It’s All One War
Josh Marshall wonders what happened to yesterday’s defining generation struggle:
And it’s hard not to recognize that sad figure in the Max Boots and John McCains and Bill Bennetts and all the rest with their sustaining roots planted firmly at AEI HQ. After all, what happened to the long twilight struggle against radical Islam? So yesterday, I guess. Or can we do both simultaneously, even though the Russians are themselves up against hostile Islamic groups on their southern periphery?
Enter Melik Kaylan in The Wall Street Journal to put the pieces together:
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.
This is crazy and paranoid, but also ignorant. The former Soviet Republics of Central Asia already have friendly relations with Moscow — Georgia, the Baltics, and the current regime in Ukraine are trying to get out of the Russian orbit, but the ’stans largely aren’t. But beyond the specific details it’s the constant paranoia and hysteria of the right-wing that really comes through here — the entire American position in the world turns out to hang on the narrow thread of Georgia exercising effective sovereignty over South Ossetia and/or Mikhail Saakashvili’s ability to hold onto power in Tblisis. Nevermind that before he took office, nobody thought him taking power was especially vital to American interests (as opposed to, perhaps, the citizens of Georgia’s interest in democratic elections) or that it’s not clear why the fact that Georgia touches Iran would magically alter the nature of the US-Iran-Russia relationships.
35 Responses to “It’s All One War”
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August 14th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Matt you should really give a shout out to Anatol Lieven’s column on the Georgian issue in the FT today:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95713d6c-6966-11dd-91bd-0000779fd18c.html
August 14th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Lieven’s sensible final paragraphs:
Yet all this time, Washington had not the slightest intention of defending Georgia, and knew it. Quite apart from its lack of desire to go to war with Russia over a place almost no American had heard of until last week, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it does not have an army to send to the Caucasus.
The latest conflict is humiliating for the US, but it may have saved us from a far more catastrophic future: namely an offer of Nato membership to Georgia and Ukraine provoking conflicts with Russia in which the west would be legally committed to come to these countries’ aid – and would yet again fail to do so. There must be no question of this being allowed to happen – above all because the expansion of Nato would make such conflicts much more likely.
Instead, the west should demonstrate to Moscow its real will and ability to defend those east European countries that have already been admitted into Nato, and to which it is therefore legally and morally committed – especially the Baltic states. We should say this and mean it. Under no circumstances should we extend such guarantees to more countries that we do not intend to defend. To do so would be irresponsible, unethical and above all contemptible.
(Also Matt, seriously, you should keep tabs on the FT. Doesn’t your new employer get a subscription? There is an excellent article today that actually talks about the real policy differences between McCain and Obama on cap-and-trade–unlike most of the media that talks about how “similiar” they are.)
August 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am
There’s a right-wing tradition of invoking ‘geopolitical’ truths that you get from a (very) fast look at a map. I remember, back in the days when today’s Taliban was yesterday’s freedom army, arguing with a right-winger who claimed we had to fight in Afghanistan because otherwise the USSR would making a grab for Afghanistan’s seaports– thereby endangering the Indian Ocean, or something.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Leaving lesbians free to teach masturbation in the public schools, and black convicts to escape incarceration and rape your white wives.
… or something.
.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:34 am
We need bold, conservative leadership to save us all from the threat of the Russislamosexual menace.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Actually, it doesn’t. Azerbaijan and Armenia do, and Russia already has a long border with Azerbaijan anyway.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:51 am
The kindergarten geopolitics of the conservative commentariat isn’t surprising – but it is disheartening to see how easily and unanimously the media falls into line with the most baseless and stupid propaganda coming out of rightwing thinktanks. Take the attempt, by dint of sheer repetition, to make Georgia seem like a democracy. The man who financed the “democracy”, a typical klepto-oligarch named Badri Patarkatsishvili, died in the U.K a couple days ago in suspicious circumstances. He basically floated the “rose revolution” – which is the difference between revolutions now and revolutions in the past. They’ve become financial packages. Alas, after lifting Saakashvili to a pre-eminence to which he is clearly not suited, Saakashvili turned on his old patron, arrested his supporters, and gave him the boot. Then it was time for an old fashioned democratic election in which Saakashvili challenged Saddam Hussein himself for popularity – 96 percent of the vote total. So amazing, and so heartening. The results were beautiful too, what with the government throwing the vast majority of its resources into armsbuilding – a glorious signal to one of America’s premier business sectors, the “defense” industry, that the bank was open.
Now, this has to have made Saakashvili friends in D.C. A democracy that doesn’t send as much money as it can to D.C.’s defense and lobby shops is a democracy unworthy of its name. And so Georgia was reborn as a dashing democracy in the Bushian mold. And the pundits saw that it was good.
The problem with being ruled, as the U.S. is now, by halfwitted kleptocrats is that their short term greed is not only taking huge bits of the national income, not only transforming the U.S. into a vast debtor’s colony, but has now reversed the flow of influence – where once the U.S. set up poppycock dictators and told them how to rule, the poppycock dictators now buy lobbyists in the U.S. and skew American policy their way.
All of which points to how foreign policy has functioned to widen the democracy deficit in this country.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:53 am
And what about the Times yesterday reffing Edouard Shevardnadze (Saakashvili’s predecessor–or as great foreign policy savant McCain says, Shashkavili-cha-cha-cha’s predecessor) as “a former Soviet apparatchik”? Sheesh. That’s like calling Zhou Enlai Mao’s valet. Shevardnadze was the Soviet foreign minister who worked with Gorbachev (and Reagan, and Poppy Bush, over Cheney’s twitching trigger finger) to unwind the Cold war.
