Looney Clooney helps "The One" polish his image and offers him advice on foreign affairs. (See 1 below.)
Another pip squeaks. (See 2 below.)
In Germany what goes around never left. (See 3 below.)
Parker pokes! (See 4 below.)
Russia invading Georgia could give some other dictators and/or pinhead politicos some juicy ideas.
China could invade Taiwan but only after the Olympics so as not to disturb their human rights's record.
Then N Korea could invade S Korea simply to feed their folks.
Cuba could attack Miami Beach as payback for the Bay of Pigs debacle.
Venezuela could attack Crawford, Texas so Chavez could control more oil and stick it to GW.
The North could attack the south again here in the good 'ole US of A.
Now Iran has a myriad of choices. They could attack Israel, Saudi Arabia or all of Europe.
Northern Ireland could start up again.
Africa is already a pot boiling over so they could just keep at it.
What about Britain having to defend the Fauklands again?
Pakistan could could nuclear against India.
The Palestinians could keep on killing each other.
All of this because Putin got tired of sitting and watching the Olympics. Maybe he has A D D and needs to be on Ritulin.
I am leaving on an extended three week trip to Spain, Italy, France and Croatia. I am doing it to celebrate some major birthdays and because my wife wants me to see Italy and I want to see Croatia. The cruise line threw in Spain and France for good measure.
Frankly, except for the fact I always love traveling with my wife, I ain't overly excited about visiting Europe - the land of the former great and home of our own western culture and now the Muslim appeasement capital of the world.
Another reason I ain't overly excited is because of the rampant number of gypsy pickpockets in Barcelona and the fact that the cost of everything is beyond ridiculous partly because of the decimation of the dollar and partly because of the high cost of energy which impacts these countries more than it does ours.
The final reason I am not clapping is the prevalence of anti-Semitism and anti-American sentiment in these various countries.
For the next three weeks you will have to read newspapers, journals and various intelligence reports yourselves and reach your own conclusions. When I return both McCain and Obama should have selected their VP's, Hillary and Bill should have finished their faint praise act and it will be only a few more months before we learn who will be hosting foreign dignitaries to fancy White House dinners.
The next four years should be fun whoever is elected because we will still have the Ev and Charlie show in the guise of Pelosi and Reid for comedy. They will be throwing bombs of bi-partisanship across the aisle daring Republicans to vote against their pork laden legislative payoffs to their chosen cronies. Many Republicans will succumb because they love pork and self-inflicted wounds.
If Obama is president there is no telling what will be happening and how many immediate challenges he will face. He might not even be able to spend much time in The Oval Office because he could be attending a whole host of peace negotiations and diplomatic journeys to Iran, Russia, N Korea, Botswana, Cuba, Venezuela and you name it. (No the latter is not a new country.)
If McCain becomes president he might be staying home trying to recover from the exhaustion of running a hard fought campaign.
If that is not enough to excite you think of all the new Cabinet Faces and bureaucrat's names we will have to learn. That could take at least a year.
Finally, we will have press and media stories praising "The One" should he win and probing analysis should der Alte win.
I can't wait to return.
Dick
1)How Clooney offers good friend Obama advice on issues from body language to Iraq
By CAROLINE GRAHAM and SHARON CHURCHER
·
George Clooney once famously declared he could never run for public office because he’d ‘slept with too many women, done too many drugs and been to too many parties’.
But now the Hollywood heart-throb has entered the political arena at
the highest level – by becoming an unofficial adviser to US Presidential front-runner Barack Obama.
Oscar-winner Clooney, 47, is said to be helping the Democratic candidate to polish his image at home and abroad.
But he is also sharing with Obama his strong opinions on Iraq and the Middle East.
Oscar-winner George Clooney is said to call Barack Obama at least twice a week
Sources say the actor has tried to hide the pair’s friendship for fear his Left-wing views and playboy image would hurt the Presidential hopeful’s bid for the White House.
But Democratic Party insiders have revealed that Clooney and Obama regularly send texts and emails to each other and speak by phone at least twice a week.
One said last night: ‘They are extremely close. A number of members of the Hollywood community, including Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, offered to help raise funds for Barack but it was with George that he struck up this amazing affinity.
‘George has been giving him advice on things such as presentation, public speaking and body language and he also emails him constantly about policy, especially the Middle East.
‘George is pushing him to be more “balanced” on issues such as US relations with Israel.
'George is pro-Palestinian. And he is also urging Barack to withdraw unconditionally from Iraq if he wins.
‘It’s a very risky relationship. His hope of becoming America’s first black President depends heavily on winning over conservative voters and it would be suicidal for him to be perceived as a tool of a Hollywood Leftie, which is how they regard George.
‘But they text and email each other almost every day and speak on the phone at least a couple of times a week, often more.’
The Ocean’s Eleven star is among many Hollywood figures to have endorsed Obama, including Barbra Streisand, Scarlett Johansson, Warren Beatty and Steven Spielberg.
One of Clooney’s trusted acquaintances said: ‘George is a master at crafting his own image and he is helping Obama to hone his image both domestically and abroad.
'He told me he feels Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime leader. He is doing everything he can behind the scenes to bolster support in Hollywood, not just with other celebrities but with the money men at the studios.’
The acquaintance added: ‘He has tried to keep the true extent of their involvement out of the Press because he is frightened of alienating voters.’
Clooney himself has admitted in an interview: ‘I’ve had the conversation with him saying, “Look, I’ll give you whatever support you need, including staying completely away from you.”’
The star has never tried to hide his liberal views and last week announced he is making a £15million film about the lawyer who defended Osama Bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Hamdan, on terror charges.
Clooney’s spokesman Stan Rosen-feld said last night: ‘I know they have spoken. I view it as a private conversation.’ Obama’s Press office did not comment
2) Ahmadinejad: West must quit support of dying Israeli regime
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh verbal attack on Israel on Wednesday on the eve of a visit to Turkey, saying Western countries should quit their support of Israel.
The comments highlight the difficult path which Turkey, a member of NATO and a close ally of Israel, must follow during the two-day visit which reflects its desire to remain on good terms with its neighbor and secure future energy needs.
"Western countries should not support them [Israel] so much. The life of this regime has come to an end," Ahmadinejad said in comments translated into Turkish in a live interview broadcast by Turkey's NTV and CNN Turk channels.
"Our position is clear on this issue. A referendum should take place in Palestine. If they withdraw from invaded lands it would be a good step," he said.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have come under criticism at home and abroad for inviting Ahmadinejad.
Ankara has said his visit was necessary given a standoff between Iran and the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear enrichment program, but analysts said the visit was more about ensuring centuries-old ties during a period of global tensions.
Ahmadinejad said the talks on Iran's nuclear program were on a "good path."
3)Report: German neo-Nazis stepping up violent attacks
Head of German Federal Crime Office tells Berlin daily that police has noted rise in neo-Nazi-related violence; says increase 'reason for concern'
German neo-Nazis appear to have made a tactical shift and are increasingly turning to violence; the country's top police officer was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Joerg Ziercke, head of the Federal Crime Office (BKA), told Der Tagesspiegel newspaper the number of violent incidents remained high and noted that neo-Nazis had been particularly aggressive in clashes in Hamburg at the beginning of May.
Troubling Figures
Report: Anti-Semitism on the rise in UK / Itamar Eichner
Community Security Trust records 266 anti-Semitic incidents in first half of 2008, a 9% rise from 244 incidents registered in first six months of 2007
Full story
"I see a new character, above all after the riots on May 1 in Hamburg," the daily quoted him as saying in a preview of its Monday edition.
"The black block of neo-Nazis are attacking left-wingers and police officers with an aggression that can be seen as a change in strategy," he said. "Before, neo-Nazis largely avoided violence for tactical reasons but this no longer appears to be the case."
The incidents in Hamburg in May 1 were the worst in several years and authorities said people would have died had riot police not intervened.
Around 6,000 people demonstrated against a march organized by the far-right NPD party involving some 1,500 people. Police detained 200 people and made 60 arrests. Twenty police officers were injured.
Ziercke told the Tagesspiegel the number of arson attacks involving the right-wing had risen to 15 in the first five months of this year, five times as many as the same period in 2007. This was "a further reason for concern," he added.
4) Vlad, You've Got Mail
By Kathleen Parker
From President George W. Bush:
Dear Vlad:
Beijing is weird. First of all, you can't breathe the air. Second, how 'bout those drummers? Sure, they're perfect, but that's the point. A billion Chinese see 2,000 drummers in sync and say, "Well done, my little emperor son." I see 2,000 drummers all moving with one motion and I'm thinking: "Whoa." Can anybody say MIL-I-TAR-Y PRE-CI-SION?
Hey, which reminds me. What's up with Georgia? This is not good, Vlad. You and I have had our moments. And, OK, fine, your dog's bigger than mine. A lot bigger. Stronger and faster, too. We got it. But you can't just go invading democratically elected countries that are U.S. allies. You can't have everything, Vlad. If you don't stop, I'm going to have to do something and you know I don't want that. What I want is for you to not make me look like a fool.
Look, Vlad. Seven years ago, it was you and me in Crawford. We had a blast. You loved my truck! We bonded. I went out on a very big limb and told the whole dadgum world that we were soul mates. "I looked the man in the eye," I said. "I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy," I said. Oh, yeah, and, "We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul."
Trustworthy, Vlad. Got soul? Why not just hire the Goodyear Blimp and paint "Mission Accomplished" on the side? Here's the deal, Vlad. I love ya, man. But you gotta stop this. If you don't call a cease-fire and leave those Georgians alone, I'm going to have to whomp you upside the head. Just kiddin.' But you know how this looks. Your invasion of a sovereign neighboring state is unacceptable in the 21st century -- blahblahblah -- and you're hurting Russia's standing in the world, not to mention our relationship.
Oh, and by the way. We're talking 4 million people here. Four million, Vlad. You wanna let the big dog eat? Fine. Pick on somebody your own size. And yes, your pecs are bigger than mine. Whatever. Hey, gotta split. It's Kobe time. Take care and give my love to that cute little gymnast of yours.
Ciao amigo,
Bushy
P.S. Did you catch the American women's beach volleyball team?
From Sen. Barack Obama:
Dear (Former) President Putin:
I'm sorry to be writing this e-mail instead of meeting you in person, preferably in the Oval Office, where I belong. Soon, soon.
Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the foregoing, I felt it imperative that I express my deep concern about Russia's invasion of the tiny, democratically elected sovereign nation of Georgia. It would appear that you are not familiar with my platform for change and hope. War does not fit into this template and I am quite frankly at a loss for words to express my deep, deep distress.
As the chosen leader of a new generation of Americans who speak a global language of peace, hope, harmony and change, this is simply unacceptable. Quite frankly, your actions pose potentially severe, long-term consequences. I'm not sure what those might be, but they won't be nice or fun.
Please picture me looking very serious when I say that I respectfully request you to calm down. Life is but a flicker in time and we're but actors strutting and fretting. That is to say, we're all on this planetary journey together and our karma is interrelated and interdependent. Thus, it would seem that our differences are best resolved through words, not bombs.
It is said that war is a failure of diplomacy. I would submit that it is also counterintuitive. If my Kenyan father and my Kansan mother and my multinational upbringing taught me anything, it is that we are all One. That said, I am The One the world has been waiting for -- and you are, quite frankly, blocking my chi.
As soon as possible, I'd like to sit down and begin talking about how we can resolve these and other differences that threaten peace-loving people, which I'm sure includes you. I haven't looked into your eyes and would never presume to know your soul, but I do know that we share a common humanity and that we can all just get along.
Yours in Global Harmony,
Acting President Barack Obama
From Sen. John McCain:
Hey, Putin.
Don't make me come over there.
McCain
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Chess versus Poker. Who blinks?
Simon Jenkins writes a harsh rebuke of GW and concludes Putin is laughing all the way to Georgia. (See 1 below.)
Whenever GW goes out of town the walls come crashing down it seems. First it was 9/11, then Hurricane Katrina in La. and now The Chinese Olympics followed by Georgia. When GW stays home he also must do more than hurl empty threats and call for ineffective sanctions as part of his post Iraq diplomacy.
The Wall Street Journal is full of op ed articles taking the West and GW to task for their ineffectual behaviour towards Russia.The lead editorial reminds GW of what Truman did regarding the Berlin Airlift.
GW holds a weak hand but standing there like a deer in headlights will not work as Bush must have concluded so he has responded with aid and another demand Russia stand down. Putin is now challenged and it will be interesting to see how this plays out should there be further obstinacy on Putin's part. If Putin is perceived as backing down he will lose face and that must be going through his mind. Russians are master at chess. GW, hopefully, knows something about Texas poker.(See 2- 5 below.)
Investors, hold your breath and will China take umbrage at Putin's actions which have undercut their Olympic Party?
Furthermore, if I were Israel I would be asking what happened to the US satellite's that should have detected a Russian military build up? Is Israel's reliance upon US satellites warning of an Iranian missile launching going to cut it or be persuasive? Is this a safe sure bet for Israel?
Dick
1) Bush rebuking Russia? Putin must be splitting his sides
By Simon Jenkins
Moscow has to take some of the blame. But it is the west's policy of liberal interventionism that has fuelled war in Georgia
One thing is for sure. This week's operation in Georgia has displayed the failure of the west's policy of belligerence towards Vladimir Putin's Russia. The policy was meant to weaken Russia, and has strengthened it. The policy was meant to humiliate Russia with Nato encirclement, and has merely fed its neo-imperialism. The policy was meant to show that Russia "understands only firmness" and instead has shown the west as a bunch of tough-talking windbags.
Georgia, a supposed western ally and applicant to Nato, has been treated by Russia to a brutal lesson in power politics. The west has lost all leverage and can do nothing. Seldom was a policy so crashingly stupid.
Putin would die laughing if he read this week's American newspapers. The president, George Bush, declared the Russian invasion of Georgia "disproportionate and unacceptable". This is taken as a put-down to the vice-president, Dick Cheney, who declared the invasion "will not go unanswered", apparently something quite different. Bush says that great powers should not go about "toppling governments in the 21st century", as if he had never done such a thing. Cheney says that the invasion has "damaged Russia's standing in the world", as if Cheney gave a damn. The lobby for sanctions against Russia is reduced to threatening to boycott the winter Olympics. Big deal.
Every student of the Caucasus has known since the fall of the Soviet empire that this part of the world was an explosion waiting to happen. The crisscrossing fault lines of ethnicity, religion and nationalism, fuelled by gas and oil, would not long survive the removal of the Red Army and communist discipline. There were too many old scores to settle, too much territory in dispute and too much wealth at stake - rivalries brilliantly portrayed in Kurban Said's classic novel of Edwardian Azerbaijan, Ali & Nino.
In every crisis the west craves goodies and baddies. The media finds it impossible to report a modern conflict without taking sides. In Yugoslavia, where a similar clash of separatist minorities occurred in the 1990s, coverage was so biased that Kosovo is still "plucky little" and the Serbs can still do no right.
In South Ossetia both sides appear to have committed appalling atrocities, and can thus generate a sense of outrage in front of whatever camera is pointed at them. Georgia's government claimed the right to assert military control over its two dissident provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, even if they were openly in league with Russia. Equally, Russia felt justified in stopping the consequent evictions and killings of its nationals in these provinces, in which it had a humanitarian locus as "peacekeeper".
The difficulty is that entitlement and good sense are rarely in accord. Georgia may have been entitled to act, but was clearly unwise to do so. Russia may have been entitled to aid its people against an oppressor, but that is different from unleashing its notoriously inept and ruthless army, let alone bombing Georgia's capital and demanding a change in its government.
What is clear is that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is a poor advertisement for a Harvard education. He thought he could reoccupy South Ossetia and call Russia's bluff while Putin was away at the Olympics. He found it was not bluff. Putin was waiting for just such an invitation to humiliate a man he loathes, and to deter any other Russian border state from applying to join Nato, an organisation Russia had itself sought to join until it was rudely rebuffed.
Saakashvili thought he could call on the support of his neoconservative allies in Washington. Tbilisi is one of the few world cities in which Bush's picture is a pin-up and where an avenue is named after him. It turned out that such "support" was mere words. America is otherwise engaged in wars that bear a marked resemblance to those waged by Putin. It defended the Kurdish enclaves against Saddam Hussein. It sought regime change in Serbia and Afghanistan. As Putin's troops in South Ossetia were staging a passable imitation of the US 101st Airborne entering Iraq, Bush was studiously watching beach volleyball in Beijing.
The truth is that the world has no conceptual framework for adjudicating, let alone resolving, these timeless border conflicts. Where poverty is rife, it takes only a clan war and a ready supply of guns for hostilities to break out. The only question is how to stop them escalating.
Once such conflicts could be quarantined by the United Nations' requirement to respect national sovereignty. That has been shot to pieces by the liberal interventionism of George Bush and Tony Blair. The result has reinvigorated separatist movements across the world. Small-statism is not an evil in itself: witness its quadrennial festival at the Olympics. But the process of achieving it is usually bitter and bloody.
The west's eagerness to intervene in favour of partition, manifest in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Sudan, is more than meddling. It encouraged every oppressed people and province on earth to be "the mouse that roared", to think it could ensnare a great power in its cause.
The parallels are glaring. If we backed Kosovo against the Serbs, why not back South Ossetia against the Georgians? But if we backed the Kurds against the Iraqis, why not the Georgians against Russia? Indeed, had Nato admitted Georgia to full membership, there is no knowing what Caucasian horror might have ensued from the resulting treaty obligation. Decisions which in Washington and London may seem casual gestures of ideological solidarity can mean peace and war on the ground.
I retain an archaic belief that the old UN principle of non-interference, coupled with a realpolitik acceptance of "great power" spheres of influence, is still a roughly stable basis for international relations. It may on occasions be qualified by soft-power diplomacy and humanitarian relief. It may demand an abstinence from kneejerk gestures in favour of leaving things to sort themselves out (as in Zimbabwe). But liberal interventionism, especially when it leads to military and economic aggression, means one costly adventure after another - and usually failure.
The west has done everything to isolate Putin, as he rides the tiger of Russian emergence from everlasting dictatorship. This has encouraged him to care not a fig for world opinion. Equally the west has encouraged Saakashvili to taunt Putin beyond endurance. The policy has led to war. If ever there were a place just to leave alone, it is surely the Caucasus.
2) BUSINESS WORLD: First Yukos, Then Georgia
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
Now the world is getting an idea of what a "war for oil" really looks like. Few in the West appreciate the degree to which Vladimir Putin and the Soviet, er, Russian, elite subscribe to a prewar view of power relations and national greatness. Their view is not based on self-reproducing institutions and innovation and the power of trade, but on territory and resources -- lebensraum, as one of their intellectual progenitors called it.
Whatever the pretexts and emotional resonances, the Republic of Georgia, transit territory for two important energy pipelines, was also a challenge to Mr. Putin's pursuit of power through control of energy supplies, especially for home heating, to Western Europe.
Western governments and Western oil executives have played an unwise role in Mr. Putin's plan. No amount of contract abrogation, outright seizure of property or subsidiary mayhem by Russian authorities seems able to dissuade them from throwing good money after bad in pursuit of Russian resources. Western minority shareholders in Yukos were wiped out with nary a peep when the Russian government seized the oil company on tax charges. There's been virtually no official pushback as environmental offenses were alleged as a reason to squeeze Western partners out of various drilling and pipeline projects after billions of dollars were committed.
Indeed, with what breezy confidence Mr. Putin must have turned Western oil companies into his political punching bags, knowing that back home Western politicians (Nancy Pelosi, Byron Dorgan, Dick Durbin, etc.) were doing exactly the same in pursuit of their own narrow and shortsighted political quests.
Barack Obama thinks the solution to high gasoline prices is punitive taxes on Exxon. All this in the background could not have failed to reassure Mr. Putin that the West would not invest political capital in protecting the interests of its oil companies. He learned that his allies could go so far as to commit nuclear terrorism (so it has been alleged) to murder one of his political critics in London without consequences. Why expect any blowback from merely repeatedly defrauding Western energy investors?
All along, governments and CEOs have reasoned that sooner or later Russia would discover its stake in commercial comity: Russia needs Western capital and technology to develop its oil. To get, you have to give; potential partners must see over time that Russia's word is reliable.
Westerners miscalculated Mr. Putin's ability to miscalculate, a mistake they've made before.
More than once, we've likened Mr. Putin to Saddam Hussein. Both got the upper hand over aging mentors, and forced them into retirement. Both launched wars (Chechnya and Iran). Both gambled that their control of energy made them immune to Western pushback. Never mind that a U.S.-led coalition willingly shut Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil out of world markets after Saddam's invasion in 1990, even at the cost of spiking prices and recession in the West. Saddam to the end believed dangling oil contracts in front of French and Russian companies would be proof against a second President Bush's determination to remove him.
Likely, Mr. Putin miscalculates too. Western powers may not do much immediately about his squeeze on Georgia, but over time he will find he has created conditions for the emergence of a coalition to contain Russian energy power. His immediate neighbors, with fresh memories of Soviet domination, will be even more eager to align themselves with the West and NATO. Possibly even the myopic Germans will discern they've gone too far in putting themselves in energy hock to Moscow. They may even start asking pointed questions about the presence of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on the board of Nord Stream, a Gazprom affiliate devoted to increasing German reliance on Russian gas.
Those of escapist bent will see in all this a reason to put Congress in charge of spending billions aimed at the false utopia of "energy independence." You will hear such blather in the coming months, but it will amount to little. America instead will grapple with the need to administer the reality principle to the Russian regime; we will face up to our responsibility to diversify our energy supplies -- dropping our trade barriers to Brazilian ethanol and opening up our domestic resources to development would be good places to start. The time to really worry will be when America, in pursuit of primitive concepts like energy independence, decides to follow Mr. Putin back to the 1930s.
3) Welcome Back:To the Great Game
By MELIK KAYLAN
Last year, President Mikheil Saakashvili invited me along on a helicopter flight to see Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's capital, from the air. We viewed it at some distance to avoid Russian antiaircraft missiles manned by Russian personnel.
He pointed out a lone hilltop sprinkled with houses some 10 miles inside Georgian territory -- scarcely even a town. Much of the population, namely the Georgians, had long ago been purged by Russian-backed militias, leaving behind a rump population of Ossetian farmers and Russian security forces posing as Ossetians. "We have offered them everything," he said, "language rights, land rights, guaranteed power in parliament, anything they want, and they would take it, if the Kremlin would let them."
Moscow's thin pretense of protecting an ethnic group provided just enough cover for Georgia's timorous friends in the West to ignore increasing Russian provocations over the past few years. Moscow, it now seems, intends to "protect" large numbers of Georgians too -- by occupying and killing them if that's what it takes -- and prevent them from building their own history and pursuing their democratic destiny, as it has for almost two centuries.
As we worry about another Russian imperialist adventure in Georgia, we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture either: To wit, Moscow has always had a clear strategic use for the Caucasus, one that concerns the U.S. today more than ever.
