More "nuances" in the Georgia - Russia conflict

Steve Clemons of the Washington Note invited Dmitri Simes, president of The Nixon Center, to do a guest post. Mr. Simes' credentials are impressive and the post he wrote offered both background and questions that are not being seen in the traditional media which is totally focused on the "Russia is the aggressor" theme.

It is remarkable, but probably inevitable, that so many in Washington have reacted with surprise and outrage to Russia's response to President Mikheil Saakashvili's attempt to reestablish Georgian control over South Ossetia by force.

Some of the angriest statements come from those inside and outside the Bush administration who contributed, I assume unwittingly, to making this crisis happen. And like post-WMD justifications for the invasion of Iraq, the people demanding the toughest action against Russia are focused on Russia's lack of democracy and heavy-handed conduct, particularly in its own neighborhood, and away from how the confrontation actually unfolded. Likewise, just as in the case of Saddam Hussein, these same people accuse anyone who points out that things are not exactly black and white, and that the U.S. government may have its own share of responsibility for the crisis, of siding with aggressive tyrants - in this case, in the Kremlin. [...]

The Kremlin made abundantly clear that it would view Kosovo's independence without Serbian consent and a U.N. Security Council mandate as a precedent for the two Georgian de facto independent enclaves. Furthermore, while President Saakashvili was making obvious his ambition to reconquer Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow was both publicly and privately warning that Georgia's use of force to reestablish control of the two regions would meet a tough Russian reaction, including, if needed, air strikes against Georgia proper.

So it would be interesting to know what President Saakashvili was thinking when, on Thursday night, after days of relatively low-level shelling around the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali (which both South Ossetians and Georgians blamed on each other), and literally hours after he announced on state-controlled TV the cessation of hostilities, he ordered a full-scale assault on Tskhinvali. And mind you, the assault could only succeed if the Georgian units went right through the battalion of Russian troops serving as international peacekeepers according to agreements signed by Tbilisi itself in the 1990s.

Under the circumstances, the Russian forces had three choices: to surrender, to run away, or to fight. And fight they did - particularly because many of the Russian soldiers were in fact South Ossetians with families and friends in Tskhinvali under Georgian air, tank, and artillery attacks. Saakashvili was reckless to count on proceeding with a blitzkrieg in South Ossetia without a Russian counterattack.

Continued here

Mr. Simes also appeared on the Newshour along with Richard Holbrooke and made some of the same points there in response to Holbrooke's hammering of "the Russians are the aggressors" party line.

It's interesting to keep the points made in both of those events in mind when considering this item reported by the International Herald Tribune on July 15th.

Georgian and U.S. troops started a joint military exercise Tuesday [7-14-2008] amid growing tensions between the ex-Soviet republic and Russia, a Georgian defense ministry official said.

About 1,200 U.S. servicemen and 800 Georgians will train for three weeks at the Vaziani military base near the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, ministry spokesman Mindiya Arabuli said. The drills were planned months ago and are not related to recent tensions over two separatist Georgian regions that are backed by Moscow, he said.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has courted the United States and sent a large contingent of troops to Iraq. His efforts to move Georgia from under Russia's shadow and into NATO have angered Moscow, which has stepped up support for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Also Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry started a military exercise in the nearby North Caucasus region. Ministry spokesman Yuri Ivanov said the drill had "nothing to do" with the Georgian-U.S. maneuvers.

Georgia claims a string of recent explosions and border skirmishes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are part of a Russian plan to annex the regions, while Russia claims Georgia is gearing up for a mid to take control of the regions by force.

Why were US troops training with Georgian troops in Georgia right outside of? Tblisi five months before a US election? The pro forma denial that the military exercises had nothing to do with the two autonomous provinces rings very hollow.

[Update:  strikeout added to clarify the point.  Did not mean to imply direct relationship between joint exercise scheduling and election schedules.]

There are two possibilities: the Bush foreign policy administration is so incompetent that it didn't realize that such activities would push Saakashvili over the edge into imprudent action against South Ossetia. Or the Bush foreign policy administration did know that the activities would push Saakashvili over the edge and went forward with it because the predictable results would support some other action that they want to take.

So what action would neo-conservatives about to be tossed out of power want to instigate? That is the real question.

Could it have something to do with Cheney's wish to invade Iran before he and Bush leave office? There are some outside the US press who think it may have something to do with what's happened.

From The Asia Times,

Georgia is one of Iran's "near neighbors" and as a result of geographical proximity and important political and geostrategic considerations, the current Russia-Georgia conflict is closely watched by Tehran, itself under threat of military action by the US and or Israel, which may now feel less constrained about attacking Iran in light of Russia's war with Georgia.

So far, Tehran has not adopted an official position, limiting itself to a telephone conference between Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, expressing Iran's desire to see a speedy end of the conflict for the sake of "peace and stability in the region". Tehran's dailies have likewise refrained from in-depth analyses of the crisis and from providing editorial perspectives, and the government-owned media have stayed clear of any coverage that might raise Moscow's objection.

Behind Iran's official silence is a combination of factors. These range from Iran's common cause with Moscow against expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), interpreting this crisis as a major setback for NATO's "eastward expansion" in light of the unabashed pro-West predilections of Tbilisi's government, to Iran's sensitivity to Russia's national security concerns. The latter are heightened by the US's plans to install anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe, not to overlook Iran's concern as not to give the Kremlin any ammunition that could be used against it in Tehran's standoff over its nuclear program.

Representing a serious new rift in US-Russia relations, the conflict in the Caucasus, paralyzing the UN Security Council and igniting Cold War-type rhetoric between the two military superpowers, is simultaneously a major distraction from the Iran nuclear crisis and may even spell doom for the multilateralist "Iran Six" diplomacy. This involves the US, Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany in negotiations over Iran's uranium-enrichment program, which some believed is aimed at making nuclear weapons.

Never mind that we've broken our military and are stretched so thin in trying to support two simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We certainly can't support a third war.

What does Dick Cheney have in mind? Was it his intent to draw attacks on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa pipelines thus throwing more uncertainty into the global oil market and increasing profits for the Cheney-Bush families and oil buddies?

Or as some fear, does he want to try out the tactical nuclear weapons we've developed on Iran as per the plan the Pentagon constructed for him? As Scott Ritter has warned, pick the US city you want destroyed. If nuclear weapons are used anywhere in a Muslim state, it is inevitable that the same will be used in retaliation on a US city.

Or do we put this down to incompetence? I'd like to see the traditional media spending a whole lot more time on the motivations behind the Bush administration actions. It would be very enlightening and much more useful than the "Russians are aggressors and rebuilding their empire" line that's currently being pushed.