Russian-advised South Ossetian separatists; Georgia foolishly responded to the provocation; and Russia was ready to roll in with a large armored force. Does Russia now want to advance further into Georgia? Or does it want to keep Georgia's democracy in a perpetual state of tension? Neither is acceptable, and the West should be formulating policies for either possibility.
In the longer term, the West will have to decide whether to continue its effort to soothe and placate Mr. Putin, as if he were a petulant child who could be bought off with candy and words of praise, or whether to rise to the geopolitical challenge his regime poses. Separate European nations (especially Germany) have thought that they could save themselves by cutting separate deals with Russia for oil and gas. They have tried to avert their eyes as Russia cut oil supplies to show its displeasure with European Union members such as the Czech Republic or Lithuania. Will they now unite to strengthen their position?
Meanwhile, as nations on Russia's periphery such as Georgia and Ukraine have turned west for help in safeguarding their independence, the West has responded ambivalently, offering sympathy but often little else. Russia's theory no doubt is that its aggression in Georgia will scare the West further away. Will that theory, too, harden into ugly truth, or will the West understand that it cannot buy peace by tendering the sovereignty of vulnerable nations?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/10/AR2008081001840_pf.html
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Russia's Invasion Same as Hitler's
Monday, August 11, 2008 11:44 AMBy: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
On Oct. 3, 1938, Adolf Hitler's armies marched into Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. Germany said it was responding to separatist demands from the large German population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Germany.
Hitler's tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West. Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him.
On Aug. 7, 2008, Vladimir Putin's armies marched into South Ossetia, a part of Georgia. Russia said it was responding to separatist demands from the large Russian population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Russia.
Putin's tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West. Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him.
Encouraged by his occupation of Sudetenland, Hitler continued his designs on Czechoslovakia itself and invaded the rest of the nation a few months later.
Will history continue to repeat itself?
Georgia is one of the two countries that have split off from the old Soviet Union and most firmly reached out to the West. Now Putin is testing whether the West will respond to an overt Russian military attack on a part of Georgia, doubtless paving the way for a full scale invasion, perhaps in the coming days. One immediate Russian move would be to use its newfound military leverage to force Georgia to give up Abkhazia, another province with a large Russian population.
Russia has encouraged migration by ethnic Russians into its satellite empire ever since Stalin's days and now is using the provinces with large Russian populations to foment discord in nations that lean to the West.
The United States and the European Union must not turn away at this crucial moment in history. The U.S. should take visible steps to bolster Georgia, including the dispatch of supplies, materials, and other manifestations of our determination not to let this nation be invaded.
Russia's goal in this imperialism is to intimidate any nation on its borders into rejecting overtures from the West and to try to prove that the West will offer no real protection against Russian military designs.
NATO should speed consideration of Georgia's application for admission and should extend its security umbrella to include the struggling democracy.
If the United States appeases Russia now, it will pay the same price British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain paid in the 1930s. This invasion must not be allowed to stand or, at the very least, it must be contained to south Ossetia and not allowed to lap over into the rest of Georgia.
© 2008 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
http://www.newsmax.com/morris/russia_invades_georgia/2008/08/11/120902.html
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U.S. has few military options in Russia response
Aggression in Georgia may be met with diplomatic and economic retaliation, U.S. officials say.