Having overestimated the power of the Soviet Union in its last years, we have consistently underestimated the ambitions of Russia since. Already, a great deal has been said about the implications of Russia's invasion for Ukraine, the Baltic States and Europe generally. But few have noticed the direct strategic threat of Moscow's action to U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Kremlin is not about to reignite the Cold War for the love of a few thousand Ossetians or even for its animosity toward five million Georgians. This is calculated strategic maneuvering. And make no mistake, it's about countering U.S. power at its furthest stretch with Moscow's power very close to home.
The pivotal geography of the Caucasus offers the Kremlin just such an opportunity. Look at a map, and the East-meets-West, North-meets-South vector lines of the region illustrate all too clearly how the drama now unfolding in the Caucasus casts Moscow's shadow all across Central Asia and down into the Middle East. In effect, we in the West are being challenged by Russian actions in Georgia to show that we have the nerve and the stamina to secure the gains not just of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but of the entire collapse of Soviet power.
[Welcome Back to the Great Game]
Between Russia and Iran, in the lower Caucasus, sits a small wedge of independent soil -- namely, the soil of Azerbaijan and Georgia combined. Through those two countries runs the immensely important Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which delivers precious oil circuitously from Azerbaijan to Turkey and out to the world. This is important not just because of the actual oil being delivered free of interference from Russia and Iran and the Middle East, but also for symbolic reasons. It says to the world that if any former Moscow colonies wish to sell their wares to the West directly, they have a right to do so, and the West will support that right. According to Georgian authorities, Russian warplanes have tried to demolish the Georgian leg of that pipeline several times in the last days. Their message cannot be clearer.
Besides their own pipeline, Georgia and Azerbaijan offer a fragile strategic conduit between the West and the "stans" of Central Asia -- including Afghanistan -- an area that the Soviets once controlled in toto. We should remember that an isolated Central Asia means an isolated Afghanistan. Look at the countries surrounding Afghanistan -- all former Soviet colonies, then Iran, then Pakistan.
The natural resources of Central Asia, from Turkmenistan's natural gas to Kazakhstan's abundant oil, cannot reach the West free of Russia and Iran except through that narrow conduit in the Caucasus. Moscow's former colonies in Central Asia are Afghanistan's most desirable trading partners. They are watching the strife in Georgia closely. It will tell them whether or not they will enter the world's free markets without a Russian chokehold on their future -- or, whether they, and their economies, are doomed for the foreseeable future to remain colonies in all but name. And it won't be long before Moscow dictates to them exactly how to isolate Kabul. Moscow is perfectly aware, even if we are not, that choking off the bottleneck in the Caucasus gives Iran and Russia much say over our efforts in Afghanistan.
In Iraq too, the Kremlin's projection of power down through Georgia will soon be felt. Take another look at the map. If Russia is allowed to extend its reach southwards, as in Soviet times, down the Caucasus to Iran's borders, Moscow can support Iran in any showdown with the West. Iran, thus emboldened, will likely attempt to reassert itself in Iraq, Syria and, via Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
We could walk away from this challenge, hoping for things to cool off, and let the Russians impose sway over the lower Caucasus for now. But no one will fail to notice our weakness. If we don't draw the line here, it doesn't get easier down the road with any other border or country. We would be risking the future of Afghanistan, and the stability of Iraq, on the good will of Moscow and the mullahs in Tehran. This is how the game of grand strategy is played, whether we like it or not.
4) REVIEW & OUTLOOK: Bush and Georgia
On June 13, 1948, the day after the Soviet Union took the first step in its blockade of Berlin, U.S. General Lucius Clay sent a cable to Washington making the case for standing up to the Soviets. "We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and in Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of the American intent." The Berlin Airlift began 13 days later.
Sixty years on, U.S. credibility is again on the line as the Bush Administration stumbles to respond to the Russian invasion of Georgia. So far the Administration has been missing in action, to put it mildly. The strategic objective is twofold: to prevent Moscow from going further to topple Georgia's democratic government in the coming days, and to deter future Russian aggression.
* * *
President Bush finally condemned Russia's actions on Monday after a weekend of Olympics tourism in Beijing while Georgia burned. Meanwhile, the State Department dispatched a mid-level official to Tbilisi, and unnamed Administration officials carped to the press that Washington had warned Georgia not to provoke Moscow. That's hardly a show of solidarity with a Eurasian democracy that has supported the U.S. in Iraq with 2,000 troops.
Compared to this August U.S. lethargy, the French look like Winston Churchill. In Moscow yesterday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acting as president of the European Union, got Russia to agree to a provisional cease-fire that could return both parties' troops to their positions before the conflict started. His next stop was Tbilisi, on the heels of a visit from Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
If both sides agree to a cease-fire, Mr. Sarkozy promises that Europe will consider sending peacekeepers to enforce it. We trust he will find volunteers from the former Soviet republics, which see the writing on the wall if Russian aggression in Georgia is left unchallenged. The leaders of Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia flew to Tbilisi this week in a show of solidarity.
NATO also met yesterday and denounced the invasion, while stopping short of promising military aid to Georgia. Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the allies "condemned and deplored [Russia's] excessive, disproportionate use of force," and demanded a return to the status quo ante.
The NATO leader also said Georgia's potential membership remains "very much alive" and that it would be a member of NATO one day. Georgia and Ukraine's applications come up again in December, and perhaps even Germany, which blocked their membership bids earlier this year, will now rethink its objections given that its refusal may have encouraged Russia to assume it could reassert control over its "near abroad."
Much as it respects and owes Georgia, the U.S. is not going to war with Russia over a non-NATO ally. But there are forceful diplomatic and economic responses at its disposal. Expelling Russia from the G-8 group of democracies, as John McCain has suggested, is one. Barring Russia's long desired entry into the World Trade Organization is another. Russian leaders should also be told that their financial assets held abroad aren't off limits to sanction. And Moscow should know that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on the Black Sea are in jeopardy. A country that starts a war on the weekend the Beijing Olympics began doesn't deserve such an honor.
The Georgian people also deserve U.S. support. One way to demonstrate that would be a "Tbilisi airlift," ferrying military and humanitarian supplies to the Georgian capital, which is currently cut off by Russian troops from its Black Sea port. Secretary of State Rice or Defense Secretary Robert Gates should be in one of the first planes. After the fighting ends, the U.S. can lead the recovery effort. And since the Russians are demanding his ouster, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili deserves U.S. support too. Moscow wants a puppet leader in Tbilisi, and U.S. officials are playing into Valdimir Putin's hands with their media whispers that this is all Mr. Saakashvili's fault.
Reshaping U.S. policy toward Russia will take longer than the months between now and January 20, when a new President takes office. But Mr. Bush can at least atone for his earlier misjudgments about Mr. Putin and steer policy in a new direction that his successor would have to deal with. If that successor is Barack Obama, this is an opportunity to shape a crucial foreign policy issue for a novice who could very well go in the wrong direction.
* * *
The alternative is ending Mr. Bush's tenure on a Carter-esque note of weakness. To paraphrase General Clay: Whether for good or bad, how the U.S. responds to Russia's aggression in Georgia has become a symbol of American credibility. By trying to Finlandize if not destroy Georgia, Moscow is sending a message that, in its part of the world, being close to Washington can be fatal. If Mr. Bush doesn't revisit his Russian failures, the rout of Georgia will stand as the embarrassing coda to his Presidency.
5)Bush orders US Air Force-Navy humanitarian airlift to Georgia
Bush starts to remove the gloves demanding Russia open all routes to these deliveries and to civilian transit.
Military sources report that the strong military actions a furious US president George W. Bush ordered Wednesday, Aug. 13, after seven days of Russian-Georgian warfare, amount to a bid to break the sea, land and air blockade Russia still maintains against Georgia in violation of the EU-brokered ceasefire.
The first direct US-Russian military clashes in Georgia are now possible if the Russians fail to give way when challenged by US air transports and vessels heading for Georgia. For seven days, Russia has exerted exclusive mastery of Georgia’s skies, sea and land routes.
Flanked by the secretaries of state and defense, Bush said that Robert Gates as head of the military had already sent the first US Air Force transport with humanitarian and medical aid on its way to Georgia.
Our military sources report that the US air corridor has a short distance to fly from US bases in Italy and Turkey.
The US president accused Moscow of violating the less than one-day old ceasefire fire in its conflict with Georgia, by sending Russian tanks and APC’s to the east of the Georgian town of Gori, threatening the capital Tbilisi, bombing the Black Sea port of Poti and sinking Georgian vessels.
Bush reiterated US support for Georgia’s democratically-elected government and territorial integrity and declared Russia must cease all military acts and withdraw to positions held before the conflict flared.
Referring to Moscow’s efforts to integrate into the diplomatic, political, economic, and security structures of the 21st century, Bush said Russia is now putting its aspirations at risk by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with the principles of those institutions. Voicing a veiled threat, the US president said: “To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe, and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis.”
The Bush statement Wednesday followed reports of Russian tanks entering Gori after the ceasefire, and some 15 armored personnel carriers heading out of the devastated ghost city and blocking the highway connected South Ossetia to the rest of Georgia. Russian “irregulars” were reported killing, burning and looting in Gori and destroying ammunition dumps. A Georgian checkpoint has been placed outside Tbilisi.
Russia was also said to have shot down two Georgian spy drones over the breakaway province.
Whenever GW goes out of town the walls come crashing down it seems. First it was 9/11, then Hurricane Katrina in La. and now The Chinese Olympics followed by Georgia. When GW stays home he also must do more than hurl empty threats and call for ineffective sanctions as part of his post Iraq diplomacy.
The Wall Street Journal is full of op ed articles taking the West and GW to task for their ineffectual behaviour towards Russia.The lead editorial reminds GW of what Truman did regarding the Berlin Airlift.
GW holds a weak hand but standing there like a deer in headlights will not work as Bush must have concluded so he has responded with aid and another demand Russia stand down. Putin is now challenged and it will be interesting to see how this plays out should there be further obstinacy on Putin's part. If Putin is perceived as backing down he will lose face and that must be going through his mind. Russians are master at chess. GW, hopefully, knows something about Texas poker.(See 2- 5 below.)
Investors, hold your breath and will China take umbrage at Putin's actions which have undercut their Olympic Party?
Furthermore, if I were Israel I would be asking what happened to the US satellite's that should have detected a Russian military build up? Is Israel's reliance upon US satellites warning of an Iranian missile launching going to cut it or be persuasive? Is this a safe sure bet for Israel?
Dick
1) Bush rebuking Russia? Putin must be splitting his sides
By Simon Jenkins
Moscow has to take some of the blame. But it is the west's policy of liberal interventionism that has fuelled war in Georgia
One thing is for sure. This week's operation in Georgia has displayed the failure of the west's policy of belligerence towards Vladimir Putin's Russia. The policy was meant to weaken Russia, and has strengthened it. The policy was meant to humiliate Russia with Nato encirclement, and has merely fed its neo-imperialism. The policy was meant to show that Russia "understands only firmness" and instead has shown the west as a bunch of tough-talking windbags.
Georgia, a supposed western ally and applicant to Nato, has been treated by Russia to a brutal lesson in power politics. The west has lost all leverage and can do nothing. Seldom was a policy so crashingly stupid.
Putin would die laughing if he read this week's American newspapers. The president, George Bush, declared the Russian invasion of Georgia "disproportionate and unacceptable". This is taken as a put-down to the vice-president, Dick Cheney, who declared the invasion "will not go unanswered", apparently something quite different. Bush says that great powers should not go about "toppling governments in the 21st century", as if he had never done such a thing. Cheney says that the invasion has "damaged Russia's standing in the world", as if Cheney gave a damn. The lobby for sanctions against Russia is reduced to threatening to boycott the winter Olympics. Big deal.
Every student of the Caucasus has known since the fall of the Soviet empire that this part of the world was an explosion waiting to happen. The crisscrossing fault lines of ethnicity, religion and nationalism, fuelled by gas and oil, would not long survive the removal of the Red Army and communist discipline. There were too many old scores to settle, too much territory in dispute and too much wealth at stake - rivalries brilliantly portrayed in Kurban Said's classic novel of Edwardian Azerbaijan, Ali & Nino.
In every crisis the west craves goodies and baddies. The media finds it impossible to report a modern conflict without taking sides. In Yugoslavia, where a similar clash of separatist minorities occurred in the 1990s, coverage was so biased that Kosovo is still "plucky little" and the Serbs can still do no right.
In South Ossetia both sides appear to have committed appalling atrocities, and can thus generate a sense of outrage in front of whatever camera is pointed at them. Georgia's government claimed the right to assert military control over its two dissident provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, even if they were openly in league with Russia. Equally, Russia felt justified in stopping the consequent evictions and killings of its nationals in these provinces, in which it had a humanitarian locus as "peacekeeper".
The difficulty is that entitlement and good sense are rarely in accord. Georgia may have been entitled to act, but was clearly unwise to do so. Russia may have been entitled to aid its people against an oppressor, but that is different from unleashing its notoriously inept and ruthless army, let alone bombing Georgia's capital and demanding a change in its government.
What is clear is that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is a poor advertisement for a Harvard education. He thought he could reoccupy South Ossetia and call Russia's bluff while Putin was away at the Olympics. He found it was not bluff. Putin was waiting for just such an invitation to humiliate a man he loathes, and to deter any other Russian border state from applying to join Nato, an organisation Russia had itself sought to join until it was rudely rebuffed.
Saakashvili thought he could call on the support of his neoconservative allies in Washington. Tbilisi is one of the few world cities in which Bush's picture is a pin-up and where an avenue is named after him. It turned out that such "support" was mere words. America is otherwise engaged in wars that bear a marked resemblance to those waged by Putin. It defended the Kurdish enclaves against Saddam Hussein. It sought regime change in Serbia and Afghanistan. As Putin's troops in South Ossetia were staging a passable imitation of the US 101st Airborne entering Iraq, Bush was studiously watching beach volleyball in Beijing.
The truth is that the world has no conceptual framework for adjudicating, let alone resolving, these timeless border conflicts. Where poverty is rife, it takes only a clan war and a ready supply of guns for hostilities to break out. The only question is how to stop them escalating.
Once such conflicts could be quarantined by the United Nations' requirement to respect national sovereignty. That has been shot to pieces by the liberal interventionism of George Bush and Tony Blair. The result has reinvigorated separatist movements across the world. Small-statism is not an evil in itself: witness its quadrennial festival at the Olympics. But the process of achieving it is usually bitter and bloody.
The west's eagerness to intervene in favour of partition, manifest in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Sudan, is more than meddling. It encouraged every oppressed people and province on earth to be "the mouse that roared", to think it could ensnare a great power in its cause.
The parallels are glaring. If we backed Kosovo against the Serbs, why not back South Ossetia against the Georgians? But if we backed the Kurds against the Iraqis, why not the Georgians against Russia? Indeed, had Nato admitted Georgia to full membership, there is no knowing what Caucasian horror might have ensued from the resulting treaty obligation. Decisions which in Washington and London may seem casual gestures of ideological solidarity can mean peace and war on the ground.
I retain an archaic belief that the old UN principle of non-interference, coupled with a realpolitik acceptance of "great power" spheres of influence, is still a roughly stable basis for international relations. It may on occasions be qualified by soft-power diplomacy and humanitarian relief. It may demand an abstinence from kneejerk gestures in favour of leaving things to sort themselves out (as in Zimbabwe). But liberal interventionism, especially when it leads to military and economic aggression, means one costly adventure after another - and usually failure.
The west has done everything to isolate Putin, as he rides the tiger of Russian emergence from everlasting dictatorship. This has encouraged him to care not a fig for world opinion. Equally the west has encouraged Saakashvili to taunt Putin beyond endurance. The policy has led to war. If ever there were a place just to leave alone, it is surely the Caucasus.
2) BUSINESS WORLD: First Yukos, Then Georgia
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
Now the world is getting an idea of what a "war for oil" really looks like. Few in the West appreciate the degree to which Vladimir Putin and the Soviet, er, Russian, elite subscribe to a prewar view of power relations and national greatness. Their view is not based on self-reproducing institutions and innovation and the power of trade, but on territory and resources -- lebensraum, as one of their intellectual progenitors called it.
Whatever the pretexts and emotional resonances, the Republic of Georgia, transit territory for two important energy pipelines, was also a challenge to Mr. Putin's pursuit of power through control of energy supplies, especially for home heating, to Western Europe.
Western governments and Western oil executives have played an unwise role in Mr. Putin's plan. No amount of contract abrogation, outright seizure of property or subsidiary mayhem by Russian authorities seems able to dissuade them from throwing good money after bad in pursuit of Russian resources. Western minority shareholders in Yukos were wiped out with nary a peep when the Russian government seized the oil company on tax charges. There's been virtually no official pushback as environmental offenses were alleged as a reason to squeeze Western partners out of various drilling and pipeline projects after billions of dollars were committed.
Indeed, with what breezy confidence Mr. Putin must have turned Western oil companies into his political punching bags, knowing that back home Western politicians (Nancy Pelosi, Byron Dorgan, Dick Durbin, etc.) were doing exactly the same in pursuit of their own narrow and shortsighted political quests.
Barack Obama thinks the solution to high gasoline prices is punitive taxes on Exxon. All this in the background could not have failed to reassure Mr. Putin that the West would not invest political capital in protecting the interests of its oil companies. He learned that his allies could go so far as to commit nuclear terrorism (so it has been alleged) to murder one of his political critics in London without consequences. Why expect any blowback from merely repeatedly defrauding Western energy investors?
All along, governments and CEOs have reasoned that sooner or later Russia would discover its stake in commercial comity: Russia needs Western capital and technology to develop its oil. To get, you have to give; potential partners must see over time that Russia's word is reliable.
Westerners miscalculated Mr. Putin's ability to miscalculate, a mistake they've made before.
More than once, we've likened Mr. Putin to Saddam Hussein. Both got the upper hand over aging mentors, and forced them into retirement. Both launched wars (Chechnya and Iran). Both gambled that their control of energy made them immune to Western pushback. Never mind that a U.S.-led coalition willingly shut Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil out of world markets after Saddam's invasion in 1990, even at the cost of spiking prices and recession in the West. Saddam to the end believed dangling oil contracts in front of French and Russian companies would be proof against a second President Bush's determination to remove him.
Likely, Mr. Putin miscalculates too. Western powers may not do much immediately about his squeeze on Georgia, but over time he will find he has created conditions for the emergence of a coalition to contain Russian energy power. His immediate neighbors, with fresh memories of Soviet domination, will be even more eager to align themselves with the West and NATO. Possibly even the myopic Germans will discern they've gone too far in putting themselves in energy hock to Moscow. They may even start asking pointed questions about the presence of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on the board of Nord Stream, a Gazprom affiliate devoted to increasing German reliance on Russian gas.
Those of escapist bent will see in all this a reason to put Congress in charge of spending billions aimed at the false utopia of "energy independence." You will hear such blather in the coming months, but it will amount to little. America instead will grapple with the need to administer the reality principle to the Russian regime; we will face up to our responsibility to diversify our energy supplies -- dropping our trade barriers to Brazilian ethanol and opening up our domestic resources to development would be good places to start. The time to really worry will be when America, in pursuit of primitive concepts like energy independence, decides to follow Mr. Putin back to the 1930s.
3) Welcome Back:To the Great Game
By MELIK KAYLAN
Last year, President Mikheil Saakashvili invited me along on a helicopter flight to see Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's capital, from the air. We viewed it at some distance to avoid Russian antiaircraft missiles manned by Russian personnel.
He pointed out a lone hilltop sprinkled with houses some 10 miles inside Georgian territory -- scarcely even a town. Much of the population, namely the Georgians, had long ago been purged by Russian-backed militias, leaving behind a rump population of Ossetian farmers and Russian security forces posing as Ossetians. "We have offered them everything," he said, "language rights, land rights, guaranteed power in parliament, anything they want, and they would take it, if the Kremlin would let them."
Moscow's thin pretense of protecting an ethnic group provided just enough cover for Georgia's timorous friends in the West to ignore increasing Russian provocations over the past few years. Moscow, it now seems, intends to "protect" large numbers of Georgians too -- by occupying and killing them if that's what it takes -- and prevent them from building their own history and pursuing their democratic destiny, as it has for almost two centuries.
As we worry about another Russian imperialist adventure in Georgia, we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture either: To wit, Moscow has always had a clear strategic use for the Caucasus, one that concerns the U.S. today more than ever.
Having overestimated the power of the Soviet Union in its last years, we have consistently underestimated the ambitions of Russia since. Already, a great deal has been said about the implications of Russia's invasion for Ukraine, the Baltic States and Europe generally. But few have noticed the direct strategic threat of Moscow's action to U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Kremlin is not about to reignite the Cold War for the love of a few thousand Ossetians or even for its animosity toward five million Georgians. This is calculated strategic maneuvering. And make no mistake, it's about countering U.S. power at its furthest stretch with Moscow's power very close to home.
The pivotal geography of the Caucasus offers the Kremlin just such an opportunity. Look at a map, and the East-meets-West, North-meets-South vector lines of the region illustrate all too clearly how the drama now unfolding in the Caucasus casts Moscow's shadow all across Central Asia and down into the Middle East. In effect, we in the West are being challenged by Russian actions in Georgia to show that we have the nerve and the stamina to secure the gains not just of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but of the entire collapse of Soviet power.
[Welcome Back to the Great Game]
Between Russia and Iran, in the lower Caucasus, sits a small wedge of independent soil -- namely, the soil of Azerbaijan and Georgia combined. Through those two countries runs the immensely important Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which delivers precious oil circuitously from Azerbaijan to Turkey and out to the world. This is important not just because of the actual oil being delivered free of interference from Russia and Iran and the Middle East, but also for symbolic reasons. It says to the world that if any former Moscow colonies wish to sell their wares to the West directly, they have a right to do so, and the West will support that right. According to Georgian authorities, Russian warplanes have tried to demolish the Georgian leg of that pipeline several times in the last days. Their message cannot be clearer.
Besides their own pipeline, Georgia and Azerbaijan offer a fragile strategic conduit between the West and the "stans" of Central Asia -- including Afghanistan -- an area that the Soviets once controlled in toto. We should remember that an isolated Central Asia means an isolated Afghanistan. Look at the countries surrounding Afghanistan -- all former Soviet colonies, then Iran, then Pakistan.
The natural resources of Central Asia, from Turkmenistan's natural gas to Kazakhstan's abundant oil, cannot reach the West free of Russia and Iran except through that narrow conduit in the Caucasus. Moscow's former colonies in Central Asia are Afghanistan's most desirable trading partners. They are watching the strife in Georgia closely. It will tell them whether or not they will enter the world's free markets without a Russian chokehold on their future -- or, whether they, and their economies, are doomed for the foreseeable future to remain colonies in all but name. And it won't be long before Moscow dictates to them exactly how to isolate Kabul. Moscow is perfectly aware, even if we are not, that choking off the bottleneck in the Caucasus gives Iran and Russia much say over our efforts in Afghanistan.
