[Marxism] LMD: Russia gets its act together

[Walter Lippmann]

Also...
JUVENTUD REBELDE
The European Union will not Sanction Russia

Moscow is urging the EU not to get involved 
in Washington’s geopolitical game that aims 
at weakening both Russia and Europe 
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/international/2008-08-30/the-european-union-will-not-sanction-russia-/
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Le Monde diplomatique 
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September 2008
Russia gets its act together
by Serge Halimi

The question of responsibility for the hostilities in the
Caucasus shouldn't worry us too much. Less than a week after
Georgia's invasion, two well-known French commentators said
it was old stuff. An influential neo-conservative from the
United States backed that view: knowing who started things
"is not very important", wrote Robert Kagan. "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" (1).

One hypothesis deserves another. If, on the day of the
opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, somebody else than
Saakashvili, a graduate of New York's Columbia Law School,
had started a war, would western capitals and their media
have been able to contain righteous indignation at such a
symbolic act?

History is easier to follow when goodies and baddies are
decided in advance. The goodies, such as Georgia, have the
right to defend their territorial integrity against the
separatist struggles of their neighbours. The baddies, such
as Serbia, must accept the self-determination of minority
communities or expect to be bombed by Nato. The moral of this
story is even more enlightening when, to defend his country's
borders, the charming pro-American Saakashvili repatriates
some of the 2,000 soldiers he had sent to invade Iraq.

On 16 August President George Bush, speaking with gravity,
rightly invoked the "Security Council resolutions of the
United Nations" including the "sovereignty and independence
and territorial integrity" of Georgia whose "borders should
command the same respect as every other nation's".

Only the US has the right to act unilaterally when it decides
(or claims) that its security is at stake. In reality, events
have followed a simpler plan: the US plays for Georgia
against Russia; Russia plays for South Ossetia and Abkhazia
to "punish" Georgia.

Two Pentagon position papers have indicated a desire to
prevent the resurgence of Russian power ever since 1992, when
it was in ruins. To ensure that US hegemony, which began with
the first Gulf war and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc,
became permanent, the Pentagon announced that it would be
necessary to "convince likely rivals that they no longer need
aspire to a greater role". If that didn't work, the US would
know how "to dissuade" them. And the main target was Russia,
"the only power in the world which could destroy the US".

So can we chide Russian leaders for bristling against western
help for the "colour revolutions" of Ukraine and Georgia, the
inclusion of former members of the Warsaw Pact in Nato and
the prospect of US missiles on Polish soil - all of which
were elements of the old US strategy to weaken Russia,
whatever its regime or its politics? "Russia has become a
great power, that's what's so worrying," admitted Bernard
Kouchner, France's foreign minister (2).

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the architect of the US' risky strategy
in Afghanistan, recently explained the other part of the US
grand design: "We have access through Georgia... to the oil
and soon also the gas that lies not only in Azerbaijan but
beyond it in the Caspian sea and beyond in Central Asia. So,
in that sense, it's a very major and strategic asset to
us" (3). He can't be accused of inconsistency: even in the
days of Boris Yeltsin, when Russia was still floundering, he
advocated driving it from the Caucasus and Central Asia so
that energy flows to the West could be guaranteed (4).

Nowadays Russia is doing better, the US is doing less well
and oil prices have taken off. Victim of its president's
provocative actions, Georgia has just been hit from three
directions.
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(1) Bernard-Henri Lévy and André Glucksmann, Libération, 14
August 2008, and Robert Kagan, Washington Post, 11 August
2008.

(2) Interview in the Journal de Dimanche, Paris, 17 August
2008.

(3) Bloomberg News, 12 August 2008.

(4) Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, Basic Books,
New York, 1997.

 

Translated by Robert Waterhouse


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   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1997-2008 Le Monde diplomatique

   <http://MondeDiplo.com/2008/09/01russia>











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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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