By Peter Spiegel and Julian E. BarnesLos Angeles Times Staff WritersAugust 12, 2008WASHINGTON — With President Bush warning Russia that its push into Georgia could jeopardize relations with the U.S. and Europe, the administration signaled Monday that any retribution would be aimed at the Russian economy and prestige.Russia's pummeling of Georgian troops has left Washington with few palatable military options, said administration officials who requested anonymity when discussing internal policy decisions. Acknowledging that military aid to Georgia was off the table and sanctions against Russia were impractical, they insisted the U.S. could take longer-term economic and diplomatic measures that would hit the Kremlin hard."Just because we are not rushing to place U.S. infantry in Tbilisi does not mean the world is impotent in the face of this aggression," said a senior Pentagon official.Officials said the most likely ways to pressure Russia were through global institutions. Russia is attempting to join the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Membership now is likely to be blocked, they said.Others raised the possibility of kicking Russia out of the Group of 8, the annual gathering of leading industrialized nations.In brief remarks from the White House Rose Garden, Bush said that if reports of Russian troops threatening Tblisi, the Georgian capital, were accurate, it would mark a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of the conflict. Moscow's actions in Georgia "have substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world," the president said.But his heated rhetoric contained few concrete proposals, short of backing a French-led diplomatic effort to get Russia to agree to a cease-fire, a plan the Kremlin appears to have already rejected.A senior U.S. official directly involved in policymaking cautioned that because Bush had just returned from Beijing on Monday, final decisions on a course of action had not been made.Over the last 48 hours, Russia experts and former military and diplomatic officials have proposed a wide range of ways to push back Russian troops -- from instituting a no-fly zone over Georgian airspace to supplying the Georgian military with air defense systems.But administration officials said the list of measures actually under consideration -- such as sending humanitarian aid and rebuilding the Georgian military once fighting ends -- is far narrower."The regular tool kit does not really work here," said a U.S. government analyst who specializes in Russia's relations with its former republics. "The Russians have plenty of money now, and we need their oil more than they need our credits."The senior Pentagon official put it more bluntly: "Are you going to go to war with them?"The U.S. continued to provide a limited amount of help Monday; the last of the 2,000 Georgian troops that had been deployed to Iraq were expected to land in their home country on U.S. military transport planes last night.The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi also began distributing its supplies of disaster relief -- unlikely to last more than a day, said a State Department spokesman -- and the administration was working with the U.N. to fly in U.S. medical supplies from Germany.But beyond that, and a decision not to withdraw the 100 or so U.S. military trainers from Tbilisi, most of the support offered by Washington has been rhetorical.In the short term, U.S. officials believe financial markets will exert their own pressure on Russian behavior. A Democratic Senate aide said the conflict should push up insurance rates for the 2014 Winter Olympics, to be held in the nearby southern Russia town of Sochi, to prohibitive levels. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's efforts to create a financial center in Moscow could also be snuffed out.The U.S. could continue to deny Russia normalized trade status, which is blocked by a statute known as Jackson-Vanik. The 1974 amendment to the Trade Reform Bill, which is still on the books, tied the Soviet Union's trade status to whether it freely allowed Jewish emigration. An administration official familiar with the thinking of Bush and other senior officials predicted the international community would unite against the Russian action, saying the Kremlin miscalculated by thinking its control of vast stores of oil and natural gas gave it license to throw its military weight around."We'll get cold, but how do you [the Russians] expect your economy to stand without selling oil and gas?" the official said. "Did I hear someone say they're buying Russian cars? Russian fashion? It's like putting a gun to your own head and saying, 'Stop or I'll shoot.' "The senior U.S. official involved in policymaking added that although Russia may have the military upper hand over Georgia, its heavy-handed treatment of a small neighbor may backfire in the long term."It will be chilling to many countries, but also will, I think, steel their determination not to lose the sovereignty that they've so painfully won and maintained since the end of the Soviet Union," said the official.Getting the international community to back a policy of isolating Russia could prove difficult, analysts said.Stephen Sestanovich, senior envoy to the former Soviet states during the Clinton administration, noted that statements issued by European leaders so far have only criticized Russia's "disproportionate" use of force or decried the humanitarian crises."We're talking about the kind of language that is used, for example, when countries put down an insurrection in their own territory," said Sestanovich.An appeal for humanitarian assistance, he said, "calls attention to a real need, but it deflects attention to some extent from the real issue, which looks like conquest."Current and former officials suggested that the U.S. could take more drastic action if Russia moved to take Tbilisi and overthrow the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Under that scenario, the U.S. government analyst said, providing aid to a rebel Georgian army would probably be considered.Charles Wald, a retired Air Force general and former deputy head of U.S. European Command, said the United States will need to step up its private communications with Russia and warn that it will do more to protect Georgia if military action continues.But he also said the U.S. should have been paying closer attention to escalating tensions in Georgia."Retrospectively, if we allowed Saakashvili to think we are strategically going to protect him, we probably made a big mistake," Wald said.peter.spiegel@latimes.comjulian.barnes@latimes.comTimes staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-usoptions12-2008aug12,0,6948143,print.story
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McCain denounces Russian invasion
By Brian Knowlton
Monday, August 11, 2008
WASHINGTON: Senator John McCain issued a detailed and forceful denunciation of Russia on Monday, saying that it seemed intent on toppling the Georgian government and that Moscow needed to understand that this would have "severe, long-term negative consequences" for its relations with the West.