In Iraq too, the Kremlin's projection of power down through Georgia will soon be felt. Take another look at the map. If Russia is allowed to extend its reach southwards, as in Soviet times, down the Caucasus to Iran's borders, Moscow can support Iran in any showdown with the West. Iran, thus emboldened, will likely attempt to reassert itself in Iraq, Syria and, via Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
We could walk away from this challenge, hoping for things to cool off, and let the Russians impose sway over the lower Caucasus for now. But no one will fail to notice our weakness. If we don't draw the line here, it doesn't get easier down the road with any other border or country. We would be risking the future of Afghanistan, and the stability of Iraq, on the good will of Moscow and the mullahs in Tehran. This is how the game of grand strategy is played, whether we like it or not.
4) REVIEW & OUTLOOK: Bush and Georgia
On June 13, 1948, the day after the Soviet Union took the first step in its blockade of Berlin, U.S. General Lucius Clay sent a cable to Washington making the case for standing up to the Soviets. "We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and in Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of the American intent." The Berlin Airlift began 13 days later.
Sixty years on, U.S. credibility is again on the line as the Bush Administration stumbles to respond to the Russian invasion of Georgia. So far the Administration has been missing in action, to put it mildly. The strategic objective is twofold: to prevent Moscow from going further to topple Georgia's democratic government in the coming days, and to deter future Russian aggression.
* * *
President Bush finally condemned Russia's actions on Monday after a weekend of Olympics tourism in Beijing while Georgia burned. Meanwhile, the State Department dispatched a mid-level official to Tbilisi, and unnamed Administration officials carped to the press that Washington had warned Georgia not to provoke Moscow. That's hardly a show of solidarity with a Eurasian democracy that has supported the U.S. in Iraq with 2,000 troops.
Compared to this August U.S. lethargy, the French look like Winston Churchill. In Moscow yesterday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acting as president of the European Union, got Russia to agree to a provisional cease-fire that could return both parties' troops to their positions before the conflict started. His next stop was Tbilisi, on the heels of a visit from Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
If both sides agree to a cease-fire, Mr. Sarkozy promises that Europe will consider sending peacekeepers to enforce it. We trust he will find volunteers from the former Soviet republics, which see the writing on the wall if Russian aggression in Georgia is left unchallenged. The leaders of Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia flew to Tbilisi this week in a show of solidarity.
NATO also met yesterday and denounced the invasion, while stopping short of promising military aid to Georgia. Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the allies "condemned and deplored [Russia's] excessive, disproportionate use of force," and demanded a return to the status quo ante.
The NATO leader also said Georgia's potential membership remains "very much alive" and that it would be a member of NATO one day. Georgia and Ukraine's applications come up again in December, and perhaps even Germany, which blocked their membership bids earlier this year, will now rethink its objections given that its refusal may have encouraged Russia to assume it could reassert control over its "near abroad."
Much as it respects and owes Georgia, the U.S. is not going to war with Russia over a non-NATO ally. But there are forceful diplomatic and economic responses at its disposal. Expelling Russia from the G-8 group of democracies, as John McCain has suggested, is one. Barring Russia's long desired entry into the World Trade Organization is another. Russian leaders should also be told that their financial assets held abroad aren't off limits to sanction. And Moscow should know that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on the Black Sea are in jeopardy. A country that starts a war on the weekend the Beijing Olympics began doesn't deserve such an honor.
The Georgian people also deserve U.S. support. One way to demonstrate that would be a "Tbilisi airlift," ferrying military and humanitarian supplies to the Georgian capital, which is currently cut off by Russian troops from its Black Sea port. Secretary of State Rice or Defense Secretary Robert Gates should be in one of the first planes. After the fighting ends, the U.S. can lead the recovery effort. And since the Russians are demanding his ouster, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili deserves U.S. support too. Moscow wants a puppet leader in Tbilisi, and U.S. officials are playing into Valdimir Putin's hands with their media whispers that this is all Mr. Saakashvili's fault.
Reshaping U.S. policy toward Russia will take longer than the months between now and January 20, when a new President takes office. But Mr. Bush can at least atone for his earlier misjudgments about Mr. Putin and steer policy in a new direction that his successor would have to deal with. If that successor is Barack Obama, this is an opportunity to shape a crucial foreign policy issue for a novice who could very well go in the wrong direction.
* * *
The alternative is ending Mr. Bush's tenure on a Carter-esque note of weakness. To paraphrase General Clay: Whether for good or bad, how the U.S. responds to Russia's aggression in Georgia has become a symbol of American credibility. By trying to Finlandize if not destroy Georgia, Moscow is sending a message that, in its part of the world, being close to Washington can be fatal. If Mr. Bush doesn't revisit his Russian failures, the rout of Georgia will stand as the embarrassing coda to his Presidency.
5)Bush orders US Air Force-Navy humanitarian airlift to Georgia
Bush starts to remove the gloves demanding Russia open all routes to these deliveries and to civilian transit.
Military sources report that the strong military actions a furious US president George W. Bush ordered Wednesday, Aug. 13, after seven days of Russian-Georgian warfare, amount to a bid to break the sea, land and air blockade Russia still maintains against Georgia in violation of the EU-brokered ceasefire.
The first direct US-Russian military clashes in Georgia are now possible if the Russians fail to give way when challenged by US air transports and vessels heading for Georgia. For seven days, Russia has exerted exclusive mastery of Georgia’s skies, sea and land routes.
Flanked by the secretaries of state and defense, Bush said that Robert Gates as head of the military had already sent the first US Air Force transport with humanitarian and medical aid on its way to Georgia.
Our military sources report that the US air corridor has a short distance to fly from US bases in Italy and Turkey.
The US president accused Moscow of violating the less than one-day old ceasefire fire in its conflict with Georgia, by sending Russian tanks and APC’s to the east of the Georgian town of Gori, threatening the capital Tbilisi, bombing the Black Sea port of Poti and sinking Georgian vessels.
Bush reiterated US support for Georgia’s democratically-elected government and territorial integrity and declared Russia must cease all military acts and withdraw to positions held before the conflict flared.
Referring to Moscow’s efforts to integrate into the diplomatic, political, economic, and security structures of the 21st century, Bush said Russia is now putting its aspirations at risk by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with the principles of those institutions. Voicing a veiled threat, the US president said: “To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe, and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis.”
The Bush statement Wednesday followed reports of Russian tanks entering Gori after the ceasefire, and some 15 armored personnel carriers heading out of the devastated ghost city and blocking the highway connected South Ossetia to the rest of Georgia. Russian “irregulars” were reported killing, burning and looting in Gori and destroying ammunition dumps. A Georgian checkpoint has been placed outside Tbilisi.
Russia was also said to have shot down two Georgian spy drones over the breakaway province.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Where is John Bolton?
Lebanese Druze hold-out now allied with Hezballah. Repercussion of Georgia? Probably not, but certainly our weak response to Hezballah's rise and control of Lebanon was more than Jumblatt could withstand. If you can't beat 'em join 'em. (See 1 below.)
Dunn sees Obama the way I do - Wilson's "Music Man!" (See 2 below.)
Israeli politics gets personal as Barak is deemed hysterically out of control for being critical of Livni. (See 3 below.)
Tobin takes a line from a great American songwriter and cleverly says: "Georgia Should Be On Their Minds." (See 4 below.)
They are educated here so they can learn to kill us according to Pipes. (See 5 below.)
Rubin discuses our "rose colored" foreign policy. GW's diplomatic initiatives have flip flopped as much as Obama. Where is John Bolton when we need him?(See 6 below.)
Beeston writes Putin has overplayed his hand, hardened attitudes and is going to fall on his own sword. (See 7 below.)
Pearlstein and Goldman point out the obvious - Russian energy is a threat to those who connect. (See 8 below.)
Russian tanks keep "a rollin" despite truce. (See 9 below.)
What this week has revealed should be informative for those with their eyes open. Putin's Russia has laid a trap for the West. President Reagan warned the European leaders not to become dependent on Russian energy and they ignored him. Now they might begin to understand the wisdom of his words.
Rubin is right about those who see the world not as it is but as they would wish it to be. Georgia should expose the dreaminess of Obama and all those who believe talk and weakness is the way to achieve peace.
For the moment Putin has taken the West to the cleaners and he has told them drop your pants here!
Dick
1)Jumblatt deserts Lebanon’s pro-Western camp, signs pact with pro-Iranian Hizballah
The fervently pro-US, pro-Israeli Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, has decided to hold out no longer. He has thrown in his lot with the most extreme pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian, anti-Israel force in Lebanon, the Shiite Hizballah, which has gained veto power over the government in Beirut unopposed.
Middle East sources disclose over last weekend, Jumblatt quietly signed a “defense cooperation pact” with Hassan Nasrallah, affording Hizballah a strong foothold in the Lebanese Druze bastion of Mt. Chouf.
Drawing the hostile noose around northern Israel ever tighter, Lebanese president Michel Sleiman was due in Damascus Wednesday, Aug. 13, to celebrate the thaw in relations between the two countries.
Neither Israeli ministers, sunk in an acrimonious contest over the succession to Ehud Olmert, nor the United States in the dying days of the Bush presidency, have lifted a finger to arrest Lebanon’s swift slide into the Iranian-Syrian orbit.
Jumblatt, after watching pro-Western strategic positions crumble in his country, decided to join forces with Hizballah to shield his ancestral mountain domain from Syrian domination.
The Druze and Hizballah militias agreed to set up a joint commission for coordinating military operations. Hizballah is represented by its security and intelligence commander, Wafiq Shafa (who was in change of the recent prisoner swap with Israel) and the Druzes by Akram Shahaib.
The joint security patrols for the Druze communities of the Chouf, will also give Hizballah a military presence on its third strategic Lebanese peak, after Mt. Sannine and Jebel Barukh.
2) The Obama Phenomenon is Not New
By J.R. Dunn
A nation enduring hard times. A frustrating war, a doubtful president. Public turmoil, political disagreement, future prospects uncertain as best. Then a figure appears from nowhere, a secular messiah from the heartland -- unique, appealing, promising solutions that are effective, fast, and easy. He stirs up an immediate and vastly excited following across the country, though many share quiet doubts.
I'm well aware what this sounds like. But in fact the year is 1861, and we're speaking of George B. McClellan.
Barack Obama has succeeded in ducking any meaningful comparisons with historical figures. Oh, there's John F. Kennedy (and let's not forget Jesus Christ), but that's simply another aspect of PR. Comparisons to JFK are a matter of style and appearance and little else. True enough, there is a pronounced resemblance between the two -- the slimness, the good looks, and a kind of indefinable aura of the early 60s.
But there the similarities end. Kennedy had long experience in several fields prior to his presidential campaign -- lengthy terms in both the Senate and the House, along with a wartime career as a naval commander. (Granted that he lost his command under the most bizarre circumstances imaginable. His biographer Thomas Reeves pointed out that JFK was the only known torpedo boat skipper to lose his boat through collision.) Kennedy also authored well-received books -- though Profiles in Courage owed as much to the talents of Ted Sorensen as it did to Kennedy himself. (Not to mention Arthur Krock's assistance with Why England Slept.)
But apart from JFK, there has been little attempt to compare Obama to other historical figures, because, well, because it leads us directly to McClellan. (Though a recent article in AT compared him to Wendell Willkie, which, as proud owner of an original, never-worn "Win With Willkie" tiepin, grieved me deeply and endlessly.)
George McClellan appeared to have everything going for him. A West Point education, a good reputation from the Mexican War, a career as a civil engineer that, just prior to the Civil War's outbreak, led him to the presidency of a railroad. McClellan was well-liked, inspired confidence in those he worked with, and appeared to be a young man headed for the top.
As a commander of Ohio volunteers, McClellan secured the western portion of Virginia (today West Virginia) against a handful of ill-led Confederate troops. The press inflated the operation into a mammoth victory, with McClellan as a combination of Napoleon and Wellington both. So when the Union nearly lost the war in an afternoon at Bull Run (July 21, 1861) leaving almost the entire Federal command in disgrace, who was there to turn to but Little Mac? (Out west there was a drunk named Grant and a near-lunatic named Sherman, but nobody was paying any attention to them.)
McClellan did an outstanding job pulling together a demoralized Union Army. But he didn't stop there, also taking on the roles of head of the Army of the Potomac and effective overall commander of Union forces. "I can do it all," he assured a worried Lincoln.
And for a time it seemed as if he could. The public, goaded by a hysterically adulatory press, had no doubt. Little Mac was greeted as a hero wherever he set foot.
But certain disquieting signs soon appeared. A sense of vainglory, an unwillingness to listen or share his thinking with other responsible figures -- even Lincoln himself. One observer stated that McClellan seemed to be "in a morbid condition of mental exaltation". McClellan's letters to his wife revealed this to be exactly the case:
"I find myself in a new and strange position here: President, cabinet, Gen. Scott, and all deferring to me. By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.... All tell me that I am held responsible for the fate of the nation, and that all its resources shall be placed at my disposal."
Speaking of the public, he wrote, "It is a proud and glorious thing to see a whole people here, simple and unsophisticated, looking up to me as their deliverer from tyranny."
It goes on and on. About the only thing that McClellan didn't call himself was a "symbol of American values", though if he'd thought of it, he'd have done that too.
As the historian Bruce Catton put it:
"This man, utterly winning and modest and soft-spoken in all his personal contacts, simply could not, down inside, look long enough on the great figure he was becoming, could not get enough of the savor of admiration and love that were coming to him.... What buried sense of personal inadequacy was gnawing at this man that he had to see himself so constantly through the eyes of men and women who looked upon him as a hero out of legend and myth?"
As is often the case, the record failed to live up to the myth. After a slow and methodical buildup lasting nearly a year, McClellan at last moved against the Confederates. The strategy was brilliant -- outflanking Confederate forces by landing the army on Virginia's James Peninsula and marching up to Richmond from an unexpected direction, while a second Union force closed in from the north. It was a nicely turned plan, and in other hands it might have worked. But not in McClellan's.
McClellan's bloated self-confidence deserted him in the face of a challenge. Rather than a brisk advance to Richmond, McClellan dawdled, insisting that vast, nonexistent Confederate forces prevented him from moving. When at last he started off, it was at a slow crawl that allowed the Rebels to fortify their front and concentrate their forces. When Union troops finally reached Richmond, the Confederate commander, another untried figure named Robert E. Lee, struck a series of lightning blows in what became known as the Seven Days battles, driving McClellan relentlessly back to the river. Rather than attempt to hold his commanding position, McClellan panicked and evacuated the entire army, leaving the field to the victorious Lee.
McClellan moped, blamed everyone else but himself, and sniffed conspiracies behind every closed door. His self-regard was not diminished a single iota, nor had his talent for procrastination. Weeks passed while the troops sat idle. Already strained political relations grew worse with each passing week. During one presidential visit to the camp, McClellan, a general under a democratic government serving at the pleasure of the president, refused to see Lincoln. Already evident doubts about McClellan began to burgeon.
Then Lee turned his army north, in the wake of yet another Bull Run victory. McClellan set off in pursuit. And at last everything went his way. Union troops found the Confederate campaign plan wrapped around a bundle of cigars and immediately sent it to headquarters. McClellan could see Lee's thinking as if through clear glass. His forces were in the right place. He had the numbers on his side. Victory had been handed to him, in a manner rarely seen in history.
Victory had been handed to him, and he threw it away. First by racing around the camp waving the captured paper and shouting "I've got him..." within easy earshot of a Confederate spy who then rode off to warn Lee. Secondly by taking his time getting moving. And thirdly by mishandling his forces. He put Ambrose Burnside, a competent staff officer but no field commander, in charge of the vanguard troops. When Burnside fumbled the job, McClellan, looking on from only a few yards away, failed to replace him, instead watching though the long afternoon as 22,000 men fell at Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single day in American history.
He failed where he could not have failed. Lee fought him to a draw, and successfully withdrew the Army of Virginia to safety.
McClellan was relieved in November 1862, and told to return to his home in Trenton, N.J. to await further orders. The orders never came. Lincoln turned to Burnside and then Joe Hooker in an effort to find a winning general, until it became impossible to overlook the fact that the drunk and the crazy man had succeeded in literally splitting the Confederacy in two. Grant came east, while Sherman remained in command of the troops in the west.
McClellan did not sit still. In the 1864 presidential election, after insisting he wouldn't run, he accepted the Democratic nomination at the behest of the Copperheads, a pro-slavery and anti-war group in effective control of the party. McClellan was still immensely popular. The war bogged down during the summer as the Army of the Potomac lay siege to Richmond. Lincoln was convinced that he would lose. Under a McClellan presidency, the South would have been allowed to go its way, slavery would have prevailed for further decades, and a second civil war, perhaps fought with the techniques and pure viciousness of WW I, would have been inevitable.
But as the summer progressed, the new Union strategy, in which Grant's forces held Lee's army in place while Sherman gutted the deep South, unfolded itself. Sherman at last reached the sea, presenting Savannah -- and the election -- as a gift to Lincoln. The new strategy undercut antiwar forces in the same way as Gen. David Petraeus's surge a hundred and forty years later. Lincoln took 212 electoral votes to Mac's 21.
A reinvigorated Union increased the pressure. At last the Southern troops could take no more. It ended on a fine April day in the courthouse at Appomattox. McClellan, a forgotten man, went back to engineering. He did very well.
One of Karl Marx's least harmful sayings is that history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. At best, that's only partially true. Intellectual absolutist as he was, Marx overlooked the fact that most events mingle tragedy, comedy, and every other conceivable element. There was no lack of tragedy in McClellan's wild charge across the American landscape, not the least involving the men who fell in the Seven Days and at Antietam. But there was no lack of farce either. Consider these words, spoken when Little Mac took command of his first army: "Soldiers! I have heard there was danger here, and I have come to place myself at your head and to share it with you. I fear now but one thing -- that you will not find foemen worthy of your steel."
Now consider the fact that the man who spoke them stood about 5' 4".
McClellan holds the place in American history as the figure whose initial promise was least borne out by events. The fact that Barack Obama most resembles one of this country's great clowns is his misfortune. Similar initial conditions will lead to similar results. If Obama follows the same path, the process will have its comic aspects. It already does -- recall the 57 states, the haloed iconography, the campaigning in Berlin with more intensity than in any American city. But as events play out, we will not be denied our share of tragedy.
3) Kadima officials: Barak is hysterical, verging on collapse
"[Defense Minister and Labor leader Ehud] Barak is an hysterical person on the verge of collapse," Kadima members lashed out on Wednesday in response to an Army Radio interview in which Barak called Kadima a "refugee camp."
TZIPI LIVNI. Borrowing from US campaign strategies, Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday asserted that the Foreign Minister would not trust her to make decisions, "neither at three in the morning nor at three in the afternoon."
"It is obvious that at the helm of a party on the threshold of bankruptcy there is an hysterical man whose conduct in the past few days only reinforces our conviction that Barak understands Kadima is a strong party," sources in Kadima said.
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman and Kadima MK Tzahi Hanegbi, who on Wednesday endorsed Foregn Minister Tzipi Livni in the Kadima primary race, told Army Radio he was encouraged that his political rival "is losing his temper and restraint and showing signs of distress."
Earlier, Barak launched a scathing attack on Kadima and on Livni, the party's leading candidate to win the primaries.
"Even if Tzipora Livni makes the decisions, this doesn't mean that she is fit to do so," Barak asserted in the Army Radio interview. "Her pride in UN resolution 1701 puts her judgment in question," the Labor party leader added, referring to the cease-fire agreement that effectively ended the Second Lebanon War.
Alluding to an ad Hillary Clinton's campaign ran in order to cast doubt on Barack Obama's experience, Barak continued, saying, "Livni is not necessarily qualified to provide the right solutions, neither at three in the morning nor at three in the afternoon."
The defense minister went on to call Kadima a "refugee camp," claiming that the ruling party had "brought upon Israel the repercussions of the disengagement, the Second Lebanon War and a series of embarrassing affairs."
Barak did not spare Kadima's second front-runner for the prime ministerial candidacy, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, whom he criticized for inflammatory remarks he had made regarding Iran.
Barak implied that the US was opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities but maintained that the military option "must remain on the table."
4) Georgia should be on their minds
By Jonathan Tobin
Invasion illustrates the need to see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be
As the political calendar unfolded in this presidential election year, news analysts often reminded their audiences that the two weeks during August while the Olympic torch burned in Beijing would be very quiet.
The upshot was that during the Olympic fortnight the vast majority of Americans would join the rest of the world in obsessing about sports that they only pretend to care about for two weeks out of every four years. Nobody, we were told, could or should even try to make news during this time period because we would all be too busy gobbling up details about such riveting spectacles as synchronized swimming and team handball.
But apparently, Vladimir Putin didn't get that memo.
Instead of heading to a beach to chill out like Barack Obama or going to a State Fair for photo-ops with overgrown pigs like John McCain, the Russian leader apparently thought this would be an excellent time to play his country's traditional favorite sport: invading and subverting the governments of its smaller neighbors.
That was bad news for Georgia, one of the small independent republics in the Caucasus that gained its independence in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire. Though most Americans were, and probably still are, uncertain about the location of this country or anything about it (other, that is, than in the fact that it has the same name as an American state), the attack on pro-Western and democratic Georgia was something that they should care very much about.
IRAQ HANGOVER
It was another unwelcome reminder of something that most pundits have been working hard to obscure for most of the year -namely, that the main duty of whoever's elected president of the United States later this year is to direct the foreign policy of this country at a time when international affairs are more complicated and dangerous than ever.
Despite the evident change for the better in the Iraq war, most Americans are still too turned off by the unpopular conflict in that country to be willing to get too worked up about any other far away place. Few seem to think even the prospect of a nuclear Iran is worth fighting about. So why expect anyone here to switch away from watching swimming or fencing to a discussion of the plight of Georgians whose borders are being overrun and cities bombed?
There's no denying that it's a complicated conflict that can be reduced to a tit-for-tat exchange of accusations about whose independence is being trampled: Georgia or the breakaway republics inside its borders that the Russians have used as a pretext to squash a democratic pro-Western government?
There's more than enough hypocrisy about the principle of self-determination to go around. People here who thought NATO's war to create a Greater Albania via an independent Kosovo carved out of a beastly Serbian regime back in 1999 was a fine thing are now exercised about Putin's attempt to do the same to a far more presentable Georgian government.
Such ironies abound in international politics. Russians who care about the integrity of Abkhazia and Ossetia cheered as their army raped Chechnya. Similarly, those who think a terrorist-led Palestinian people have an inalienable right to create a 22nd Arab Islamic state at Israel's expense don't think the far more numerous Kurds are entitled to one.
But let's not kid ourselves. Putin has taken advantage of a Bush administration that was slow to see the danger from the rise of this former KGB agent whose drive to authoritarian power has been fueled by inflated oil prices. The re-emergence of an aggressive Russia is a threat not only to its independent and democratic neighbors like Ukraine and Georgia, but to the peace of Europe.
However misguided the democratic government of Georgia might have been in some respects, Bush must step up now and use what leverage we have left to make it clear to the Russians that they will pay a price for their behavior. Taking away their membership in the G8 is one possible penalty that might impress the prestige-obsessed Russians that they've made a mistake.