Can’t a world-historical figure get a little respect around here–especially after being chased into retirement by, to all appearances, a loudmouth twit with a bunch of crazed neocon pals?
August 14th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Georgia doesn’t touch Iran, it touches Turkey, at another unstable province called Adjara.
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Naxchivan all touch Iran though.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
What I really don’t get about this is that Georgia has been de facto independent since the early ’90’s. It was part of Georgia like Taiwan is part of China: a separate country, but without diplomatic recognition because the larger government next door claims de jure sovereignty over it. Why should we care about whether or not Georgia has official control without actual control, or neither official nor actual control? It’s not great for us when Putin extends his empire, but this is a really dumb issue in terms of U.S. interests. The major prblems are (a) people are dying in a war and (b) we don’t want the Russians to control the Georgian oil pipeline. But (a) is diminishing as an issue, and (b) isn’t a problem because the Russians aren’t going further south.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Uh, he died on Feb. 12, but there was indeed an investigation.
.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
From where would we bomb bomb bomb Iran if not from Georgia?
August 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Re Matthew’s comment “Nevermind that before he took office, nobody thought him taking power was especially vital to American interests (as opposed to, perhaps, the citizens of Georgia’s interest in democratic elections)”
————
1) While Caspian Oil is arguably not vital to American interests, it sure as shit is Vital to the business interests of the people who have funded Dick Cheney, George Bush, and Condi Rice. (cough Chevron cough).
And has been seen as such since at least the Clinton Administration. (Madalaine Albright practically had an orgasm at the thought of playing The Great Game. ) See e.g, TIME magazine’s 1998 article “The Rush for Caspian Oil” at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988272,00.html
2) I am not advocating we go to war to defend Chevron and BP’s investments — I argue the contrary, in fact. But I argue America should be aware of the Big Oil interests at stake so that they understand what the REAL GOALS of John McCain and the Republicans (and some Democrats ) are. That the “defending democracy” line is a con game.
3) Several comments here betray deep ignorance — the Bush Administration has been making major efforts to dismantle the southern underbelly of Russia in order to gain access to Caspian Oil. Look at the money that the US Government’s Orwellian-named “National Endowment for Democracy” has poured into that region for subversion and election rigging.
4) Russia can already support IRan via shipping on the Caspian Sea. But shutting off the Georgia door to the Med ensures the US can’t flank from the west. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have been setting up as US proxies (since only the US Military can enforce their claims to Caspian oil over those of Iran and Russia. With the Georgia corridor closed off, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan will fall into the orbit of China and Russia.
5) The comment about Armenia is hilarious. Look at the map. Armenia is a small fragment — and it is already a partial client of Russia’s due to the need for security against Turkish aggression. Look,e.g, at the Russian base at
Gyumri. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_102nd_Military_Base
6) The comment re Russians not heading “further south” is also hilarious. Their tanks are already parked close to the Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan pipeline near Gori. They can blow it up at will — and blame “Islamist terrorists”.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Grand Moff Texan: Leaving lesbians free to teach masturbation in the public schools…
When this day comes, I’ll be the first to sign up for re-education camp.
But boy howdy, it sure is funny how the neocons didn’t notice this dire vulnerability until just this past week. If they’re so smart and all, you’d think they’d have gotten us out of Iraq faster so we’d have troops available to keep central Asia free from Russian expansion. (I slammed Krauthammer about this, this morning.)
August 14th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Also the easiest and most direct route between Russia and Iran is via the Caspean Sea.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
OK.
Let’s just suppose that – in addition to all our other undertakings – we want to engage in a struggle with Russia for control of Central Asia. Nevermind the merits – we’re just going to do it.
Well, there’ an actual historical precedent for that sort of thing. It’s called the Great Game, the 19th century struggle between Britain and Russia for control of that region. And there’s actually a fair amount of literature on the subject.
The problem for the right wing is that the Great Game was really more of an art than a science. It involved “pundits,” (yes, that’s what they were actually called) disguised as Buddhist pilgrims surreptitiously mapping out territory recording measurements by manipulating prayer beads; phony “archaeological expeditions,” multilingual British agents disguised as dervishes roaming through bazaars.
In short, something quite different from the high tech, cyborg type operation the Pentagon is now running.
Which means less money for the defense industry and would demand that we – as a society – actually learn something about the cultures we are trying to deal with.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Our talk about democracy seriously disgusted all leaders in Central Asia with the exception of Kyrgystan. Of them all, Kyrgyzstan probably is most landlocked, poor an unimportant.
Russia can send stuff to Iran using trains, ships, whatever.
And it does. And it will.
The only question is if they will send the most dangerous goodies or not.
I read that Saakashvili devoted most of resources to expand military. Now Georgian forces reached, ALMOST, one third of the size of Armenian once, and annals of war will remember the oversight of leaving one of your flanks protected by a police station.
Armenia is in a hard situation, but it prospers OK, supplied by Russia via Iran. Iran has VERY cordial relationship with Armenia.
Trying to build an anti-Iran position in Caucasus is asking for trouble, The pipeline is operational, which is GOOD. All points that we can score can only scare Central Asian khans into closer alliance with Russia, China and Iran. Do we want that to be a closer alliance?
August 14th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
They’re all wrong. The Georgian incursion is part of Russia’s relentless drive for a warm water port and the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
On America’s Tombstone it will read:
Died of the Teh Stupds
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