McCain called for emergency meetings of NATO's North Atlantic Council and of Group of 7 foreign ministers and for high-level U.S. consultations both with European allies and with countries like Ukraine that he said faced Russian intimidation.
He called for the United States to send economic and humanitarian aid to Georgia immediately.
In raw political terms, the crisis allows McCain to put on display his experience in foreign policy and security matters - and to draw an implicit contrast with Senator Barack Obama, whose experience in those areas he has questioned. It gives McCain a chance to appear presidential, to show his understanding of regional issues and to declare familiarity with European elites.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said that he had met with President Mikheil Saakashvili "many times, including during several trips to Georgia." When McCain visited in 2006, he met with officials in the region of South Ossetia and received an award from the Georgian government.
The Obama campaign has responded by questioning whether McCain was, perhaps, too closely aligned with Georgia. Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser, lobbied for the Georgian government from 2004 to 2006 - a connection that could further reverberate as the crisis unfolds.
McCain was speaking Monday from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he had gone to talk about the economy, on which he has admitted he has a less confident grasp.
Obama, for his part, was vacationing in Hawaii, and indeed was en route there Friday as the crisis unfolded. That left him somewhat slower to respond and his comments so far have been more guarded and shorn of the blunt threats McCain made of long-term damage to relations with Russia.
"I condemn Russia's aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate cease-fire," he said Saturday, adding: "Russia must stop its bombing campaign, cease flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia." He also called for "aggressive diplomatic action" involving the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations and the deployment of "genuine international peacekeeping forces" in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The Obama campaign did not respond immediately Monday to McCain's remarks.
McCain's aides have repeated that the senator has long taken a dim view of the leadership of Vladimir Putin, former president of Russia and now prime minister, whom McCain once called a "totalitarian dictator."
But Democratic critics, even those deploring the recent Russian action in South Ossetia and Georgia, have questioned whether McCain takes such a confrontational approach toward Moscow - he favors its expulsion from the Group of 8 - that he would be unable to work with it on overarching issues like Iran and North Korea.
In his remarks from Erie, McCain referred to the recent Russian actions as "alarming," "unacceptable" and a violation of international law. His language echoed increasingly tough remarks from the administration of President George W. Bush.
McCain portrayed the crisis as having implications far beyond the immediate region. South Ossetia, after all, has a population of barely 100,000, spread over a tiny mountainous area.
But Russia, the senator declared, was "using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbors such as Ukraine for choosing to associate with the West."
And because the Russian action came in defiance of NATO's reaffirmation in April of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia, "the integrity and influence of NATO" itself was at stake, he said.
McCain said the United States should continue bringing a resolution before the UN Security Council condemning Russian aggression and calling for withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgian territory - even if such a resolution faced a near-certain Russian veto in the council.
The Arizona senator's strong response to the Russian actions might also go some way toward counteracting the impact of a new Obama campaign advertisement.
The ad, punching back at a McCain ad that portrays Obama as a shallow celebrity, depicts McCain himself as a "Washington celebrity," a political insider close to President George W. Bush and to lobbyists.
The ad shows McCain on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno and being kissed on the forehead by Bush.
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=15181760
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Terrorism Report
August 8, 2008
Exclusive: As the West Sleeps, Islamists Work on Establishing a Worldwide Islamic State
(Part I of II)
M. Zuhdi Jasser
While we in the West sleep, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, is whispering in Arabic to hundreds of millions of Muslims how to establish Islamic states. In July he wrote two extensive columns (on July 13th and July 22nd) on the subject of the Islamic state in Arabic. Some Islamist apologists who remain ignorant of the threat of the Islamic state argue that the ascendancy of political Islam in the Muslim world is the better of “other evils” that could arise. Many Muslims and non-Muslims alike across the world, however, believe that it is self-evident that the ascendancy of political Islam will remain a significant security threat to the United States and to the West for decades to come as it has been so obviously so for anti-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the Middle East.
Full article via active link: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.827,css.print/pub_detail.asp
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No appeasement toward Russia, Lithuania says
Vilnius - Standing by in Georgia would mean following the scenario that allowed Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to conquer Europe, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said on Tuesday. "We cannot allow a second Munich," Adamkus said, referring to the Munich Conference in 1938 when France, Great Britain and Italy permitted annexation of part of Czechoslovakia.
"Then, countries appeased Hitler and it led to World War II, to a colossal tragedy and millions of lost human lives," he told Lithuanian radio.