But as hapless as the administration's bumbling approach to this crisis might be, just as discouraging is the general indifference of the public and the chattering classes to the plight of Georgia. While Bush famously erred when he claimed to have looked into the eyes of Putin and saw his soul, Putin has made no such mistake about the current political climate in the United States. He thinks the Iraq hangover we're still reeling from means that we haven't the stomach to resist him even on a symbolic level, and he's probably right.
Indeed, the reaction of many of our so-called wise men to the invasion of Georgia was fear of being forced into a new Cold War with Russia rather than in the consequences of a revived Russian imperialism.
NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT
At Time magazine's blog, columnist and author Joe Klein waxed hysterical about the "overreaction" of the few Americans who bothered to notice Putin's putsch. The influential pundit has been working hard lately with other war critics to pooh-pooh concerns about Iran's drive for nuclear weapons, and burnishing the myth that the issue is a mere device created by Jewish neoconservatives who are more loyal to Israel than the United States.
So it is was not much of a surprise to find that Klein viewed concern about Russia as being nothing to get worked up over. In a bizarre twist, the fact that Georgia actually is a thriving democracy devoted to free-market principles may be helping to turn off those who have come to associate the spread of democracy with the hated neocons and see any policy associated with its defense as inherently wrong.
Others who want to ignore Georgia's plight tell us, in a strange echo of leftist Cold War polemics, that Russia's evil deeds are merely reactions to Western overreaching. But Putin's policy has nothing to do with Kosovo or NATO, and everything to do with his cherished agenda of reconstituting the empire of the tsars and the commissars.
The need to play down Georgia is similar to the impulses to return to a Sept. 10 mentality about Islamist terrorism or to brand those who urge action on Iran's apocalyptic threats of a new Holocaust as war-mongering neocon alarmists. These misguided positions all stem from a desire to see the world as we would like it to be, not as it is.
The antidote to these fallacies isn't the sort of faux "realism" that is merely a cover for appeasement of evil promoted by a failed foreign-policy establishment. Nor is it mere talk about diplomacy from those whose grasp of the issues is shaky.
As American politics reawakens later this month from its Olympic-induced slumber, it would be prudent for more of us to remember that the ability to think clearly and act decisively about this sort of a crisis is the most important thing we need in our next president, no matter what his name or party affiliation might be.
5) The West's Islamist Infiltrators
By Daniel Pipes
Aafia Siddiqui, 36, is a Pakistani mother of three, an alumna of MIT, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University. She is also accused of working for Al-Qaeda and was charged last week in New York City with attempting to kill American soldiers.
Her arrest serves to remind how invisibly most Islamist infiltration proceeds. In particular, an estimated forty Al-Qaeda sympathizers or operatives have sought to penetrate U.S. intelligence agencies.
Such a well-placed infiltrator can wreck great damage explains a former CIA chief of counterintelligence, Michael Sulick: "In the war on terrorism, intelligence has replaced the Cold War's tanks and fighter planes as the primary weapon against an unseen enemy." Islamist moles, he argues, "could inflict far more damage to national security than Soviet spies," for the U.S. and Soviet Union never actually fought each other, whereas now, "our nation is at war."
Aafia Siddiqui is accused of working for Al-Qaeda.
Here are some American cases of attempted infiltration since 2001 that have been made public:
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The Air Force discharged Sadeq Naji Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, when his superiors learned of his pro-Al-Qaeda statements. Ahmed subsequently became a baggage screener at Detroit's Metro Airport, which terminated him for hiding his earlier discharge from the Air Force. He was convicted of making false statements and sentenced to eighteen months in jail.
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The Chicago Police Department fired Patricia Eng-Hussain just three days into her training on learning that her husband, Mohammad Azam Hussain, was arrested for being an active member of Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), a Pakistani terrorist group.
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The Chicago Police Department also fired Arif Sulejmanovski, a supervising janitor at its 25th District station after it learned his name was on a federal terrorist watch list of international terrorism suspects.
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Mohammad Alavi, an engineer at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, was arrested as he arrived on a flight from Iran, accused of taking computer access codes and software to Iran that provide details on the plant's control rooms and plant layout. He subsequently pleaded guilty to transporting stolen property.
*
Nada Nadim Prouty pleaded guilty to multiple charges.
Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese immigrant who worked for both the FBI and CIA, pleaded guilty to charges of: fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and engaging in conspiracy to defraud the United States.
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Waheeda Tehseen, a Pakistani immigrant who filled a sensitive toxicologist position with the Environmental Protection Agency, pleaded guilty to fraud and was deported. World Net Daily explains that "investigators suspect espionage is probable, as she produced highly sensitive health-hazard documents for toxic compounds and chemical pesticides. Tehseen also was an expert in parasitology as it relates to public water systems."
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Weiss Rasool, 31, a Fairfax County police sergeant and Afghan immigrant, pleaded guilty for checking police databases without authorization, thereby jeopardizing at least one federal terrorism investigation.
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Nadire P. Zenelaj, 32, a 911 emergency operator of Albanian origins, was charged with 232 felony counts of computer trespass for illegally searching New York State databases, including at least one person on the FBI's terrorist watch list.
Three other cases are less clear. The Transportation Security Administration fired Bassam Khalaf, 21, a Texan of Christian Palestinian origins, as an airport baggage screener because lyrics on his music CD, Terror Alert, applaud the 9/11 attacks. FBI Special Agent Gamal Abdel-Hafiz "showed a pattern of pro-Islamist behavior," according to author Paul Sperry, that may have helped acquit Sami Al-Arian of terrorism charges. The Pentagon cleared Hesham Islam, an Egyptian immigrant, former U.S. Navy commander, and special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, but major questions remain about his biography and his outlook.
Other Western countries too - Australia, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom - have been subject to infiltration efforts. (For details, see my weblog entry, "Islamists Penetrate Western Security.")
This record prompts one to wonder what catastrophe must occur before government agencies, some of which have banished the words "Islam" and "jihad," seriously confront their internal threat?
Westerners are indebted to Muslim agents like Fred Ghussin and "Kamil Pasha" who have been critical to fighting terrorism. That said, I stand by my 2003 statement that "There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism."
6) . . . And Foreign Policy Moves Front and Center
by Michael Rubin
As Iranian centrifuges spin and Russian tanks roll into Georgia, foreign policy has moved to the front of the presidential election debate. Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, promises change. Such rhetoric appeals to an electorate exasperated with President Bush, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and high energy prices. How ironic it is then that that by conflating change with pandering, Obama replicates Bush's mistakes.
It was neither the Iraq war nor the failure to embrace multilateralism which undercut U.S. credibility under Bush, but rather foreign policy flip-flops. On June 24, 2002, amidst a rash of Palestinian suicide attacks, Bush won the plaudits of terror victims when he declared, "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership [uncompromised by terror], so that a Palestinian state can be born." His audience applauded.
Reversal was swift. Within a year, Bush abandoned his no-terrorism red-line. Just this year, to sweeten a Palestinian audience, he promised Palestinian independence, even as Palestinian rockets fell on Israeli towns. Today, the U.S. government is the largest donor to the Palestinian territories, subsidizing food and housing, enabling Fatah and Hamas to spend more on guns and rockets.
Because of Bush, few dissidents will ever again trust Washington. At his second inauguration, Bush declared, "All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression." He applauded as Lebanese rose up against Syrian occupation. And yet, in her subsequent visits, Condoleezza Rice embraced the Syrian-imposed ruler.
On June 6, 2007, Bush declared himself the "Dissident President" at a conference in Prague and assigned diplomats to resolve the case of each dissident with whom he met. Bush glowed as activists gave him a standing ovation. A year later, no dissident present has heard from either White House or State Department. On Jan. 11, 2008, after his historic visit to Washington, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam bragged that the Bush administration had failed to demand the release of Libya's leading dissident, whom Bush had once lauded. Bush had told each audience what it wanted to hear. Affirmation and applause trumped principle and consistency.
Pandering undercuts trust in the United States. After promising Japan that Washington would "not settle for anything less than the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of [North Korea's] nuclear weapons program," Bush surprised Tokyo with a deal that let Pyongyang keep its bombs. Bush's reversal on Iranian nuclear enrichment caught both Israel and moderate Arab states flatfooted and raised the possibility of unilateral Israeli military strikes. Bush's speeches may garner allies' applause, but foreign capitals know they no longer describe policy.
Obama's willingness to promise anything replicates Bush. Speaking to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama won rapturous applause when he declared, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." Less than three months later, he told Palestinian officials, again to applause, he welcomed Jerusalem's division.
Obama repeatedly promises a 16-month withdrawal from Iraq although, when questioned, his aides say ground conditions will determine withdrawal. To some audiences, Obama wins plaudits with declarations that he will talk anywhere, any time with Iranian leaders when, to other audiences, he qualifies this based on Iranian President Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and threats to wipe Israel off the map.
Both Bush and Obama sacrifice consistency and credibility for affirmation. The cost of establishing a legacy and political sloganeering can be high. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate suggested that Iran ceased nuclear warhead work in 2003 because Saddam's downfall showed Bush was serious about enforcing his policy. After last month's policy reversal, the Iranian assessment was different. A prominent Revolutionary Guard general called America "beaten and humiliated."
Consistency is a virtue even when politically unpopular. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, endorsed the surge long before Bush not because 30,000 troops would enable the United States to do in Iraq what it had not before, but rather because it would demonstrate resolve to militias and terrorists who -- like bin Laden before 9/11 -- preached that the United States had become a paper tiger, unable to back its words with actions. It is doubtful Russian forces would invade a U.S. ally if they believed U.S. resolve strong.
Both Bush and Obama pander for adulation. Change may be a good slogan, but restoring U.S. credibility requires not flip-flops but consistency.
7) Strutting Russia is heading for a fall
By Richard Beeston
Opinion is hardening against the Kremlin. For all its bluster, it is weak and vulnerable
Rarely have Russians had such cause to celebrate their hero. One minute Vladimir Putin was in Beijing mixing with Russian athletes on the opening day of the Olympics. Moments later he reappeared in the Caucasus, sleeves rolled up and directing a victorious counter-attack against his arch-rival Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian President. Fleeing refugees and wounded civilians were comforted. Generals saluted smartly as they were sent off to battle. No one was left in any doubt that Mr Putin, rather than the absent President Medvedev, was still firmly in charge of the country.
In the space of only five days the Russian Prime Minister succeeded not only in smashing the Georgian Army but also teaching all those in the “near abroad”, as Russia refers to its neighbours in the former Soviet empire, a painful lesson about challenging Moscow in its own backyard.
The decisive action was in sharp contrast to the response in the West. The war in Georgia exposed deep divisions in the transatlantic alliance and revealed the impotence of the Bush Administration in protecting its closest friend in the region.
Respect is something Mr Putin and many of his countrymen believe they lost when the Soviet Union broke apart 17 years ago. They may now feel that over the past few days some of that loss has been restored.
The Russia-Georgia grudge match
For Russians sunning themselves on the Mediterranean or enjoying the long summer evenings at their dachas in the countryside, this is the plausible narrative faithfully repeated by the state-controlled media.
Unfortunately, the conclusions they draw are completely wrong. Russia may have smashed its tiny neighbour but victory will come at a heavy price. The war will reduce rather than increase Russia's stature abroad, where the Kremlin faces growing isolation.
Since the emergence of the modern Russian state during the Yeltsin years in the 1990s, the country has been regarded as chaotic and corrupt but broadly peaceful and certainly no serious threat. Back in 2003 Condoleezza Rice, the Russophile US Secretary of State, famously advised President Bush to “forgive” Russia for its stand against the Iraq war, while France was punished and Germany ignored.
To judge by the language of both US presidential candidates responding to the Georgian war, forgiveness is no longer an option. Democrat or Republican will take a much harder line towards Russia over its aggressive foreign posture, its increasingly autocratic Government and the inescapable conclusion that Mr Putin is determined to remain in power indefinitely.
The Europeans may seem divided, but behind the bland statements calling on both sides to stop the recent fighting something significant has happened. Six European leaders, five of them from the former Soviet bloc, chose to stand side by side with Mr Saakashvili yesterday as he struggled to remain in power. The events in the Caucasus will only serve to harden opinion against Russia at Nato and in the EU.
The mini-war in Georgia may have surprised some Europeans, but it was expected weeks ago by British Intelligence. Thanks to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-KGB officer who was poisoned in London by suspected Russian agents nearly two years ago, Britain has completely reassessed its relationship with Moscow. MI5, which reports that Russian agents in Britain are now back at Cold War levels, regards Russia as the third most serious threat to British security after terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Attempts to rehabilitate relations have faltered and the recent treatment of BP by its partners and the Russian authorities has only reinforced the view that Russia cannot be trusted.
Flush with billions from the sale of oil and gas, the Kremlin may calculate that it does not need allies in the West and would rather be respected and feared than befriended.
That too would be a serious mistake. For all its big-power bluster, Russia is weak and vulnerable. Russian tanks and aircraft may have smashed the fledgeling Georgian Army with ease, but most of the weaponry was Cold War-era and many of the troops conscripts. Anyone who has seen the Russian Army operating in the Caucasus knows that the military will need a generation to modernise. Meanwhile America, and its main Nato allies, are decades ahead in military technology and combat experience.
Russia is also facing a severe demographic crisis. Its population is shrinking by 700,000 people a year. The UN estimates the population will fall below 100 million by 2050, down from around 146 million today.
As for the economy, it is booming thanks to natural resources that account for 70 per cent of the country's wealth. But the oil price is in a state of flux. Russia has failed to diversify. Should energy prices fall sharply, the economy could collapse, as it did a decade ago.
Mr Putin once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Trying to resurrect it could be the greatest folly of the 21st.
8) Russia's Strike Shows The Power Of the Pipeline
By Steven Pearlstein
It was surely not lost on Russia's bully in chief, Vladimir Putin, that the oil giant BP decided to shut down the pipeline that runs through parts of Georgia controlled by Russian troops. Indeed, that was one of the aims of the cross-border incursion.
Russia's Strike Shows The Power Of the Pipeline
Putin understands better than anyone that oil and gas are the source of Russia's resurgence as a military and economic power and his own control over the Russian government and key sectors of its economy. It is oil and gas that provide the money to maintain Russia's powerful military, along with a vast internal security apparatus and network of government-controlled enterprises that allow the president-turned-premier to maintain his iron grip on the levers of political and economic power.
A little pipeline history: It was just as Putin was coming to power in 1999 that an agreement was reached to create the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. The project would allow Azerbaijan and its production partner, BP, to bypass Russia and transport their newly drilled oil instead through Georgia and Turkey to a port in the eastern Mediterranean.
Because of its control of the only pipeline system linking former Soviet republics with the West, Russia had been able to extract most of the profit from any oil and gas that these newly independent countries could produce. But with BTC, which had the active support of the U.S. and European governments, Russia would lose its monopoly chokehold, opening the way for Western oil companies to make multibillion-dollar investments in the energy-rich Caucasus states.
No sooner was BTC completed, however, than Western officials began exploring the possibility of other pipelines that could reach beyond Georgia and Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan, which was thought to have some of the world's largest gas reserves. Their interest was not only in "energy security" and the prospect of oil riches for Western energy companies, but also in promoting Western-style democracy and free-market capitalism in the former Soviet republics.
In time, much of their efforts focused on a $12 billion project known as Nabucco, named after the Verdi opera, that would take gas across the Caspian sea, through Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, finally reaching a terminal near Vienna. With Europe already dependent on Russia for a quarter of its natural gas, and that number set to rise with construction of a new northern pipeline running under the Baltic Sea to Germany, European leaders were keen to find alternative sources of natural gas. The effort took on greater urgency in winter 2006 after Russia briefly cut off supplies in its gas-pricing dispute with Ukraine.
Nabucco also became a top priority of the Bush State Department -- in particular, of Matt Bryza, a deputy assistant secretary of state, and C. Boyden Gray, a Bush family confidante who was named a special envoy for Eurasian energy, who began actively courting the leaders of Azerbaijan.
Putin, quite correctly, viewed Nabucco as part of a larger campaign by Washington to contain and isolate Russia and limit the expansion of its burgeoning energy empire. With Gazprom, the state gas monopoly, Putin launched his own competing proposal called South Stream to build a new pipeline to the Caucasus.
Suddenly the Russians were offering to pay Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan multiples of what they had previously offered to secure long-term supply deals. They penned an agreement with Italy and its oil company, Eni, to build a pipeline that would run under the Black Sea from Russia to Europe and end up at the same Austrian terminal as Nabucco. And Russian officials offered highly favorable transit agreements, ownership shares and guaranteed gas supplies to secure transit agreements from Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.
To industry observers like Ed Chow, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Nabucco has always looked more like a diplomats' pipe dream than a viable economic project. Its promoters had not only failed to secure supply and transit agreements but also had yet to identify an oil company eager to champion the project and finance the pipeline. Now, with its successful military incursion, Russia has raised serious doubts in the minds of Western lenders and investors that a new pipeline through Georgia would be safe from attack or beyond control of the Kremlin.
What we've been reminded once again is that Vladimir Putin is perfectly willing to sacrifice the rule of law and the good opinion of others to protect the Russian empire and the energy monopoly that sustains it. The techniques he used to bring Georgia to heel, while more lethal and destructive, have the same thuggish quality as the techniques Putin uses to silence domestic opposition and to expropriate the energy assets of Yukos, Shell and BP.
For the United States and Europe, this ought to be sufficient warning about the folly of extending membership in NATO or the European Union to every one of Russia's neighbors, particularly when they are unwilling to back it up with military action.
But it also is a reminder of the futility of trying to co-opt Putin by offering him a seat at the G-7, membership in the World Trade Organization or the honor of hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics. We may not be willing to send troops to Tbilisi, but at the least we should be willing to deny Russian companies the right to raise capital on Western stock exchanges, extend their pipelines into Western markets or use their energy profits to buy up major Western companies.
Vladimir Putin thinks he has looked into the soul of the West and discovered that we need him more than he needs us. It's time to convince him otherwise.
9) Russian tanks roll deep into Georgia, break truce
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and MATTI FRIEDMAN
Russian tanks rolled into the crossroads city of Gori on Wednesday then thrust deep into Georgian territory, violating the truce designed to end the six-day war that has uprooted 100,000 people and scarred the Georgian landscape.
Georgian officials said Gori was looted and bombed by the Russians. An AP reporter later saw dozens of tanks and military vehicles leaving the city, roaring south.
Troops waved at journalists and one soldier jokingly shouted to a photographer: "Come with us, beauty, we're going to Tbilisi!"
To the west, Abkahzian separatist forces backed by Russian military might pushed out Georgian troops and even moved into Georgian territory, defiantly planting a flag.
"The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria told AP on Wednesday. He said Georgia would have to accept the new border and taunted the retreating Georgian forces, saying they had received "American training in running away."
The developments came less than 12 hours after Georgia's president said he accepted a cease-fire plan brokered by France. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Russia was halting military action because Georgia had paid enough for its attack last Thursday on the pro-Russian breakaway province of South Ossetia.
"There is no cease-fire," Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN Wednesday. "We have a humanitarian disaster on our hands."
Saakashvili gambled on a surprise attack late Thursday to regain control over South Ossetia. Instead, Georgia suffered a punishing beating from Russian tanks and aircraft that has left the country with even less control over territory than before.
About 50 Russian tanks entered Gori on Wednesday morning, according to a top Georgian official, Alexander Lomaia. The city of 50,000 sits on Georgia's only significant east-west road about 15 miles south of South Ossetia, a separatist province where much of the fighting has taken place.
Russia's deputy chief of General Staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn insisted Wednesday that no tanks were in Gori. He said Russians went into the city to implement the truce with local Georgian officials but could not find any.
However, AP reporters and television crews saw several dozen Russian military trucks and armored vehicles driving first around in Gori, then speeding south. One reporter was told to retreat to the south because Russian shelling would soon begin.
Nogovitsyn also said sporadic clashes continued in South Ossetia where Georgian snipers fired sporadically on Russian troops who returned fire. "We must respond to provocations," he said.
Russia has handed out passports to most in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and stationed peacekeepers in the both regions since the early 1990s. Georgia wants the Russian peacekeepers out, but Medvedev insisted Tuesday they would stay.
In the west, Georgian troops acknowledged Wednesday they had completely pulled out of a small section of Abkhazia which they had controlled — a development that leaves the entire area in the hands of the Russian-backed separatists.
"This is Abkhazian land," one separatist told an AP reporter over the Inguri River, saying they were laying claim to historical Abkhazian territory and that Georgian troops left without challenging them. The fighters had moved across a thin slice of land dotted with Georgian villages.
Georgia insisted its troops were driven out by Russian forces. At first, Russia said that separatists had done the job, not Russian forces. Nogovitsyn said Wednesday that Russian peacekeepers had disarmed Georgian troops in Kodori — the same peacekeepers that Georgia wants withdrawn.
The effect was clear. Abkhazia was out of Georgian hands and it would take more than an EU peace plan to get it back in.
One of two separatists areas trying to leave Georgia for Russia, Abkhazia lies close to the heart of many Russians. It's Black Sea coast was a favorite vacation spot for the Soviet elite, and the province is just down the coast from Sochi, the Russian resort that will host the 2014 Olympics.
Lomaia said Russian troops also still held the western town of Zugdidi near Abkhazia, controlling the region's main highway. An AP reporter saw a convoy of 13 Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers in Zugdidi's outskirts on Wednesday.
"Russia has treacherously broken its word," Lomaia said.
The first U.N. relief flight arrived in Georgia on Tuesday to help the tens of thousands uprooted by six days of fighting. Thousands of Georgian refugees have streamed into Tbilisi, the capital, or the western Black Sea coast while thousands more South Ossetian refugees headed north to Russia. Those left behind in devastated regions of Georgia cowered in rat-infested cellars or wandered nearly deserted cities.
At a huge rally Tuesday night, Saakashvili said Russia's aim all along was not to gain control of the two disputed provinces but to "destroy" the smaller nation, a former Soviet state and current U.S. ally who wants to join NATO.
"They just don't want freedom, and that's why they want to stamp on Georgia and destroy it," he declared to thousands at a jam-packed square in Tbilisi.
He was joined by the leaders of five former Soviet bloc states — Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine — who also spoke out against Russian domination.
"Our neighbor thinks it can fight us. We are telling it no," said Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
In Brussels, Belgium, France sought support from its EU partners to deploy European peacekeeping monitors to the area. But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the move would only take place with the consent of both Russia and Georgia.
Russia accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in South Ossetia. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died.
Georgia said Wednesday that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins, including some killed Tuesday in a Russian bombing raid of Gori just hours before Medvedev declared fighting halted.
An AP reporter also saw heavy damage from a raid Tuesday in a Georgian village near Gori. Two men and a woman in Ruisi were killed and another five were wounded.
"I always hide in the basement," said one villager, the 70-year old Vakhtang Chkhekvadze as he pulled off a window frame blasted by an explosion. "But this time the explosion came so abruptly, I don't remember what happened afterward."
The Russia-Georgia dispute also reached the international courts, with the Georgian security council saying it had sued Russia for alleged ethnic cleansing. For his part, Medvedev reiterated accusations that Georgia had committed "genocide" in trying to reclaim South Ossetia.
At the Beijing Olympics, Georgian women rallied Wednesday to beat their Russian counterparts in beach volleyball, the first head-to-head clash of the two nations.
"Russia and Georgia are actually friends. People are friends," said the Georgian beach volleyball team leader, Levan Akhtulediani. "But you know, it's not, in the 21st century, to bomb a neighbor country, it's not a good idea."
"I say once again, its better to compete on the field rather than outside the field," he added.
___
Dunn sees Obama the way I do - Wilson's "Music Man!" (See 2 below.)
Israeli politics gets personal as Barak is deemed hysterically out of control for being critical of Livni. (See 3 below.)
Tobin takes a line from a great American songwriter and cleverly says: "Georgia Should Be On Their Minds." (See 4 below.)
They are educated here so they can learn to kill us according to Pipes. (See 5 below.)
Rubin discuses our "rose colored" foreign policy. GW's diplomatic initiatives have flip flopped as much as Obama. Where is John Bolton when we need him?(See 6 below.)
Beeston writes Putin has overplayed his hand, hardened attitudes and is going to fall on his own sword. (See 7 below.)
Pearlstein and Goldman point out the obvious - Russian energy is a threat to those who connect. (See 8 below.)
Russian tanks keep "a rollin" despite truce. (See 9 below.)
What this week has revealed should be informative for those with their eyes open. Putin's Russia has laid a trap for the West. President Reagan warned the European leaders not to become dependent on Russian energy and they ignored him. Now they might begin to understand the wisdom of his words.
Rubin is right about those who see the world not as it is but as they would wish it to be. Georgia should expose the dreaminess of Obama and all those who believe talk and weakness is the way to achieve peace.
For the moment Putin has taken the West to the cleaners and he has told them drop your pants here!
Dick
1)Jumblatt deserts Lebanon’s pro-Western camp, signs pact with pro-Iranian Hizballah
The fervently pro-US, pro-Israeli Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, has decided to hold out no longer. He has thrown in his lot with the most extreme pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian, anti-Israel force in Lebanon, the Shiite Hizballah, which has gained veto power over the government in Beirut unopposed.
Middle East sources disclose over last weekend, Jumblatt quietly signed a “defense cooperation pact” with Hassan Nasrallah, affording Hizballah a strong foothold in the Lebanese Druze bastion of Mt. Chouf.
Drawing the hostile noose around northern Israel ever tighter, Lebanese president Michel Sleiman was due in Damascus Wednesday, Aug. 13, to celebrate the thaw in relations between the two countries.
Neither Israeli ministers, sunk in an acrimonious contest over the succession to Ehud Olmert, nor the United States in the dying days of the Bush presidency, have lifted a finger to arrest Lebanon’s swift slide into the Iranian-Syrian orbit.
Jumblatt, after watching pro-Western strategic positions crumble in his country, decided to join forces with Hizballah to shield his ancestral mountain domain from Syrian domination.
The Druze and Hizballah militias agreed to set up a joint commission for coordinating military operations. Hizballah is represented by its security and intelligence commander, Wafiq Shafa (who was in change of the recent prisoner swap with Israel) and the Druzes by Akram Shahaib.
The joint security patrols for the Druze communities of the Chouf, will also give Hizballah a military presence on its third strategic Lebanese peak, after Mt. Sannine and Jebel Barukh.
2) The Obama Phenomenon is Not New
By J.R. Dunn
A nation enduring hard times. A frustrating war, a doubtful president. Public turmoil, political disagreement, future prospects uncertain as best. Then a figure appears from nowhere, a secular messiah from the heartland -- unique, appealing, promising solutions that are effective, fast, and easy. He stirs up an immediate and vastly excited following across the country, though many share quiet doubts.
I'm well aware what this sounds like. But in fact the year is 1861, and we're speaking of George B. McClellan.
Barack Obama has succeeded in ducking any meaningful comparisons with historical figures. Oh, there's John F. Kennedy (and let's not forget Jesus Christ), but that's simply another aspect of PR. Comparisons to JFK are a matter of style and appearance and little else. True enough, there is a pronounced resemblance between the two -- the slimness, the good looks, and a kind of indefinable aura of the early 60s.
But there the similarities end. Kennedy had long experience in several fields prior to his presidential campaign -- lengthy terms in both the Senate and the House, along with a wartime career as a naval commander. (Granted that he lost his command under the most bizarre circumstances imaginable. His biographer Thomas Reeves pointed out that JFK was the only known torpedo boat skipper to lose his boat through collision.) Kennedy also authored well-received books -- though Profiles in Courage owed as much to the talents of Ted Sorensen as it did to Kennedy himself. (Not to mention Arthur Krock's assistance with Why England Slept.)
But apart from JFK, there has been little attempt to compare Obama to other historical figures, because, well, because it leads us directly to McClellan. (Though a recent article in AT compared him to Wendell Willkie, which, as proud owner of an original, never-worn "Win With Willkie" tiepin, grieved me deeply and endlessly.)
George McClellan appeared to have everything going for him. A West Point education, a good reputation from the Mexican War, a career as a civil engineer that, just prior to the Civil War's outbreak, led him to the presidency of a railroad. McClellan was well-liked, inspired confidence in those he worked with, and appeared to be a young man headed for the top.
As a commander of Ohio volunteers, McClellan secured the western portion of Virginia (today West Virginia) against a handful of ill-led Confederate troops. The press inflated the operation into a mammoth victory, with McClellan as a combination of Napoleon and Wellington both. So when the Union nearly lost the war in an afternoon at Bull Run (July 21, 1861) leaving almost the entire Federal command in disgrace, who was there to turn to but Little Mac? (Out west there was a drunk named Grant and a near-lunatic named Sherman, but nobody was paying any attention to them.)
McClellan did an outstanding job pulling together a demoralized Union Army. But he didn't stop there, also taking on the roles of head of the Army of the Potomac and effective overall commander of Union forces. "I can do it all," he assured a worried Lincoln.
And for a time it seemed as if he could. The public, goaded by a hysterically adulatory press, had no doubt. Little Mac was greeted as a hero wherever he set foot.
But certain disquieting signs soon appeared. A sense of vainglory, an unwillingness to listen or share his thinking with other responsible figures -- even Lincoln himself. One observer stated that McClellan seemed to be "in a morbid condition of mental exaltation". McClellan's letters to his wife revealed this to be exactly the case:
"I find myself in a new and strange position here: President, cabinet, Gen. Scott, and all deferring to me. By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.... All tell me that I am held responsible for the fate of the nation, and that all its resources shall be placed at my disposal."
Speaking of the public, he wrote, "It is a proud and glorious thing to see a whole people here, simple and unsophisticated, looking up to me as their deliverer from tyranny."
It goes on and on. About the only thing that McClellan didn't call himself was a "symbol of American values", though if he'd thought of it, he'd have done that too.
As the historian Bruce Catton put it:
"This man, utterly winning and modest and soft-spoken in all his personal contacts, simply could not, down inside, look long enough on the great figure he was becoming, could not get enough of the savor of admiration and love that were coming to him.... What buried sense of personal inadequacy was gnawing at this man that he had to see himself so constantly through the eyes of men and women who looked upon him as a hero out of legend and myth?"
As is often the case, the record failed to live up to the myth. After a slow and methodical buildup lasting nearly a year, McClellan at last moved against the Confederates. The strategy was brilliant -- outflanking Confederate forces by landing the army on Virginia's James Peninsula and marching up to Richmond from an unexpected direction, while a second Union force closed in from the north. It was a nicely turned plan, and in other hands it might have worked. But not in McClellan's.
McClellan's bloated self-confidence deserted him in the face of a challenge. Rather than a brisk advance to Richmond, McClellan dawdled, insisting that vast, nonexistent Confederate forces prevented him from moving. When at last he started off, it was at a slow crawl that allowed the Rebels to fortify their front and concentrate their forces. When Union troops finally reached Richmond, the Confederate commander, another untried figure named Robert E. Lee, struck a series of lightning blows in what became known as the Seven Days battles, driving McClellan relentlessly back to the river. Rather than attempt to hold his commanding position, McClellan panicked and evacuated the entire army, leaving the field to the victorious Lee.
McClellan moped, blamed everyone else but himself, and sniffed conspiracies behind every closed door. His self-regard was not diminished a single iota, nor had his talent for procrastination. Weeks passed while the troops sat idle. Already strained political relations grew worse with each passing week. During one presidential visit to the camp, McClellan, a general under a democratic government serving at the pleasure of the president, refused to see Lincoln. Already evident doubts about McClellan began to burgeon.
Then Lee turned his army north, in the wake of yet another Bull Run victory. McClellan set off in pursuit. And at last everything went his way. Union troops found the Confederate campaign plan wrapped around a bundle of cigars and immediately sent it to headquarters. McClellan could see Lee's thinking as if through clear glass. His forces were in the right place. He had the numbers on his side. Victory had been handed to him, in a manner rarely seen in history.
Victory had been handed to him, and he threw it away. First by racing around the camp waving the captured paper and shouting "I've got him..." within easy earshot of a Confederate spy who then rode off to warn Lee. Secondly by taking his time getting moving. And thirdly by mishandling his forces. He put Ambrose Burnside, a competent staff officer but no field commander, in charge of the vanguard troops. When Burnside fumbled the job, McClellan, looking on from only a few yards away, failed to replace him, instead watching though the long afternoon as 22,000 men fell at Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single day in American history.
He failed where he could not have failed. Lee fought him to a draw, and successfully withdrew the Army of Virginia to safety.
McClellan was relieved in November 1862, and told to return to his home in Trenton, N.J. to await further orders. The orders never came. Lincoln turned to Burnside and then Joe Hooker in an effort to find a winning general, until it became impossible to overlook the fact that the drunk and the crazy man had succeeded in literally splitting the Confederacy in two. Grant came east, while Sherman remained in command of the troops in the west.
McClellan did not sit still. In the 1864 presidential election, after insisting he wouldn't run, he accepted the Democratic nomination at the behest of the Copperheads, a pro-slavery and anti-war group in effective control of the party. McClellan was still immensely popular. The war bogged down during the summer as the Army of the Potomac lay siege to Richmond. Lincoln was convinced that he would lose. Under a McClellan presidency, the South would have been allowed to go its way, slavery would have prevailed for further decades, and a second civil war, perhaps fought with the techniques and pure viciousness of WW I, would have been inevitable.
But as the summer progressed, the new Union strategy, in which Grant's forces held Lee's army in place while Sherman gutted the deep South, unfolded itself. Sherman at last reached the sea, presenting Savannah -- and the election -- as a gift to Lincoln. The new strategy undercut antiwar forces in the same way as Gen. David Petraeus's surge a hundred and forty years later. Lincoln took 212 electoral votes to Mac's 21.
A reinvigorated Union increased the pressure. At last the Southern troops could take no more. It ended on a fine April day in the courthouse at Appomattox. McClellan, a forgotten man, went back to engineering. He did very well.
One of Karl Marx's least harmful sayings is that history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. At best, that's only partially true. Intellectual absolutist as he was, Marx overlooked the fact that most events mingle tragedy, comedy, and every other conceivable element. There was no lack of tragedy in McClellan's wild charge across the American landscape, not the least involving the men who fell in the Seven Days and at Antietam. But there was no lack of farce either. Consider these words, spoken when Little Mac took command of his first army: "Soldiers! I have heard there was danger here, and I have come to place myself at your head and to share it with you. I fear now but one thing -- that you will not find foemen worthy of your steel."
Now consider the fact that the man who spoke them stood about 5' 4".
McClellan holds the place in American history as the figure whose initial promise was least borne out by events. The fact that Barack Obama most resembles one of this country's great clowns is his misfortune. Similar initial conditions will lead to similar results. If Obama follows the same path, the process will have its comic aspects. It already does -- recall the 57 states, the haloed iconography, the campaigning in Berlin with more intensity than in any American city. But as events play out, we will not be denied our share of tragedy.
3) Kadima officials: Barak is hysterical, verging on collapse
"[Defense Minister and Labor leader Ehud] Barak is an hysterical person on the verge of collapse," Kadima members lashed out on Wednesday in response to an Army Radio interview in which Barak called Kadima a "refugee camp."
TZIPI LIVNI. Borrowing from US campaign strategies, Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday asserted that the Foreign Minister would not trust her to make decisions, "neither at three in the morning nor at three in the afternoon."
"It is obvious that at the helm of a party on the threshold of bankruptcy there is an hysterical man whose conduct in the past few days only reinforces our conviction that Barak understands Kadima is a strong party," sources in Kadima said.
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman and Kadima MK Tzahi Hanegbi, who on Wednesday endorsed Foregn Minister Tzipi Livni in the Kadima primary race, told Army Radio he was encouraged that his political rival "is losing his temper and restraint and showing signs of distress."
Earlier, Barak launched a scathing attack on Kadima and on Livni, the party's leading candidate to win the primaries.
"Even if Tzipora Livni makes the decisions, this doesn't mean that she is fit to do so," Barak asserted in the Army Radio interview. "Her pride in UN resolution 1701 puts her judgment in question," the Labor party leader added, referring to the cease-fire agreement that effectively ended the Second Lebanon War.
Alluding to an ad Hillary Clinton's campaign ran in order to cast doubt on Barack Obama's experience, Barak continued, saying, "Livni is not necessarily qualified to provide the right solutions, neither at three in the morning nor at three in the afternoon."
The defense minister went on to call Kadima a "refugee camp," claiming that the ruling party had "brought upon Israel the repercussions of the disengagement, the Second Lebanon War and a series of embarrassing affairs."
Barak did not spare Kadima's second front-runner for the prime ministerial candidacy, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, whom he criticized for inflammatory remarks he had made regarding Iran.
Barak implied that the US was opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities but maintained that the military option "must remain on the table."
4) Georgia should be on their minds
By Jonathan Tobin
Invasion illustrates the need to see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be
As the political calendar unfolded in this presidential election year, news analysts often reminded their audiences that the two weeks during August while the Olympic torch burned in Beijing would be very quiet.
The upshot was that during the Olympic fortnight the vast majority of Americans would join the rest of the world in obsessing about sports that they only pretend to care about for two weeks out of every four years. Nobody, we were told, could or should even try to make news during this time period because we would all be too busy gobbling up details about such riveting spectacles as synchronized swimming and team handball.
But apparently, Vladimir Putin didn't get that memo.
Instead of heading to a beach to chill out like Barack Obama or going to a State Fair for photo-ops with overgrown pigs like John McCain, the Russian leader apparently thought this would be an excellent time to play his country's traditional favorite sport: invading and subverting the governments of its smaller neighbors.
That was bad news for Georgia, one of the small independent republics in the Caucasus that gained its independence in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire. Though most Americans were, and probably still are, uncertain about the location of this country or anything about it (other, that is, than in the fact that it has the same name as an American state), the attack on pro-Western and democratic Georgia was something that they should care very much about.
IRAQ HANGOVER
It was another unwelcome reminder of something that most pundits have been working hard to obscure for most of the year -namely, that the main duty of whoever's elected president of the United States later this year is to direct the foreign policy of this country at a time when international affairs are more complicated and dangerous than ever.
Despite the evident change for the better in the Iraq war, most Americans are still too turned off by the unpopular conflict in that country to be willing to get too worked up about any other far away place. Few seem to think even the prospect of a nuclear Iran is worth fighting about. So why expect anyone here to switch away from watching swimming or fencing to a discussion of the plight of Georgians whose borders are being overrun and cities bombed?
There's no denying that it's a complicated conflict that can be reduced to a tit-for-tat exchange of accusations about whose independence is being trampled: Georgia or the breakaway republics inside its borders that the Russians have used as a pretext to squash a democratic pro-Western government?
There's more than enough hypocrisy about the principle of self-determination to go around. People here who thought NATO's war to create a Greater Albania via an independent Kosovo carved out of a beastly Serbian regime back in 1999 was a fine thing are now exercised about Putin's attempt to do the same to a far more presentable Georgian government.
Such ironies abound in international politics. Russians who care about the integrity of Abkhazia and Ossetia cheered as their army raped Chechnya. Similarly, those who think a terrorist-led Palestinian people have an inalienable right to create a 22nd Arab Islamic state at Israel's expense don't think the far more numerous Kurds are entitled to one.
But let's not kid ourselves. Putin has taken advantage of a Bush administration that was slow to see the danger from the rise of this former KGB agent whose drive to authoritarian power has been fueled by inflated oil prices. The re-emergence of an aggressive Russia is a threat not only to its independent and democratic neighbors like Ukraine and Georgia, but to the peace of Europe.
However misguided the democratic government of Georgia might have been in some respects, Bush must step up now and use what leverage we have left to make it clear to the Russians that they will pay a price for their behavior. Taking away their membership in the G8 is one possible penalty that might impress the prestige-obsessed Russians that they've made a mistake.
But as hapless as the administration's bumbling approach to this crisis might be, just as discouraging is the general indifference of the public and the chattering classes to the plight of Georgia. While Bush famously erred when he claimed to have looked into the eyes of Putin and saw his soul, Putin has made no such mistake about the current political climate in the United States. He thinks the Iraq hangover we're still reeling from means that we haven't the stomach to resist him even on a symbolic level, and he's probably right.
Indeed, the reaction of many of our so-called wise men to the invasion of Georgia was fear of being forced into a new Cold War with Russia rather than in the consequences of a revived Russian imperialism.
NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT
At Time magazine's blog, columnist and author Joe Klein waxed hysterical about the "overreaction" of the few Americans who bothered to notice Putin's putsch. The influential pundit has been working hard lately with other war critics to pooh-pooh concerns about Iran's drive for nuclear weapons, and burnishing the myth that the issue is a mere device created by Jewish neoconservatives who are more loyal to Israel than the United States.
So it is was not much of a surprise to find that Klein viewed concern about Russia as being nothing to get worked up over. In a bizarre twist, the fact that Georgia actually is a thriving democracy devoted to free-market principles may be helping to turn off those who have come to associate the spread of democracy with the hated neocons and see any policy associated with its defense as inherently wrong.
Others who want to ignore Georgia's plight tell us, in a strange echo of leftist Cold War polemics, that Russia's evil deeds are merely reactions to Western overreaching. But Putin's policy has nothing to do with Kosovo or NATO, and everything to do with his cherished agenda of reconstituting the empire of the tsars and the commissars.
The need to play down Georgia is similar to the impulses to return to a Sept. 10 mentality about Islamist terrorism or to brand those who urge action on Iran's apocalyptic threats of a new Holocaust as war-mongering neocon alarmists. These misguided positions all stem from a desire to see the world as we would like it to be, not as it is.
The antidote to these fallacies isn't the sort of faux "realism" that is merely a cover for appeasement of evil promoted by a failed foreign-policy establishment. Nor is it mere talk about diplomacy from those whose grasp of the issues is shaky.
As American politics reawakens later this month from its Olympic-induced slumber, it would be prudent for more of us to remember that the ability to think clearly and act decisively about this sort of a crisis is the most important thing we need in our next president, no matter what his name or party affiliation might be.
5) The West's Islamist Infiltrators
By Daniel Pipes
Aafia Siddiqui, 36, is a Pakistani mother of three, an alumna of MIT, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University. She is also accused of working for Al-Qaeda and was charged last week in New York City with attempting to kill American soldiers.
Her arrest serves to remind how invisibly most Islamist infiltration proceeds. In particular, an estimated forty Al-Qaeda sympathizers or operatives have sought to penetrate U.S. intelligence agencies.
Such a well-placed infiltrator can wreck great damage explains a former CIA chief of counterintelligence, Michael Sulick: "In the war on terrorism, intelligence has replaced the Cold War's tanks and fighter planes as the primary weapon against an unseen enemy." Islamist moles, he argues, "could inflict far more damage to national security than Soviet spies," for the U.S. and Soviet Union never actually fought each other, whereas now, "our nation is at war."
Aafia Siddiqui is accused of working for Al-Qaeda.
Here are some American cases of attempted infiltration since 2001 that have been made public:
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The Air Force discharged Sadeq Naji Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, when his superiors learned of his pro-Al-Qaeda statements. Ahmed subsequently became a baggage screener at Detroit's Metro Airport, which terminated him for hiding his earlier discharge from the Air Force. He was convicted of making false statements and sentenced to eighteen months in jail.
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The Chicago Police Department fired Patricia Eng-Hussain just three days into her training on learning that her husband, Mohammad Azam Hussain, was arrested for being an active member of Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), a Pakistani terrorist group.
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The Chicago Police Department also fired Arif Sulejmanovski, a supervising janitor at its 25th District station after it learned his name was on a federal terrorist watch list of international terrorism suspects.
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Mohammad Alavi, an engineer at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, was arrested as he arrived on a flight from Iran, accused of taking computer access codes and software to Iran that provide details on the plant's control rooms and plant layout. He subsequently pleaded guilty to transporting stolen property.
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Nada Nadim Prouty pleaded guilty to multiple charges.
Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese immigrant who worked for both the FBI and CIA, pleaded guilty to charges of: fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and engaging in conspiracy to defraud the United States.
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Waheeda Tehseen, a Pakistani immigrant who filled a sensitive toxicologist position with the Environmental Protection Agency, pleaded guilty to fraud and was deported. World Net Daily explains that "investigators suspect espionage is probable, as she produced highly sensitive health-hazard documents for toxic compounds and chemical pesticides. Tehseen also was an expert in parasitology as it relates to public water systems."
*
Weiss Rasool, 31, a Fairfax County police sergeant and Afghan immigrant, pleaded guilty for checking police databases without authorization, thereby jeopardizing at least one federal terrorism investigation.
*
Nadire P. Zenelaj, 32, a 911 emergency operator of Albanian origins, was charged with 232 felony counts of computer trespass for illegally searching New York State databases, including at least one person on the FBI's terrorist watch list.
Three other cases are less clear. The Transportation Security Administration fired Bassam Khalaf, 21, a Texan of Christian Palestinian origins, as an airport baggage screener because lyrics on his music CD, Terror Alert, applaud the 9/11 attacks. FBI Special Agent Gamal Abdel-Hafiz "showed a pattern of pro-Islamist behavior," according to author Paul Sperry, that may have helped acquit Sami Al-Arian of terrorism charges. The Pentagon cleared Hesham Islam, an Egyptian immigrant, former U.S. Navy commander, and special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, but major questions remain about his biography and his outlook.
Other Western countries too - Australia, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom - have been subject to infiltration efforts. (For details, see my weblog entry, "Islamists Penetrate Western Security.")
This record prompts one to wonder what catastrophe must occur before government agencies, some of which have banished the words "Islam" and "jihad," seriously confront their internal threat?
Westerners are indebted to Muslim agents like Fred Ghussin and "Kamil Pasha" who have been critical to fighting terrorism. That said, I stand by my 2003 statement that "There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism."
6) . . . And Foreign Policy Moves Front and Center
by Michael Rubin
As Iranian centrifuges spin and Russian tanks roll into Georgia, foreign policy has moved to the front of the presidential election debate. Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, promises change. Such rhetoric appeals to an electorate exasperated with President Bush, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and high energy prices. How ironic it is then that that by conflating change with pandering, Obama replicates Bush's mistakes.