Adamkus spoke hours before he and the presidents of Poland, Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia headed to Georgia to offer their support after Russia's military assault on the Caucasus nation.
The Baltics - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - were annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II. Independent since the end of the Cold War, they are among the fiercest critics of Moscow's intervention on behalf of Russian separatist regions of Georgia.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/225237,no-appeasement-toward-russia-lithuania-says.html
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Olympics: Iran loses to Lithuania in basketball
TEHRAN, Aug. 12 (Mehr News Agency)--Iranian basketball team was edged 99-67 by Lithuania in Group A in the preliminary round of the Olympic Men's Basketball tournament on Tuesday.
Lithuania's Linas Kleiza was the game's high scorer, netting 22 points, grabbing eight rebounds and giving two assists. His teammate Sarunas Jasikevicius made 20 points and three assists.
Iranian player Hamed Haddadi was the biggest contributor to his team with 21 points, nine rebounds and one assist. No other Iranian player scored in the double digits.
Iran had already lost its opener against European champions Russia 71-49 on Sunday.
The team is scheduled to play Australia on Thursday.
Iran is in Group A along with Russia, Argentina, Australia, Croatia and Lithuania.
In Group B, the host China has been drawn with Germany, Angola, Greece, Spain and the United States.
... Payvand News - 08/12/08 ...
http://www.payvand.com/news/08/aug/1104.html
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Adamkus: no matter where Lithuanians live, they have inborn right to be citizens of Lithuania
Petras Vaida, BC, Vilnius, 12.08.2008.
President Valdas Adamkus suggests a referendum on dual citizenship to hold next year and to initiate the amendment to the Article 12 of the Constitution.
Valdas Adamkus at the meeting with the heads of the Lithuanian World Community and the World Lithuanian Youth Union regional boards.
The president voiced this suggestion at the meeting with the heads of the Lithuanian World Community and the World Lithuanian Youth Union regional boards, which took place in Trakai, informed BC press service of the President.
It is offered to hold the referendum at the same time with the presidential elections.
"I am convinced that no matter where Lithuanians live, they have an inborn right to be Lithuanian citizens. Thus, we must seek for methods to grant them this right," the head of the state expressed his opinion on dual citizenship.
The president highlighted that his main task is to ensure the soundness of the Lithuanian Consitution as a foundation for the country"s existence.
"The Constitution imposed such a duty on me, and I, as the president of the country, am responsible for it," Adamkus said.
The president also noted that the law does not grant him the right to initiate the referendum, but he is determined to address the Seimas on this issue.
As ELTA reported earlier, the Seimas approved of Adamkus" amendments in July and decreased the number of potential candidates to receive dual citizenship. The Seimas withdrew its earlier provisions of the Citizenship Law, which allowed that the persons with the EU and NATO citizenship will not lose their Lithuanian citizenship.
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/education/&doc=4066
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Protesters in front of Russian embassy in Lithuania ask to stop aggression against Georgia
BC, Vilnius, 12.08.2008.
On Monday, about 50 Lithuanians protested against the actions of Russia in Georgia and asked to stop the operations and withdraw the military forces from the territories of sovereign Georgia, writes ELTA.
At the non-sanctioned protest in front of the Russian embassy, the protesters held Lithuanian flags with black ribbons, as well as Georgian flags and posters with inscriptions, which encouraged restoring peace and stopping the war.
The protesters commemorated on the memory of the killed during the military operations by a minute of silence.
A Georgian Kahar stood out of the rather quite group of protesters, and shouted in English for several times: "Stop Russia." Kahar, who lives in London for already five years, said that he came with his wife to Lithuania on vacation and heard here about the situation in his homeland.
"My family lives in Tbilisi. They are attacking and bombing them. My country, my relatives face horrible things. Is it how democracy works? I have a right to decide myself, whether to support the Right or Left, why should someone decide that instead of me?" Kahar asked.
The organizers of this protest campaign, who are the representatives of national coalition "For a strong Lithuania!", brought the memorandum on the destruction of the Georgian sovereignty to the Russian embassy.
On Tuesday, the protesters intend to gather in front of the Russian embassy twice – they will held a protest campaign at 11 a.m., and a peace rally at 7 p.m. On Wednesday, the masses will be held in Vilnius cathedral for peace in the world, then the protesters will march to the Seimas palace, in front of which they will held another peace rally.
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/baltic_news/?doc=1349
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