It was neither the Iraq war nor the failure to embrace multilateralism which undercut U.S. credibility under Bush, but rather foreign policy flip-flops. On June 24, 2002, amidst a rash of Palestinian suicide attacks, Bush won the plaudits of terror victims when he declared, "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership [uncompromised by terror], so that a Palestinian state can be born." His audience applauded.
Reversal was swift. Within a year, Bush abandoned his no-terrorism red-line. Just this year, to sweeten a Palestinian audience, he promised Palestinian independence, even as Palestinian rockets fell on Israeli towns. Today, the U.S. government is the largest donor to the Palestinian territories, subsidizing food and housing, enabling Fatah and Hamas to spend more on guns and rockets.
Because of Bush, few dissidents will ever again trust Washington. At his second inauguration, Bush declared, "All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression." He applauded as Lebanese rose up against Syrian occupation. And yet, in her subsequent visits, Condoleezza Rice embraced the Syrian-imposed ruler.
On June 6, 2007, Bush declared himself the "Dissident President" at a conference in Prague and assigned diplomats to resolve the case of each dissident with whom he met. Bush glowed as activists gave him a standing ovation. A year later, no dissident present has heard from either White House or State Department. On Jan. 11, 2008, after his historic visit to Washington, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam bragged that the Bush administration had failed to demand the release of Libya's leading dissident, whom Bush had once lauded. Bush had told each audience what it wanted to hear. Affirmation and applause trumped principle and consistency.
Pandering undercuts trust in the United States. After promising Japan that Washington would "not settle for anything less than the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of [North Korea's] nuclear weapons program," Bush surprised Tokyo with a deal that let Pyongyang keep its bombs. Bush's reversal on Iranian nuclear enrichment caught both Israel and moderate Arab states flatfooted and raised the possibility of unilateral Israeli military strikes. Bush's speeches may garner allies' applause, but foreign capitals know they no longer describe policy.
Obama's willingness to promise anything replicates Bush. Speaking to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama won rapturous applause when he declared, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." Less than three months later, he told Palestinian officials, again to applause, he welcomed Jerusalem's division.
Obama repeatedly promises a 16-month withdrawal from Iraq although, when questioned, his aides say ground conditions will determine withdrawal. To some audiences, Obama wins plaudits with declarations that he will talk anywhere, any time with Iranian leaders when, to other audiences, he qualifies this based on Iranian President Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and threats to wipe Israel off the map.
Both Bush and Obama sacrifice consistency and credibility for affirmation. The cost of establishing a legacy and political sloganeering can be high. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate suggested that Iran ceased nuclear warhead work in 2003 because Saddam's downfall showed Bush was serious about enforcing his policy. After last month's policy reversal, the Iranian assessment was different. A prominent Revolutionary Guard general called America "beaten and humiliated."
Consistency is a virtue even when politically unpopular. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, endorsed the surge long before Bush not because 30,000 troops would enable the United States to do in Iraq what it had not before, but rather because it would demonstrate resolve to militias and terrorists who -- like bin Laden before 9/11 -- preached that the United States had become a paper tiger, unable to back its words with actions. It is doubtful Russian forces would invade a U.S. ally if they believed U.S. resolve strong.
Both Bush and Obama pander for adulation. Change may be a good slogan, but restoring U.S. credibility requires not flip-flops but consistency.
7) Strutting Russia is heading for a fall
By Richard Beeston
Opinion is hardening against the Kremlin. For all its bluster, it is weak and vulnerable
Rarely have Russians had such cause to celebrate their hero. One minute Vladimir Putin was in Beijing mixing with Russian athletes on the opening day of the Olympics. Moments later he reappeared in the Caucasus, sleeves rolled up and directing a victorious counter-attack against his arch-rival Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian President. Fleeing refugees and wounded civilians were comforted. Generals saluted smartly as they were sent off to battle. No one was left in any doubt that Mr Putin, rather than the absent President Medvedev, was still firmly in charge of the country.
In the space of only five days the Russian Prime Minister succeeded not only in smashing the Georgian Army but also teaching all those in the “near abroad”, as Russia refers to its neighbours in the former Soviet empire, a painful lesson about challenging Moscow in its own backyard.
The decisive action was in sharp contrast to the response in the West. The war in Georgia exposed deep divisions in the transatlantic alliance and revealed the impotence of the Bush Administration in protecting its closest friend in the region.
Respect is something Mr Putin and many of his countrymen believe they lost when the Soviet Union broke apart 17 years ago. They may now feel that over the past few days some of that loss has been restored.
The Russia-Georgia grudge match
For Russians sunning themselves on the Mediterranean or enjoying the long summer evenings at their dachas in the countryside, this is the plausible narrative faithfully repeated by the state-controlled media.
Unfortunately, the conclusions they draw are completely wrong. Russia may have smashed its tiny neighbour but victory will come at a heavy price. The war will reduce rather than increase Russia's stature abroad, where the Kremlin faces growing isolation.
Since the emergence of the modern Russian state during the Yeltsin years in the 1990s, the country has been regarded as chaotic and corrupt but broadly peaceful and certainly no serious threat. Back in 2003 Condoleezza Rice, the Russophile US Secretary of State, famously advised President Bush to “forgive” Russia for its stand against the Iraq war, while France was punished and Germany ignored.
To judge by the language of both US presidential candidates responding to the Georgian war, forgiveness is no longer an option. Democrat or Republican will take a much harder line towards Russia over its aggressive foreign posture, its increasingly autocratic Government and the inescapable conclusion that Mr Putin is determined to remain in power indefinitely.
The Europeans may seem divided, but behind the bland statements calling on both sides to stop the recent fighting something significant has happened. Six European leaders, five of them from the former Soviet bloc, chose to stand side by side with Mr Saakashvili yesterday as he struggled to remain in power. The events in the Caucasus will only serve to harden opinion against Russia at Nato and in the EU.
The mini-war in Georgia may have surprised some Europeans, but it was expected weeks ago by British Intelligence. Thanks to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-KGB officer who was poisoned in London by suspected Russian agents nearly two years ago, Britain has completely reassessed its relationship with Moscow. MI5, which reports that Russian agents in Britain are now back at Cold War levels, regards Russia as the third most serious threat to British security after terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Attempts to rehabilitate relations have faltered and the recent treatment of BP by its partners and the Russian authorities has only reinforced the view that Russia cannot be trusted.
Flush with billions from the sale of oil and gas, the Kremlin may calculate that it does not need allies in the West and would rather be respected and feared than befriended.
That too would be a serious mistake. For all its big-power bluster, Russia is weak and vulnerable. Russian tanks and aircraft may have smashed the fledgeling Georgian Army with ease, but most of the weaponry was Cold War-era and many of the troops conscripts. Anyone who has seen the Russian Army operating in the Caucasus knows that the military will need a generation to modernise. Meanwhile America, and its main Nato allies, are decades ahead in military technology and combat experience.
Russia is also facing a severe demographic crisis. Its population is shrinking by 700,000 people a year. The UN estimates the population will fall below 100 million by 2050, down from around 146 million today.
As for the economy, it is booming thanks to natural resources that account for 70 per cent of the country's wealth. But the oil price is in a state of flux. Russia has failed to diversify. Should energy prices fall sharply, the economy could collapse, as it did a decade ago.
Mr Putin once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Trying to resurrect it could be the greatest folly of the 21st.
8) Russia's Strike Shows The Power Of the Pipeline
By Steven Pearlstein
It was surely not lost on Russia's bully in chief, Vladimir Putin, that the oil giant BP decided to shut down the pipeline that runs through parts of Georgia controlled by Russian troops. Indeed, that was one of the aims of the cross-border incursion.
Russia's Strike Shows The Power Of the Pipeline
Putin understands better than anyone that oil and gas are the source of Russia's resurgence as a military and economic power and his own control over the Russian government and key sectors of its economy. It is oil and gas that provide the money to maintain Russia's powerful military, along with a vast internal security apparatus and network of government-controlled enterprises that allow the president-turned-premier to maintain his iron grip on the levers of political and economic power.
A little pipeline history: It was just as Putin was coming to power in 1999 that an agreement was reached to create the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. The project would allow Azerbaijan and its production partner, BP, to bypass Russia and transport their newly drilled oil instead through Georgia and Turkey to a port in the eastern Mediterranean.
Because of its control of the only pipeline system linking former Soviet republics with the West, Russia had been able to extract most of the profit from any oil and gas that these newly independent countries could produce. But with BTC, which had the active support of the U.S. and European governments, Russia would lose its monopoly chokehold, opening the way for Western oil companies to make multibillion-dollar investments in the energy-rich Caucasus states.
No sooner was BTC completed, however, than Western officials began exploring the possibility of other pipelines that could reach beyond Georgia and Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan, which was thought to have some of the world's largest gas reserves. Their interest was not only in "energy security" and the prospect of oil riches for Western energy companies, but also in promoting Western-style democracy and free-market capitalism in the former Soviet republics.
In time, much of their efforts focused on a $12 billion project known as Nabucco, named after the Verdi opera, that would take gas across the Caspian sea, through Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, finally reaching a terminal near Vienna. With Europe already dependent on Russia for a quarter of its natural gas, and that number set to rise with construction of a new northern pipeline running under the Baltic Sea to Germany, European leaders were keen to find alternative sources of natural gas. The effort took on greater urgency in winter 2006 after Russia briefly cut off supplies in its gas-pricing dispute with Ukraine.
Nabucco also became a top priority of the Bush State Department -- in particular, of Matt Bryza, a deputy assistant secretary of state, and C. Boyden Gray, a Bush family confidante who was named a special envoy for Eurasian energy, who began actively courting the leaders of Azerbaijan.
Putin, quite correctly, viewed Nabucco as part of a larger campaign by Washington to contain and isolate Russia and limit the expansion of its burgeoning energy empire. With Gazprom, the state gas monopoly, Putin launched his own competing proposal called South Stream to build a new pipeline to the Caucasus.
Suddenly the Russians were offering to pay Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan multiples of what they had previously offered to secure long-term supply deals. They penned an agreement with Italy and its oil company, Eni, to build a pipeline that would run under the Black Sea from Russia to Europe and end up at the same Austrian terminal as Nabucco. And Russian officials offered highly favorable transit agreements, ownership shares and guaranteed gas supplies to secure transit agreements from Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.
To industry observers like Ed Chow, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Nabucco has always looked more like a diplomats' pipe dream than a viable economic project. Its promoters had not only failed to secure supply and transit agreements but also had yet to identify an oil company eager to champion the project and finance the pipeline. Now, with its successful military incursion, Russia has raised serious doubts in the minds of Western lenders and investors that a new pipeline through Georgia would be safe from attack or beyond control of the Kremlin.
What we've been reminded once again is that Vladimir Putin is perfectly willing to sacrifice the rule of law and the good opinion of others to protect the Russian empire and the energy monopoly that sustains it. The techniques he used to bring Georgia to heel, while more lethal and destructive, have the same thuggish quality as the techniques Putin uses to silence domestic opposition and to expropriate the energy assets of Yukos, Shell and BP.
For the United States and Europe, this ought to be sufficient warning about the folly of extending membership in NATO or the European Union to every one of Russia's neighbors, particularly when they are unwilling to back it up with military action.
But it also is a reminder of the futility of trying to co-opt Putin by offering him a seat at the G-7, membership in the World Trade Organization or the honor of hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics. We may not be willing to send troops to Tbilisi, but at the least we should be willing to deny Russian companies the right to raise capital on Western stock exchanges, extend their pipelines into Western markets or use their energy profits to buy up major Western companies.
Vladimir Putin thinks he has looked into the soul of the West and discovered that we need him more than he needs us. It's time to convince him otherwise.
9) Russian tanks roll deep into Georgia, break truce
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and MATTI FRIEDMAN
Russian tanks rolled into the crossroads city of Gori on Wednesday then thrust deep into Georgian territory, violating the truce designed to end the six-day war that has uprooted 100,000 people and scarred the Georgian landscape.
Georgian officials said Gori was looted and bombed by the Russians. An AP reporter later saw dozens of tanks and military vehicles leaving the city, roaring south.
Troops waved at journalists and one soldier jokingly shouted to a photographer: "Come with us, beauty, we're going to Tbilisi!"
To the west, Abkahzian separatist forces backed by Russian military might pushed out Georgian troops and even moved into Georgian territory, defiantly planting a flag.
"The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria told AP on Wednesday. He said Georgia would have to accept the new border and taunted the retreating Georgian forces, saying they had received "American training in running away."
The developments came less than 12 hours after Georgia's president said he accepted a cease-fire plan brokered by France. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Russia was halting military action because Georgia had paid enough for its attack last Thursday on the pro-Russian breakaway province of South Ossetia.
"There is no cease-fire," Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN Wednesday. "We have a humanitarian disaster on our hands."
Saakashvili gambled on a surprise attack late Thursday to regain control over South Ossetia. Instead, Georgia suffered a punishing beating from Russian tanks and aircraft that has left the country with even less control over territory than before.
About 50 Russian tanks entered Gori on Wednesday morning, according to a top Georgian official, Alexander Lomaia. The city of 50,000 sits on Georgia's only significant east-west road about 15 miles south of South Ossetia, a separatist province where much of the fighting has taken place.
Russia's deputy chief of General Staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn insisted Wednesday that no tanks were in Gori. He said Russians went into the city to implement the truce with local Georgian officials but could not find any.
However, AP reporters and television crews saw several dozen Russian military trucks and armored vehicles driving first around in Gori, then speeding south. One reporter was told to retreat to the south because Russian shelling would soon begin.
Nogovitsyn also said sporadic clashes continued in South Ossetia where Georgian snipers fired sporadically on Russian troops who returned fire. "We must respond to provocations," he said.
Russia has handed out passports to most in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and stationed peacekeepers in the both regions since the early 1990s. Georgia wants the Russian peacekeepers out, but Medvedev insisted Tuesday they would stay.
In the west, Georgian troops acknowledged Wednesday they had completely pulled out of a small section of Abkhazia which they had controlled — a development that leaves the entire area in the hands of the Russian-backed separatists.
"This is Abkhazian land," one separatist told an AP reporter over the Inguri River, saying they were laying claim to historical Abkhazian territory and that Georgian troops left without challenging them. The fighters had moved across a thin slice of land dotted with Georgian villages.
Georgia insisted its troops were driven out by Russian forces. At first, Russia said that separatists had done the job, not Russian forces. Nogovitsyn said Wednesday that Russian peacekeepers had disarmed Georgian troops in Kodori — the same peacekeepers that Georgia wants withdrawn.
The effect was clear. Abkhazia was out of Georgian hands and it would take more than an EU peace plan to get it back in.
One of two separatists areas trying to leave Georgia for Russia, Abkhazia lies close to the heart of many Russians. It's Black Sea coast was a favorite vacation spot for the Soviet elite, and the province is just down the coast from Sochi, the Russian resort that will host the 2014 Olympics.
Lomaia said Russian troops also still held the western town of Zugdidi near Abkhazia, controlling the region's main highway. An AP reporter saw a convoy of 13 Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers in Zugdidi's outskirts on Wednesday.
"Russia has treacherously broken its word," Lomaia said.
The first U.N. relief flight arrived in Georgia on Tuesday to help the tens of thousands uprooted by six days of fighting. Thousands of Georgian refugees have streamed into Tbilisi, the capital, or the western Black Sea coast while thousands more South Ossetian refugees headed north to Russia. Those left behind in devastated regions of Georgia cowered in rat-infested cellars or wandered nearly deserted cities.
At a huge rally Tuesday night, Saakashvili said Russia's aim all along was not to gain control of the two disputed provinces but to "destroy" the smaller nation, a former Soviet state and current U.S. ally who wants to join NATO.
"They just don't want freedom, and that's why they want to stamp on Georgia and destroy it," he declared to thousands at a jam-packed square in Tbilisi.
He was joined by the leaders of five former Soviet bloc states — Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine — who also spoke out against Russian domination.
"Our neighbor thinks it can fight us. We are telling it no," said Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
In Brussels, Belgium, France sought support from its EU partners to deploy European peacekeeping monitors to the area. But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the move would only take place with the consent of both Russia and Georgia.
Russia accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in South Ossetia. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died.
Georgia said Wednesday that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins, including some killed Tuesday in a Russian bombing raid of Gori just hours before Medvedev declared fighting halted.
An AP reporter also saw heavy damage from a raid Tuesday in a Georgian village near Gori. Two men and a woman in Ruisi were killed and another five were wounded.
"I always hide in the basement," said one villager, the 70-year old Vakhtang Chkhekvadze as he pulled off a window frame blasted by an explosion. "But this time the explosion came so abruptly, I don't remember what happened afterward."
The Russia-Georgia dispute also reached the international courts, with the Georgian security council saying it had sued Russia for alleged ethnic cleansing. For his part, Medvedev reiterated accusations that Georgia had committed "genocide" in trying to reclaim South Ossetia.
At the Beijing Olympics, Georgian women rallied Wednesday to beat their Russian counterparts in beach volleyball, the first head-to-head clash of the two nations.
"Russia and Georgia are actually friends. People are friends," said the Georgian beach volleyball team leader, Levan Akhtulediani. "But you know, it's not, in the 21st century, to bomb a neighbor country, it's not a good idea."
"I say once again, its better to compete on the field rather than outside the field," he added.
___
Monday, August 11, 2008
A Wake up Call if We Are Not Still Asleep!
This happened several weeks ago and I reported on it then but thought is was worth repeating in somewhat more detail. (See 1 below.)
Russia is again a force to be reckoned with and Putin means business, He is willing to play hardball because he has the upper hand. Russia now begins diplomatic talks and Georgia is over a barrel and the west with them. (See 2 2a below.)
Olmert lays down an opportunity for Abbas. Olmert has offered Abbas less land than Barak offered Arafat but a passage connection Gaza and the West Bank to compensate. Abbas will have to sell this deal to his people and Olmert to his. Status of Jerusalem has been deferred.
Palestinians always want more and consequently lose. The question for Abbas is threefold:
a) Can he assure Israel security from Hamas?
b) Can he convinmce his people a state is better than trying to eliminate Israel.
c) Can Abbas survive and impose this deal on the thugs who control Gaza?
The Palestinians have been teaching hate for so long I don't believe they will be able to meet the conditions Israel needs for their own security but then I am cynical. (See 3 below.)
Christopher Chantrill submits the five Republican Senators, who want to prove they are nice guys and bi-partisan, are really political traitors. The very least one can say is that they are stupid. (See 4 below.)
It would not surprise me if Russia was behind possible renewed action on the part of Hezballah against Israel. A strong and secure Israel remains a long term threat to Russia's objectives to gain greater influence in the region through arm deals and commercial ties.
Russia's no nonsense action against Georgia should send a chilling message to those in the region about its intentions and the West's powerlessness in the face of swift Russian action. The bear has a long reach and crushing hug.
The only positive that could possibly come from what happened in Georgia is that it serves as a wake up call to the U.S. if we are wide eyed enough to see and comprehend? (See 5 and 5a below.)
Dick
1) Refugees from whom?
Extraordinary developments in Gaza have given a new meaning to the term 'Palestinian refugees'. As the Jerusalem Post reports, fierce fighting in Gaza between Fatah and Hamas over the weekend, in which 11 people died and dozens more were wounded, resulted in 180 Fatah refugees fleeing from what they called a 'war of genocide' by Hamas against Fatah supporters. And where did they flee to? Why, to Israel, of course -- which allowed them in and proceeded to treat 23 of them (some of whom were wounded by the Israeli army after they approached the crossing into Israel) in Israeli hospitals. These refugees say they cannot return to Gaza because they will be killed. How fortunate, therefore, that their own Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, can give them sanctuary in the West Bank!
But hang on – Abbas won't let them in. Yup, with the exception of five individuals whom he did allow in, he's denied them all sanctuary. He says they should go back to Gaza. And the invaluable Khaled abu Toameh tells us the reason why:
PA officials explained that the reason behind their refusal to absorb the new 'refugees' was their desire not to encourage other residents of the Gaza Strip to leave. 'Everyone knows that if we allow people to leave the Gaza Strip, almost all the residents living there would try to cross the border into Israel,' said a senior PA official.
But there was also another reason:
The last thing Abbas needs is another 180 bitter Fatah thugs from the Gaza Strip patrolling the streets of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus and imposing a reign of terror on the local population. Past experience has shown that the Palestinians in the West Bank have never been enthusiastic about the presence of their brethren from the Gaza Strip among them.
So now Israel, with its iron commitment to human rights, is to hear a court case today where it will be argued that Israel has a moral duty to grant asylum to these Fatah men.
So let's get our head round this: Palestinians committed to the destruction of Israel fled from other Palestinians committed to the destruction of Israel into Israel, which is providing them with sanctuary and medical treatment, while the president of their putative state who bases his claim against Israel on its alleged refusal to admit Palestinian 'refugees' refused to allow actual Palestinian refugees fleeing Palestinian violence access to that same putative state, while Israel agonizes over whether to grant them permanent asylum. Surreal, or what?
One of the Fatah men said that he too was wounded at the beginning of the clashes. The father of three, who has undergone surgery in his leg, said he first tried to go to a hospital in Gaza City, but was blocked by Hamas. 'Hamas had closed all the roads leading to the hospital. I wanted to go to Shifa Hospital [in Gaza City], but Hamas did not allow any ambulance to enter our area. In the end, my brother drove me to the Israeli border,' he said. When asked if he wanted to go back to the Gaza Strip, he replied: 'It would be like a death sentence for me. I hope they don't force us to go back.'
Hamas closed the roads leading to the hospital... not allowing ambulances to enter the area to collect the wounded... When reading the coverage of these clashes later today in the British press or watching and listening to it on the BBC, just consider what that coverage would have been like if it had been Israel rather than Hamas that had behaved like this. The Jerusalem Post reports:
At least 12 of those who were wounded in Saturday's fighting were under the age of 15...
What is that unfamiliar sound emanating from all those who routinely scream that Israel kills Palestinian children? It is called silence.
2) Analysis: Russia sends a message to the West
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Georgia lost a foolhardy gamble in thumbing its nose at its powerful neighbor Russia, which this weekend bombed Georgian cities and wrested control of its breakaway province of South Ossetia, according to Israeli Russian experts.
Russia had seen a "golden opportunity" to teach Georgia and its neighbors a lesson to "behave properly," said Hebrew University Russian expert Yitzhak Brudny, as he explained how a small military flare-up between Georgia and South Ossetia had turned into a major military exercise for Russia and drawn world attention away from the Olympics in Beijing.
With all eyes turned toward China, Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili had hoped he could respond harshly to a skirmish with South Ossetia on Friday and try and regain control of the separatist province, said Russian expert Amnon Sella of the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya.
"It backfired on him because Georgia, which has a very small army, can't take on Russia," which had obviously been prepared for such a move given its swift response, said Sella.
"Saakashvili is a young president who is not well seasoned in international affairs," said Sella. He had hoped the international community and in particular the West would support Georgia's moves in South Ossetia and that Russia would not respond, he added.
Saakashvili, explained Brudny, has a reputation for being a "hothead" who does not always think through what he is doing.
Instead of responding diplomatically, Russia, which has granted passports to most South Ossetians, sent combat troops into South Ossetia and attacked Georgia from the air.
The bombardment was a way for Moscow to kill a few birds with one stone, Brundy and other academics said.
It showed both Georgia and the West that Russia was a regional superpower to be reckoned with, said Brudny. The message was: "We are going to use force, we are not going to tolerate a hostile regime on our borderland."
"Russia wants to maintain the status quo, meaning they wield influence over the region," including a monopoly on sources of energy, said Sella. Running through Georgia is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipline, the second largest in the world for the transport of crude oil, he said.
By flexing its military might against Georgia, Moscow paid the West back for its recognition of Kosovo's independence; a move that Russia had opposed, said Brudny.
In addition, he said, Russia hoped that its violent response would mark the beginning of the end of the Saakashvili government, which seeks to join NATO and had moved the country away from Russia in favor of the West. Moscow would like to see a pro-Russian government replace Saakshvilli, he added.
Russia is nervous because NATO is expanding into its back yard with both Georgia and the Ukraine seeking membership at the same time that NATO is putting an anti-missile system in neighboring countries, specifically in in Poland and Czechia, said Zvi Magen, a former ambassador to Russia and the current chairman of the Institute for Eurasian studies at the IDC in Herzliya.
While the system is supposedly aimed at protecting Europe from Iran, the Russians are still uneasy about it, he added.
Saakshvilli, in a way, had been "ambushed" by the larger forces in play here, said Magen. For some time now Russia had been in opposition to the West in its region, but had been able to do little more than verbally protest - this was an opportunity for it to flex its muscles, said Magen.
In this way, he added, it also sent a message to the American administration that will replace Bush in January: Russia is not a force to be ignored.
2a) Russian president halts military operation in Georgia as diplomatic haggling begins
This announcement from the Kremlin came after Moscow’s first formal statement on its terms for ending hostilities in the Caucasian War. A senior Russian army commander confirmed the troops had received orders top their advance.
Military sources: Moscow’s curb on Russian forces leaves Abkhazian and South Ossetian troops free to combat the Georgian army.
The Russian spokesman Boris Malakhov, explaining President Dimitry Medvedev’s decision to end the Georgian military operation, denied Russian troops were ever in Georgian territory, but only in the “peacekeeping” regions [South Ossetia and Abkhazia). Moscow reserved the right to respond militarily to future Georgian attacks.
Referring to the second breakaway region, Malakhov said Abkhazian troops were trying to liberate the Kodory Gorge from Georgian occupying troops. Moscow has no desire for “regime change”, which he said was an American expression, or territorial ambitions in Georgia. “Our only goal was to enforce peace and since this goal has been achieved, our president has ended the operation.”
Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov earlier demanded total Georgian withdrawal from South Ossetia and retreat not only from the breakaway region but also the facilities in the vicinity of next-door Gori used to attack the region. A similar withdrawal must take place in areas of Georgia abutting Abkhazia as well. He demanded a signed pledge from Georgia renouncing the use of force and said that Georgian president Mikhail Saakashivili was no longer trusted as a negotiating partner.
The Russian bombardment of Gori, deserted Monday night by Georgian troops, continued earlier Tuesday and focused on Georgian artillery positions. Rocket explosions reported by witnesses killed four people, among them a Dutch TV correspondent.
Lavrov and the Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubb answered reporters’ questions in Moscow Tuesday, Aug. 12 ahead of French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s arrival to launch a mediation bid that will take him later to Tbilisi.
The meeting between NATO ambassadors and Russia scheduled for Tuesday was postponed, slowing the diplomatic momentum.
Stubb said he was sick and tired of the battle of words and wanted everyone to focus on securing a ceasefire, solving the humanitarian problem and stopping the inflammatory rhetoric.
Lavrov said Russia wanted to restore peace but ruled out Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili as a partner for peace talks who is not trusted any more. This is not a pre-condition, he said, but it would best if he resigned before peace talks began. His actions need to be investigated because Georgia’s steps amounted to genocide.
“We have no plans to impose leadership in Georgia; other countries do that,” he said. “We leave that to the Georgian people.”
The Russian foreign minister said Saakashvili had been hysterical when he accused Moscow of seeking to annex Georgia, which was not true.
3) Olmert to PA: We'll quit West Bank when you retake Gaza
By Aluf Benn
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has presented Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a proposal for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, to take place after Abbas' forces have retaken Gaza, as part of an agreement in principle on borders, refugees and security arrangements between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Olmert, who met with Abbas this week, feels there is time to reach an agreement during his remaining time in office. He is now awaiting a decision from the Palestinians.
The centerpiece of Olmert's detailed proposal is the suggested permanent border, which would be based on an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank. In return for the land retained by Israel in the West Bank, the Palestinians would receive alternative land in the Negev, adjacent to the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians would also enjoy free passage between Gaza and the West Bank without any security checks, the proposal says.
A senior Israeli official said the Palestinians were given preliminary maps of the proposed borders.
Under Olmert's offer, Israel would keep 7 percent of the West Bank, while the Palestinians would receive territory equivalent to 5.5 percent of West Bank. Israel views the passage between Gaza and the West Bank as compensating for this difference: Though it would officially remain in Israeli hands, it would connect the two halves of the Palestinian state - a connection the Palestinians did not enjoy before 1967, when the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control and the West Bank was part of Jordan.
The land to be annexed to Israel would include the large settlement blocs, and the border would be similar to the present route of the separation fence. Israel would keep Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, the settlements surrounding Jerusalem and some land in the northern West Bank adjacent to Israel.
Since Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently approved more construction in both Efrat and Ariel, two settlements relatively far from the 1949 armistice lines, it is reasonable to assume that Olmert wants to include these settlements in the territory annexed to Israel as well.
Olmert's proposal states that once a border is agreed upon, Israel would be able to build freely in the settlement blocs to be annexed.
The settlements outside the new border would be evacuated in two stages. First, after the agreement in principle is signed, the cabinet would initiate legislation to compensate settlers who voluntarily relocate within Israel or to settlement blocs slated to be annexed. Over the past few months, Olmert has approved construction of thousands of housing units in these settlement blocs, mostly around Jerusalem, and some are intended for the voluntary evacuees.
In the second stage, once the Palestinians complete a series of internal reforms and are capable of carrying out the entire agreement, Israel would remove any settlers remaining east of the new border.
Olmert will to try to sell the deal to the Israeli public based on a staged program of implementation. The present negotiations, which started with the Annapolis Summit in November 2007, are intended to reach a "shelf agreement" that would lay the foundations of a Palestinian state. However, implementation of the shelf agreement would be postponed until the Palestinian Authority is capable of carrying out its part of the deal.
Olmert's proposal for a land swap introduces a new stage in the arrangement: Israel would immediately receive the settlement blocs, but the land to be transferred to the Palestinians and the free passage between Gaza and the West Bank would only be delivered after the PA retakes control of the Gaza Strip. In this way, Olmert could tell the Israeli public that Israel is receiving 7 percent of the West Bank and an agreed-upon border, while the Israeli concessions will be postponed until Hamas rule in Gaza has ended.
Abbas, for his part, could tell his people that he has succeeded in obtaining 98 percent of the West Bank from Israel, along with a promise to remove all settlers over the border.
The Palestinians' proposal had talked about a much smaller land swap, of about 2 percent of the West Bank.
Compared to previous Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Olmert proposal falls between the one then prime minister Barak presented to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000 and the one he offered at Taba in January 2001. The Palestinian proposal is similar to the ones offered during the Arafat years, which would have allowed Israel to annex only a few settlements, along with their access roads - a proposal nicknamed "balloons and strings." All these Palestinian proposals ruled out allowing Israel to retain the settlement blocs.
Since then, however, the separation fence has been built in the West Bank, and a new physical reality has been created in the areas where the fence has been completed.
Israel also presented the Palestinians with a detailed model of new security arrangements under the proposed agreement. The security proposal was drawn up by a team headed by Maj. Gen. Ido Nehoshtan, now commander of the Israel Air Force, but previously head of the army's Plans and Policy Directorate. The proposal has also been passed on to the Americans, in an effort to obtain their support for Israel's position during the negotiations.
The security proposal includes a demand that the Palestinian state be demilitarized and without an army. The Palestinians, in contrast, are demanding that their security forces be capable of defending against "outside threats," an Israeli official said.
On the refugee issue, Olmert's proposal rejects a Palestinian "right of return" and states that the refugees may only return to the Palestinian state, other than exceptional cases in which refugees would be allowed into Israel for family reunification. Nevertheless, the proposal includes a detailed and complex formula for solving the refugee problem.
Olmert has agreed with Abbas that the negotiations over Jerusalem will be postponed. In doing so, he gave in to the Shas Party's threats that it would leave the coalition if Jerusalem were put on the negotiating table.
Olmert views reaching an agreement with the Palestinians as extremely important. Such an agreement would entrench the two-state solution in the international community's consciousness, along with a detailed framework for achieving this solution. In Olmert's opinion, this is the only way Israel can rebuff challenges to its legitimacy and avoid calls for a "one-state solution." Such an agreement would show that Israel is not interested in controlling the territories, or the Palestinians, over the long run, but only until conditions arise that enable the establishment of a Palestinian state. This position has received strong support from the present U.S. administration.
Next week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit the region to continue her efforts to advance the negotiations. However, Olmert opposes her proposal to publish a joint U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli announcement detailing progress in the negotiations since Annapolis. Olmert objects to publishing partial positions; he only wants to announce a complete agreement - if one can be reached.
4) Another Bipartisan Betrayal
By Christopher Chantrill
In the week that the last of the climate-change "hockey stick" finally disappeared into Steve McIntyre's wood-chipper, it makes complete sense that a gang of five Republican United States Senators would form a cabal with five Democratic senators to betray the Republican base on energy. It makes sense that they'd hand Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) a get-out-of-jail card on oil drilling that is short on drilling and long on alternative energy subsidies. And it makes complete sense that they would be completely shocked when Mr. Conservative, Rush Limbaugh, went ballistic on them.
Actually, Rush didn't go ballistic. He seemed to feel, as all of us must feel, a kind of numbness. That is what usually happens when you have been betrayed: a deadening numbness.
It's a pity that our Republican Senators don't act more like Radames, the hero of Verdi's Aïda. When he realizes that he's betrayed Egypt by revealing vital military secrets to the Ethiopians he just hands himself over to the Egyptian G-men, singing, at the top of his voice, that he has dishonored himself.
In due course, the dishonored Radames submits humbly to the verdict of ancient Egyptian law: to die by asphyxiation in the Tomb of the Unknown Traitor.
What happened to good old-fashioned American honor, senators?
How could they do it?
Like Radames, I doubt if they realized what they were doing. In Radames' case, he was too consumed with his obsession for the lovely Aïda to think clearly about public policy. This is not the first time that such a thing has happened, and it won't be the last, as former Senator John Edwards can testify.
No, I suspect that they were just doing what any decent politician does instinctively. They were acting to save their political skins.
Whatever we stalwarts in the conservative base may think, your average senator understands that he can't afford to get too far away from the "consensus" position on energy, environment, and global warming.
It doesn't matter to a United States Senator that Steve McIntyre has finally got hold of the Supplementary Information in that well-known climate-change paper Wahl and Amman (2007), after a year of demanding it. It doesn't matter that he has now analyzed the methodology that Caspar Amman used to validate the tree-ring temperature proxy series that formed the shaft of the hockey stick. And it doesn't matter that Amman's methodology seems to amount to the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, where you fire a bunch of shots at the side of a barn and then decide where to draw the target.
You and I, committed members of the climate denial community, understand that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chaps are now in a sticky situation, and that their confident claims that the science is settled on global warming are going to come in for some significant revision in the months and years ahead.
But our elected solons live in a different reality. They cannot take out long-term speculative positions on climate science. They must deal in the spot market of today's MSM "consensus" position. They can lean a little one way or another. But if they stray too far from the "conventional wisdom" they risk being made into a laughingstock by the political-activist community. They risk the obloquy that attaches to Sen. James Inhofe (D-OK).
Republican senators are worried about political risks beyond energy and global warming, of course. They are bound to be worried by the gloating of lefty Greg Anrig In the Washington Post. It's all over for conservatives, Anrig sneered in the August 4 edition.
[Conservatives] advocated creating health savings accounts, handing out school vouchers, privatizing Social Security, shifting government functions to private contractors, and curtailing regulations on public health, safety, the environment and more. And, of course, they pushed to cut taxes...
But in practice, those ideas have all failed to deliver on the promises the conservatives made[.]
You can just look at Hurricane Katrina, Anrig writes, to see just how badly conservatives failed to deliver.
Any elected politician can see which way the wind blows on all this. The prudent thing to do is to hedge your bets.
But conservatives should take courage, even in the numbness of betrayal. Ultimately the senatorial tap-dancing and the WaPo gloating don't matter. It is the slow, careful analysis of people like Steve McIntyre and the underlying value of conservative ideas that matter. If they are right, then they will probably prevail over the long haul. If they are wrong, then they deserve to fail and be forgotten.
As for Radames, don't forget that when he was thrown into the sealed tomb he quickly found that he wasn't going to die alone in there. The lovely Aïda had slipped into the tomb unobserved during his trial. No need to feel sorry for him.
As for the Faithless Five--Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), John Thune (R-SD), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and Bob Corker (R-TN)--I suppose we'll forgive them. According to Arthur C. Brooks, you have to be "very liberal" to be really angry these days.
5) 'Syria and Hizbullah gaining strength'
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that "it is not a coincidence that the IDF is holding intensive drills in the Golan Heights," adding that UNSC Resolution 1701 was not accomplishing what it set out to do.
Hizbullah supporters fix...
"Hizbullah has gained significant strength in the last couple of years," said Barak during an IDF Armored Corps drill in the North. "We are closely following a possible violation [of the resolution] caused by the transfer of advanced weapons systems from Syria to Hizbullah. The necessary preparations have been made, and regarding all the rest - I always prefer not to talk, rather to take action when the time comes."
Barak expressed optimism with regards to the IDF's capabilities. "The army is regaining its strength, and coming back to the right morals, carrying out the right exercises and it is our obligation as the government to ensure that the proper means are available to carry out such drills in a correct and intensive manner."
Referring to a proposed budget cut to the Defense Ministry, Barak said: "We live in a country where security and defense consist not just of tanks and planes, but also of fostering excellence and caring for the population through education and social welfare."
Nonetheless, Barak emphasized that "security and defense take precedence over quality of life and in a country such as ours, we do not have the luxury of cutting the defense budget."
The defense minister also addressed the Gaza ceasefire and the strengthening of the group.
"So far, the ceasefire has proved promising," he said. "There have been ten instances where rockets were launched in the past 6 weeks, compared to the hundreds of attacks that occurred in the past. Every week that passes with the ceasefire in place enables us to gain strength and to maximize the possibility or the probability of bringing about the right conditions for the release of [captured IDF soldier] Gilad Schalit.
Barak added that "in the meantime, the government must care for the social and economic infrastructure as well as the preparation of the home front in the Gaza periphery and the surrounding areas.
Concerning the Georgia-Russia conflict, Barak warned against leaving friends during testing times.
"We view Russia as a very important country both on a regional and global scale," he said. "[At the same time,] we see Georgia as a country with which we have friendly relations, and Israel, particularly due to its experience, must ensure that it does not rush to leave its friends at a testing time."
"This is what we have expected from our friends and it is what our friends expect from us," he continued.
Barak's remarks came amid Russian protests over Israeli weapons sales to Georgia.
The defense minister was accompanied on the drill by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, OC Ground Forces Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi and other senior IDF officers.
"I am pleased with what I see and think that we are heading in the right direction," said Ashkenazi, adding that "the training and the drills serve to restore the army's readiness to act when necessary. Furthermore, we are talking about a process. There is still work to be done, there are no shortcuts, it is very hard work. I think that people understand this, I think that officers understand this. We are all working hard and use every day to strengthen our capabilities and readiness to execute our tasks."
5a) Russia-Georgia Conflict Offers: Glimpse at New World Order
By Gerald Seib
This is a week in which Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama likely are thinking more about Georgia the country than Georgia the state, and for good reason: The hostilities that have erupted between Georgia and Russia are telling us a lot about the world order one of them will inherit as the next president.
As hostilities intensify between Georgia and Russia, WSJ's Jerry Seib reports on the new world order facing the next president of the United States where good ties with China are proving strategically invaluable.
Russia's decision to send its troops and bombs into Georgia is a testament, at least in part, to how much the flow of billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue is emboldening Moscow to defy the U.S. and the West in ways it either wouldn't or couldn't just a few years ago.
But the troubling strategic reality that is emerging is bigger and starker than just that. The rise of energy prices also is enriching other bad actors, creating a kind of globe-girdling string of well-heeled regional antagonists the U.S. can't ignore.
In the Middle East, Iran has assumed the role of energy-enriched regional power hostile to the U.S., with its ability to build a nuclear program and to bankroll Hamas and Hezbollah Islamist militants made all the easier by soaring oil prices. In Latin America, Venezuela aspires to play the role of oil-fueled, anti-American antagonist.
Now Russia, increasingly nationalistic and expansionist, may well be emerging as a similar oil-financed regional power either indifferent or hostile to the wishes of the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"What we're basically seeing," says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, "is a redistribution of power."
It's a troubling picture that has one additional, important strategic implication. The emerging new global equation makes fostering good relations with China even more important to the U.S. in the global balance of power. Indeed, it was appropriate, perhaps even prophetic, that President George W. Bush was in Beijing for the Olympics, smiling and saying nice things about "respect" for China's people, even as Russia was bulldozing into Georgia.
Energy has a lot to do with creating this overall picture, of course. In Georgia, certainly, energy is an important factor, and not just because Georgia is strategically important as a conduit for oil and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea region to the West.
[Go to page.]
In the 1990s, Russia was flat on its back financially, broke at home and indebted to the West, and not in much of a position to defy the West by challenging Georgia's transition from former Soviet republic to pro-Western democracy on its southern border.
Today, thanks to soaring oil and gas prices, Russia is an emerging financial power. A recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that Russia had $811 billion in foreign-investment assets at the end of 2007, second largest among oil exporters after the United Arab Emirates.
Just as Russia's financial clout has increased, so has Western Europe's reliance on its energy resources. Europe depends on Russia for a quarter of its gas supplies, which is a large reason America's European allies have heeded the protests of Russia and resisted efforts by the Bush administration to allow Georgia to join NATO.
Had Georgia been allowed into NATO, it would be under the Western alliance's defense umbrella today, which would either have prevented Russia from launching its offensive this week or have drawn the West directly into the fight.
The question for either Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama is what to do about this equation. The obvious long-term answer is to lead the West into a new energy structure in which the U.S. and its allies aren't so dependent on oil and gas from bad actors around the globe, and aren't busy enriching those same bad actors.
In the short run, the answers aren't so easy. The U.S. has a powerful incentive to build stronger ties to Mexico, Chile and Brazil to offset Venezuela's influence in the Western Hemisphere.
At the same time, the new president will have to be prepared for more tensions with Russia. There is a real possibility that the next international crisis may spring not from Iraq, or Iran, or Afghanistan, but from Russia. The nightmare scenario is that Russia's leaders, emboldened by their move against Georgia, try to follow up by seeking to rein in the bigger and much more important fellow former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
Yet simply antagonizing Russia isn't feasible as a long-term American policy. "You still need Russia to deal with Iran," says Mr. Haass. "You want to integrate, as much as you can, Russia into the international order." The problem is that Russia is fueled not just by oil riches, but also by more than a decade's worth of built-up resentment at the diminished role Moscow has played on the world stage since the fall of the Soviet Union.
All of this makes the U.S. relationship with China more interesting and important. It probably isn't feasible to try to play China and Russia directly off against each other, as was sometimes possible when they were the two Communist behemoths during the Cold War. The two countries now are on quite different paths, with China developing an economy that requires much more integration into the global order to succeed.
Yet that also represents an opening for the U.S., and at a good time to seize it. There may not be a direct trade-off between relations with Moscow and Beijing. But at a time of rising tensions with Moscow, the next president isn't likely to want the same problems with Beijing.
Russia is again a force to be reckoned with and Putin means business, He is willing to play hardball because he has the upper hand. Russia now begins diplomatic talks and Georgia is over a barrel and the west with them. (See 2 2a below.)
Olmert lays down an opportunity for Abbas. Olmert has offered Abbas less land than Barak offered Arafat but a passage connection Gaza and the West Bank to compensate. Abbas will have to sell this deal to his people and Olmert to his. Status of Jerusalem has been deferred.
Palestinians always want more and consequently lose. The question for Abbas is threefold:
a) Can he assure Israel security from Hamas?
b) Can he convinmce his people a state is better than trying to eliminate Israel.
c) Can Abbas survive and impose this deal on the thugs who control Gaza?
The Palestinians have been teaching hate for so long I don't believe they will be able to meet the conditions Israel needs for their own security but then I am cynical. (See 3 below.)
Christopher Chantrill submits the five Republican Senators, who want to prove they are nice guys and bi-partisan, are really political traitors. The very least one can say is that they are stupid. (See 4 below.)
It would not surprise me if Russia was behind possible renewed action on the part of Hezballah against Israel. A strong and secure Israel remains a long term threat to Russia's objectives to gain greater influence in the region through arm deals and commercial ties.
Russia's no nonsense action against Georgia should send a chilling message to those in the region about its intentions and the West's powerlessness in the face of swift Russian action. The bear has a long reach and crushing hug.
The only positive that could possibly come from what happened in Georgia is that it serves as a wake up call to the U.S. if we are wide eyed enough to see and comprehend? (See 5 and 5a below.)
Dick
1) Refugees from whom?
Extraordinary developments in Gaza have given a new meaning to the term 'Palestinian refugees'. As the Jerusalem Post reports, fierce fighting in Gaza between Fatah and Hamas over the weekend, in which 11 people died and dozens more were wounded, resulted in 180 Fatah refugees fleeing from what they called a 'war of genocide' by Hamas against Fatah supporters. And where did they flee to? Why, to Israel, of course -- which allowed them in and proceeded to treat 23 of them (some of whom were wounded by the Israeli army after they approached the crossing into Israel) in Israeli hospitals. These refugees say they cannot return to Gaza because they will be killed. How fortunate, therefore, that their own Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, can give them sanctuary in the West Bank!
But hang on – Abbas won't let them in. Yup, with the exception of five individuals whom he did allow in, he's denied them all sanctuary. He says they should go back to Gaza. And the invaluable Khaled abu Toameh tells us the reason why:
PA officials explained that the reason behind their refusal to absorb the new 'refugees' was their desire not to encourage other residents of the Gaza Strip to leave. 'Everyone knows that if we allow people to leave the Gaza Strip, almost all the residents living there would try to cross the border into Israel,' said a senior PA official.
But there was also another reason:
The last thing Abbas needs is another 180 bitter Fatah thugs from the Gaza Strip patrolling the streets of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus and imposing a reign of terror on the local population. Past experience has shown that the Palestinians in the West Bank have never been enthusiastic about the presence of their brethren from the Gaza Strip among them.
So now Israel, with its iron commitment to human rights, is to hear a court case today where it will be argued that Israel has a moral duty to grant asylum to these Fatah men.
So let's get our head round this: Palestinians committed to the destruction of Israel fled from other Palestinians committed to the destruction of Israel into Israel, which is providing them with sanctuary and medical treatment, while the president of their putative state who bases his claim against Israel on its alleged refusal to admit Palestinian 'refugees' refused to allow actual Palestinian refugees fleeing Palestinian violence access to that same putative state, while Israel agonizes over whether to grant them permanent asylum. Surreal, or what?
One of the Fatah men said that he too was wounded at the beginning of the clashes. The father of three, who has undergone surgery in his leg, said he first tried to go to a hospital in Gaza City, but was blocked by Hamas. 'Hamas had closed all the roads leading to the hospital. I wanted to go to Shifa Hospital [in Gaza City], but Hamas did not allow any ambulance to enter our area. In the end, my brother drove me to the Israeli border,' he said. When asked if he wanted to go back to the Gaza Strip, he replied: 'It would be like a death sentence for me. I hope they don't force us to go back.'
Hamas closed the roads leading to the hospital... not allowing ambulances to enter the area to collect the wounded... When reading the coverage of these clashes later today in the British press or watching and listening to it on the BBC, just consider what that coverage would have been like if it had been Israel rather than Hamas that had behaved like this. The Jerusalem Post reports:
At least 12 of those who were wounded in Saturday's fighting were under the age of 15...
What is that unfamiliar sound emanating from all those who routinely scream that Israel kills Palestinian children? It is called silence.
2) Analysis: Russia sends a message to the West
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Georgia lost a foolhardy gamble in thumbing its nose at its powerful neighbor Russia, which this weekend bombed Georgian cities and wrested control of its breakaway province of South Ossetia, according to Israeli Russian experts.
Russia had seen a "golden opportunity" to teach Georgia and its neighbors a lesson to "behave properly," said Hebrew University Russian expert Yitzhak Brudny, as he explained how a small military flare-up between Georgia and South Ossetia had turned into a major military exercise for Russia and drawn world attention away from the Olympics in Beijing.
With all eyes turned toward China, Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili had hoped he could respond harshly to a skirmish with South Ossetia on Friday and try and regain control of the separatist province, said Russian expert Amnon Sella of the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya.
"It backfired on him because Georgia, which has a very small army, can't take on Russia," which had obviously been prepared for such a move given its swift response, said Sella.
"Saakashvili is a young president who is not well seasoned in international affairs," said Sella. He had hoped the international community and in particular the West would support Georgia's moves in South Ossetia and that Russia would not respond, he added.
Saakashvili, explained Brudny, has a reputation for being a "hothead" who does not always think through what he is doing.
Instead of responding diplomatically, Russia, which has granted passports to most South Ossetians, sent combat troops into South Ossetia and attacked Georgia from the air.
The bombardment was a way for Moscow to kill a few birds with one stone, Brundy and other academics said.
It showed both Georgia and the West that Russia was a regional superpower to be reckoned with, said Brudny. The message was: "We are going to use force, we are not going to tolerate a hostile regime on our borderland."
"Russia wants to maintain the status quo, meaning they wield influence over the region," including a monopoly on sources of energy, said Sella. Running through Georgia is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipline, the second largest in the world for the transport of crude oil, he said.
By flexing its military might against Georgia, Moscow paid the West back for its recognition of Kosovo's independence; a move that Russia had opposed, said Brudny.
In addition, he said, Russia hoped that its violent response would mark the beginning of the end of the Saakashvili government, which seeks to join NATO and had moved the country away from Russia in favor of the West. Moscow would like to see a pro-Russian government replace Saakshvilli, he added.
Russia is nervous because NATO is expanding into its back yard with both Georgia and the Ukraine seeking membership at the same time that NATO is putting an anti-missile system in neighboring countries, specifically in in Poland and Czechia, said Zvi Magen, a former ambassador to Russia and the current chairman of the Institute for Eurasian studies at the IDC in Herzliya.
While the system is supposedly aimed at protecting Europe from Iran, the Russians are still uneasy about it, he added.
Saakshvilli, in a way, had been "ambushed" by the larger forces in play here, said Magen. For some time now Russia had been in opposition to the West in its region, but had been able to do little more than verbally protest - this was an opportunity for it to flex its muscles, said Magen.
In this way, he added, it also sent a message to the American administration that will replace Bush in January: Russia is not a force to be ignored.
2a) Russian president halts military operation in Georgia as diplomatic haggling begins
This announcement from the Kremlin came after Moscow’s first formal statement on its terms for ending hostilities in the Caucasian War. A senior Russian army commander confirmed the troops had received orders top their advance.
Military sources: Moscow’s curb on Russian forces leaves Abkhazian and South Ossetian troops free to combat the Georgian army.
The Russian spokesman Boris Malakhov, explaining President Dimitry Medvedev’s decision to end the Georgian military operation, denied Russian troops were ever in Georgian territory, but only in the “peacekeeping” regions [South Ossetia and Abkhazia). Moscow reserved the right to respond militarily to future Georgian attacks.
Referring to the second breakaway region, Malakhov said Abkhazian troops were trying to liberate the Kodory Gorge from Georgian occupying troops. Moscow has no desire for “regime change”, which he said was an American expression, or territorial ambitions in Georgia. “Our only goal was to enforce peace and since this goal has been achieved, our president has ended the operation.”
Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov earlier demanded total Georgian withdrawal from South Ossetia and retreat not only from the breakaway region but also the facilities in the vicinity of next-door Gori used to attack the region. A similar withdrawal must take place in areas of Georgia abutting Abkhazia as well. He demanded a signed pledge from Georgia renouncing the use of force and said that Georgian president Mikhail Saakashivili was no longer trusted as a negotiating partner.
The Russian bombardment of Gori, deserted Monday night by Georgian troops, continued earlier Tuesday and focused on Georgian artillery positions. Rocket explosions reported by witnesses killed four people, among them a Dutch TV correspondent.
Lavrov and the Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubb answered reporters’ questions in Moscow Tuesday, Aug. 12 ahead of French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s arrival to launch a mediation bid that will take him later to Tbilisi.
The meeting between NATO ambassadors and Russia scheduled for Tuesday was postponed, slowing the diplomatic momentum.
Stubb said he was sick and tired of the battle of words and wanted everyone to focus on securing a ceasefire, solving the humanitarian problem and stopping the inflammatory rhetoric.
Lavrov said Russia wanted to restore peace but ruled out Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili as a partner for peace talks who is not trusted any more. This is not a pre-condition, he said, but it would best if he resigned before peace talks began. His actions need to be investigated because Georgia’s steps amounted to genocide.
“We have no plans to impose leadership in Georgia; other countries do that,” he said. “We leave that to the Georgian people.”
The Russian foreign minister said Saakashvili had been hysterical when he accused Moscow of seeking to annex Georgia, which was not true.
3) Olmert to PA: We'll quit West Bank when you retake Gaza
By Aluf Benn
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has presented Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a proposal for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, to take place after Abbas' forces have retaken Gaza, as part of an agreement in principle on borders, refugees and security arrangements between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Olmert, who met with Abbas this week, feels there is time to reach an agreement during his remaining time in office. He is now awaiting a decision from the Palestinians.
The centerpiece of Olmert's detailed proposal is the suggested permanent border, which would be based on an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank. In return for the land retained by Israel in the West Bank, the Palestinians would receive alternative land in the Negev, adjacent to the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians would also enjoy free passage between Gaza and the West Bank without any security checks, the proposal says.
A senior Israeli official said the Palestinians were given preliminary maps of the proposed borders.
Under Olmert's offer, Israel would keep 7 percent of the West Bank, while the Palestinians would receive territory equivalent to 5.5 percent of West Bank. Israel views the passage between Gaza and the West Bank as compensating for this difference: Though it would officially remain in Israeli hands, it would connect the two halves of the Palestinian state - a connection the Palestinians did not enjoy before 1967, when the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control and the West Bank was part of Jordan.
The land to be annexed to Israel would include the large settlement blocs, and the border would be similar to the present route of the separation fence. Israel would keep Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, the settlements surrounding Jerusalem and some land in the northern West Bank adjacent to Israel.
Since Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently approved more construction in both Efrat and Ariel, two settlements relatively far from the 1949 armistice lines, it is reasonable to assume that Olmert wants to include these settlements in the territory annexed to Israel as well.
Olmert's proposal states that once a border is agreed upon, Israel would be able to build freely in the settlement blocs to be annexed.
The settlements outside the new border would be evacuated in two stages. First, after the agreement in principle is signed, the cabinet would initiate legislation to compensate settlers who voluntarily relocate within Israel or to settlement blocs slated to be annexed. Over the past few months, Olmert has approved construction of thousands of housing units in these settlement blocs, mostly around Jerusalem, and some are intended for the voluntary evacuees.
In the second stage, once the Palestinians complete a series of internal reforms and are capable of carrying out the entire agreement, Israel would remove any settlers remaining east of the new border.
Olmert will to try to sell the deal to the Israeli public based on a staged program of implementation. The present negotiations, which started with the Annapolis Summit in November 2007, are intended to reach a "shelf agreement" that would lay the foundations of a Palestinian state. However, implementation of the shelf agreement would be postponed until the Palestinian Authority is capable of carrying out its part of the deal.
Olmert's proposal for a land swap introduces a new stage in the arrangement: Israel would immediately receive the settlement blocs, but the land to be transferred to the Palestinians and the free passage between Gaza and the West Bank would only be delivered after the PA retakes control of the Gaza Strip. In this way, Olmert could tell the Israeli public that Israel is receiving 7 percent of the West Bank and an agreed-upon border, while the Israeli concessions will be postponed until Hamas rule in Gaza has ended.
Abbas, for his part, could tell his people that he has succeeded in obtaining 98 percent of the West Bank from Israel, along with a promise to remove all settlers over the border.
The Palestinians' proposal had talked about a much smaller land swap, of about 2 percent of the West Bank.
Compared to previous Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Olmert proposal falls between the one then prime minister Barak presented to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000 and the one he offered at Taba in January 2001. The Palestinian proposal is similar to the ones offered during the Arafat years, which would have allowed Israel to annex only a few settlements, along with their access roads - a proposal nicknamed "balloons and strings." All these Palestinian proposals ruled out allowing Israel to retain the settlement blocs.
Since then, however, the separation fence has been built in the West Bank, and a new physical reality has been created in the areas where the fence has been completed.
Israel also presented the Palestinians with a detailed model of new security arrangements under the proposed agreement. The security proposal was drawn up by a team headed by Maj. Gen. Ido Nehoshtan, now commander of the Israel Air Force, but previously head of the army's Plans and Policy Directorate. The proposal has also been passed on to the Americans, in an effort to obtain their support for Israel's position during the negotiations.
The security proposal includes a demand that the Palestinian state be demilitarized and without an army. The Palestinians, in contrast, are demanding that their security forces be capable of defending against "outside threats," an Israeli official said.
On the refugee issue, Olmert's proposal rejects a Palestinian "right of return" and states that the refugees may only return to the Palestinian state, other than exceptional cases in which refugees would be allowed into Israel for family reunification. Nevertheless, the proposal includes a detailed and complex formula for solving the refugee problem.
Olmert has agreed with Abbas that the negotiations over Jerusalem will be postponed. In doing so, he gave in to the Shas Party's threats that it would leave the coalition if Jerusalem were put on the negotiating table.
Olmert views reaching an agreement with the Palestinians as extremely important. Such an agreement would entrench the two-state solution in the international community's consciousness, along with a detailed framework for achieving this solution. In Olmert's opinion, this is the only way Israel can rebuff challenges to its legitimacy and avoid calls for a "one-state solution." Such an agreement would show that Israel is not interested in controlling the territories, or the Palestinians, over the long run, but only until conditions arise that enable the establishment of a Palestinian state. This position has received strong support from the present U.S. administration.
Next week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit the region to continue her efforts to advance the negotiations. However, Olmert opposes her proposal to publish a joint U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli announcement detailing progress in the negotiations since Annapolis. Olmert objects to publishing partial positions; he only wants to announce a complete agreement - if one can be reached.
4) Another Bipartisan Betrayal
By Christopher Chantrill
In the week that the last of the climate-change "hockey stick" finally disappeared into Steve McIntyre's wood-chipper, it makes complete sense that a gang of five Republican United States Senators would form a cabal with five Democratic senators to betray the Republican base on energy. It makes sense that they'd hand Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) a get-out-of-jail card on oil drilling that is short on drilling and long on alternative energy subsidies. And it makes complete sense that they would be completely shocked when Mr. Conservative, Rush Limbaugh, went ballistic on them.
Actually, Rush didn't go ballistic. He seemed to feel, as all of us must feel, a kind of numbness. That is what usually happens when you have been betrayed: a deadening numbness.
It's a pity that our Republican Senators don't act more like Radames, the hero of Verdi's Aïda. When he realizes that he's betrayed Egypt by revealing vital military secrets to the Ethiopians he just hands himself over to the Egyptian G-men, singing, at the top of his voice, that he has dishonored himself.
In due course, the dishonored Radames submits humbly to the verdict of ancient Egyptian law: to die by asphyxiation in the Tomb of the Unknown Traitor.
What happened to good old-fashioned American honor, senators?
How could they do it?
Like Radames, I doubt if they realized what they were doing. In Radames' case, he was too consumed with his obsession for the lovely Aïda to think clearly about public policy. This is not the first time that such a thing has happened, and it won't be the last, as former Senator John Edwards can testify.
No, I suspect that they were just doing what any decent politician does instinctively. They were acting to save their political skins.
Whatever we stalwarts in the conservative base may think, your average senator understands that he can't afford to get too far away from the "consensus" position on energy, environment, and global warming.
It doesn't matter to a United States Senator that Steve McIntyre has finally got hold of the Supplementary Information in that well-known climate-change paper Wahl and Amman (2007), after a year of demanding it. It doesn't matter that he has now analyzed the methodology that Caspar Amman used to validate the tree-ring temperature proxy series that formed the shaft of the hockey stick. And it doesn't matter that Amman's methodology seems to amount to the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, where you fire a bunch of shots at the side of a barn and then decide where to draw the target.
You and I, committed members of the climate denial community, understand that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chaps are now in a sticky situation, and that their confident claims that the science is settled on global warming are going to come in for some significant revision in the months and years ahead.
But our elected solons live in a different reality. They cannot take out long-term speculative positions on climate science. They must deal in the spot market of today's MSM "consensus" position. They can lean a little one way or another. But if they stray too far from the "conventional wisdom" they risk being made into a laughingstock by the political-activist community. They risk the obloquy that attaches to Sen. James Inhofe (D-OK).
Republican senators are worried about political risks beyond energy and global warming, of course. They are bound to be worried by the gloating of lefty Greg Anrig In the Washington Post. It's all over for conservatives, Anrig sneered in the August 4 edition.
[Conservatives] advocated creating health savings accounts, handing out school vouchers, privatizing Social Security, shifting government functions to private contractors, and curtailing regulations on public health, safety, the environment and more. And, of course, they pushed to cut taxes...
But in practice, those ideas have all failed to deliver on the promises the conservatives made[.]
You can just look at Hurricane Katrina, Anrig writes, to see just how badly conservatives failed to deliver.
Any elected politician can see which way the wind blows on all this. The prudent thing to do is to hedge your bets.
But conservatives should take courage, even in the numbness of betrayal. Ultimately the senatorial tap-dancing and the WaPo gloating don't matter. It is the slow, careful analysis of people like Steve McIntyre and the underlying value of conservative ideas that matter. If they are right, then they will probably prevail over the long haul. If they are wrong, then they deserve to fail and be forgotten.
As for Radames, don't forget that when he was thrown into the sealed tomb he quickly found that he wasn't going to die alone in there. The lovely Aïda had slipped into the tomb unobserved during his trial. No need to feel sorry for him.
As for the Faithless Five--Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), John Thune (R-SD), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and Bob Corker (R-TN)--I suppose we'll forgive them. According to Arthur C. Brooks, you have to be "very liberal" to be really angry these days.
5) 'Syria and Hizbullah gaining strength'
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that "it is not a coincidence that the IDF is holding intensive drills in the Golan Heights," adding that UNSC Resolution 1701 was not accomplishing what it set out to do.
Hizbullah supporters fix...
"Hizbullah has gained significant strength in the last couple of years," said Barak during an IDF Armored Corps drill in the North. "We are closely following a possible violation [of the resolution] caused by the transfer of advanced weapons systems from Syria to Hizbullah. The necessary preparations have been made, and regarding all the rest - I always prefer not to talk, rather to take action when the time comes."
Barak expressed optimism with regards to the IDF's capabilities. "The army is regaining its strength, and coming back to the right morals, carrying out the right exercises and it is our obligation as the government to ensure that the proper means are available to carry out such drills in a correct and intensive manner."
Referring to a proposed budget cut to the Defense Ministry, Barak said: "We live in a country where security and defense consist not just of tanks and planes, but also of fostering excellence and caring for the population through education and social welfare."
Nonetheless, Barak emphasized that "security and defense take precedence over quality of life and in a country such as ours, we do not have the luxury of cutting the defense budget."
The defense minister also addressed the Gaza ceasefire and the strengthening of the group.
"So far, the ceasefire has proved promising," he said. "There have been ten instances where rockets were launched in the past 6 weeks, compared to the hundreds of attacks that occurred in the past. Every week that passes with the ceasefire in place enables us to gain strength and to maximize the possibility or the probability of bringing about the right conditions for the release of [captured IDF soldier] Gilad Schalit.
Barak added that "in the meantime, the government must care for the social and economic infrastructure as well as the preparation of the home front in the Gaza periphery and the surrounding areas.
Concerning the Georgia-Russia conflict, Barak warned against leaving friends during testing times.
"We view Russia as a very important country both on a regional and global scale," he said. "[At the same time,] we see Georgia as a country with which we have friendly relations, and Israel, particularly due to its experience, must ensure that it does not rush to leave its friends at a testing time."
"This is what we have expected from our friends and it is what our friends expect from us," he continued.
Barak's remarks came amid Russian protests over Israeli weapons sales to Georgia.
The defense minister was accompanied on the drill by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, OC Ground Forces Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi and other senior IDF officers.
"I am pleased with what I see and think that we are heading in the right direction," said Ashkenazi, adding that "the training and the drills serve to restore the army's readiness to act when necessary. Furthermore, we are talking about a process. There is still work to be done, there are no shortcuts, it is very hard work. I think that people understand this, I think that officers understand this. We are all working hard and use every day to strengthen our capabilities and readiness to execute our tasks."
5a) Russia-Georgia Conflict Offers: Glimpse at New World Order
By Gerald Seib
This is a week in which Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama likely are thinking more about Georgia the country than Georgia the state, and for good reason: The hostilities that have erupted between Georgia and Russia are telling us a lot about the world order one of them will inherit as the next president.
As hostilities intensify between Georgia and Russia, WSJ's Jerry Seib reports on the new world order facing the next president of the United States where good ties with China are proving strategically invaluable.
Russia's decision to send its troops and bombs into Georgia is a testament, at least in part, to how much the flow of billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue is emboldening Moscow to defy the U.S. and the West in ways it either wouldn't or couldn't just a few years ago.
But the troubling strategic reality that is emerging is bigger and starker than just that. The rise of energy prices also is enriching other bad actors, creating a kind of globe-girdling string of well-heeled regional antagonists the U.S. can't ignore.
In the Middle East, Iran has assumed the role of energy-enriched regional power hostile to the U.S., with its ability to build a nuclear program and to bankroll Hamas and Hezbollah Islamist militants made all the easier by soaring oil prices. In Latin America, Venezuela aspires to play the role of oil-fueled, anti-American antagonist.
Now Russia, increasingly nationalistic and expansionist, may well be emerging as a similar oil-financed regional power either indifferent or hostile to the wishes of the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"What we're basically seeing," says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, "is a redistribution of power."
It's a troubling picture that has one additional, important strategic implication. The emerging new global equation makes fostering good relations with China even more important to the U.S. in the global balance of power. Indeed, it was appropriate, perhaps even prophetic, that President George W. Bush was in Beijing for the Olympics, smiling and saying nice things about "respect" for China's people, even as Russia was bulldozing into Georgia.
Energy has a lot to do with creating this overall picture, of course. In Georgia, certainly, energy is an important factor, and not just because Georgia is strategically important as a conduit for oil and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea region to the West.
[Go to page.]
In the 1990s, Russia was flat on its back financially, broke at home and indebted to the West, and not in much of a position to defy the West by challenging Georgia's transition from former Soviet republic to pro-Western democracy on its southern border.
Today, thanks to soaring oil and gas prices, Russia is an emerging financial power. A recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that Russia had $811 billion in foreign-investment assets at the end of 2007, second largest among oil exporters after the United Arab Emirates.
Just as Russia's financial clout has increased, so has Western Europe's reliance on its energy resources. Europe depends on Russia for a quarter of its gas supplies, which is a large reason America's European allies have heeded the protests of Russia and resisted efforts by the Bush administration to allow Georgia to join NATO.
Had Georgia been allowed into NATO, it would be under the Western alliance's defense umbrella today, which would either have prevented Russia from launching its offensive this week or have drawn the West directly into the fight.
The question for either Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama is what to do about this equation. The obvious long-term answer is to lead the West into a new energy structure in which the U.S. and its allies aren't so dependent on oil and gas from bad actors around the globe, and aren't busy enriching those same bad actors.
In the short run, the answers aren't so easy. The U.S. has a powerful incentive to build stronger ties to Mexico, Chile and Brazil to offset Venezuela's influence in the Western Hemisphere.
At the same time, the new president will have to be prepared for more tensions with Russia. There is a real possibility that the next international crisis may spring not from Iraq, or Iran, or Afghanistan, but from Russia. The nightmare scenario is that Russia's leaders, emboldened by their move against Georgia, try to follow up by seeking to rein in the bigger and much more important fellow former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
Yet simply antagonizing Russia isn't feasible as a long-term American policy. "You still need Russia to deal with Iran," says Mr. Haass. "You want to integrate, as much as you can, Russia into the international order." The problem is that Russia is fueled not just by oil riches, but also by more than a decade's worth of built-up resentment at the diminished role Moscow has played on the world stage since the fall of the Soviet Union.
All of this makes the U.S. relationship with China more interesting and important. It probably isn't feasible to try to play China and Russia directly off against each other, as was sometimes possible when they were the two Communist behemoths during the Cold War. The two countries now are on quite different paths, with China developing an economy that requires much more integration into the global order to succeed.
Yet that also represents an opening for the U.S., and at a good time to seize it. There may not be a direct trade-off between relations with Moscow and Beijing. But at a time of rising tensions with Moscow, the next president isn't likely to want the same problems with Beijing.
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