COLD WAR II
America and Russia
Struggle for Georgia
LAST WEEK, GEORGIA AND the last autonomous enclave in the country marched down the path to war. Washington urged calm while tacitly supporting the Georgian authorities. In lockstep with its Cold War nemesis, Moscow urged calm while not-so-tacitly supporting Ajaria. Military units were placed on high alert on opposite sides of what was, until just a few months ago, a largely invisible border.
This is the Cold War II; the first one was fought, it seems, simply to roll back the frontline a few hundred miles. And Georgia is ground zero for the new conflict.
THE END
Just as suddenly as the storm began, it was over. Backing away from martial threats and ultimatums, the supremos from both sides sat down face-to-face and hammered out a compromise.
Like the proxy wars of the Cold War epoch, the Civil War That Almost Was in Georgia last week cast more light on the powers pulling the strings than the parties who would spill their blood. For the first time, the United States and Russia learned how far each of them would go to protect their interests in Georgia, which I compared a year ago to a new El Salvador. And just at the brink, both sides blinked. Thankfully.
This temporary impasse (and there should be no surprise when both sides trample on the agreement in due course) should not, however, obscure the role of the superpowers - and especially the United States. For the second time in six months, the US military mission in Georgia was faced with the possibility of conflict with the Russian forces stationed within the country. And, also for the second time, the Georgian army that America is training ostensibly to fight a non-existent terror threat was on the brink of killing fellow Georgians. Since there are not now, and never have been any declared al-Qaeda operatives in Georgia, it's inevitable that sooner or later that will happen.
But with the one year anniversary of the Iraq debacle and the funeral pyre burning in Kosovo, few people noticed the latest hand in the high-stakes poker game going on down in the Caucasus. In fact, few Americans are aware that the Bush Administration has flung American troops and massive aid into a highly complex and frighteningly explosive situation for the phony valor of wresting a failed state out of the Russian orbit. Ask an American where their army is stationed overseas, and Georgia will probably never be mentioned.
The whole world feels hoodwinked by the Bush Administration's trumped-up reasons for going to war in Iraq, but the deployment of US troops to Georgia was built upon an even more flimsy pretense - those invisible terrorists - that no one but Colin Powell even gives lip service to anymore.
SAAKASHVILI'S GAMBLE
The latest crisis was triggered on March 14th when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his Interior Minister, State Prosecutor and commander of the Interior Ministry's police arrived at the Choloqi border crossing in the company of several dozen bodyguards. For weeks, as reported in the last issue of communique, Ajarian media had been publishing reports that that these very same individuals were fomenting a coup d'etat in Ajaria. The reception the delegation received is about what could have been expected.
After two of Abashidze's deputies and some 300 armed paramilitaries turned them away, Saakashvili took to the airwaves and pronounced his discomfiture. As Georgian president, he said, he should be allowed to go anywhere in the country - even Ajaria. Troops were scrambled and an army command post was established in the city of Poti. Saakashvili announced a blockade of the Ajarian capital, Batumi, and gave an ultimatum for Ajaria to surrender, due in 24 hours.
The deadline passed. No one blinked.
THE COMMISSAR'S GAMBLE
Of Georgia's three Soviet-era autonomous regions, Ajaria is the only one which has not formally declared independence. Actually, until 2003, the governing 21st Century Revival Party was almost the only thing resembling an opposition in Georgian politics. Deputies were fiercely loyal to Ajaria's chairman, Aslan Abashidze, but had little support outside of Ajaria itself.
Despite their bitter rhetoric, Abashidze and Georgian President Edvard Shevardnadze established a modus vivendi. Ajaria was left alone and controlled its destiny in all matters short of declaring independence. This is, actually, how most of the Caucasus were before Russia's colonial push to the south in the 19th century, with small satraps declaring nominal fealty to either Russia, Persia, or the Ottoman Turks.
For obvious reasons, Abashidze took the November 2003 street protests against Shevardnadze as a grave threat, and immediately threw his support behind Shevardnadze. When protesters stormed parliament as the culmination of the "Rose Revolution," Abashidze's deputies were among the only ones in the chamber to fight back. Abashidze declared martial law in Ajaria after the fall of Shevardnadze and closed the border with Georgia. Ajarian television often compared Mikheil Saakashvili, Shevardnadze's successor, to Adolf Hitler. The crude propaganda ebbed and flowed as the two sides felt each other out.
Abashidze is often described as a throwback to the commissars. This is partly true, but he also has his hand firmly on the pulse of Ajarian public opinion. He is generally credited by the Ajars for sparing the region from the brunt of the 1990s civil war. Ajaria is significantly more prosperous than most regions of Georgia, chiefly due to Abashidze's appropriation of customs duties from the border with Turkey and the rampant corruption and smuggling which goes on there.
QUIET ANKARA
Abashidze does not, however, have support for full-scale independence, which most Ajars and Georgians alike consider an absurdity. Georgians and Ajars are for all intents and purposes identical. Both consider themselves a part of the Georgian nation, ethnically and politically. That this autonomous enclave exists at all is due to a curious accident of history.
Ajarians are ethnic Georgians who adopted Islam during the long nights when the Caucasus were a fluid borderland between the Russian, Turkish and Persian empires. To consolidate power in the newly subdued Caucasus, which had a checkered three year taste of independence after the Russian Revolution, Moscow signed a border agreement with Turkey in October 1921. In exchange for surrendering Armenia's claims to Kars and other areas, the Bolsheviks retained Ajaria. The Turks attached strings to the agreement, and Ajaria's autonomy was guaranteed. The Bolsheviks would stomp on many treaties in the coming decades, but for matters of realpolitik, Ajaria's autonomy remained.
While all eyes have been on Moscow and Washington during the crisis, Turkey remains a darkhorse in this little battle. Ankara has mostly steered clear of Georgia during the last decade - largely because, with Abashidze as their neighbor, they had no complaints. Certain officials in the Turkish government - and especially the army - are said to have significant interests in maintaining the status quo in Ajaria. In the event of an armed conflict and an interruption in transport links, their neutrality could not be guaranteed.
PERFIDIOUS MOSCOW
"There are grounds to think that Tbilisi is planning to use force," Alexander Yakovenko, an official from the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Interfax news agency following Saakashvili's televised ultimatum. "If there is a crisis, all responsibility will lie with the Georgian leadership."
At the height of the crisis, Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, made a dramatic trip to Ajaria. He blamed Saakashvili for creating the crisis and praised Ajaria's leader for standing by his guns. Undoubtedly, he's now Vladimir Putin's unofficial ambassador in situations which call for an unofficial response.
The point behind Luzhkov's visit, however, wasn't just to lend moral support to Abashidze. It was to draw attention to the fact that one of Russia's two military bases in Georgia is situated right in Batumi. Russian troops at the two bases have not been drawn into the conflicts which have raged around them since the early 1990s - when they participated whole-heartedly in Georgia's civil wars, and sometimes even on the Georgian government's side - but the implicit threat is there.
THE BEGINNING
Four days into the crisis - and three days after Saakashvili's thunderous ultimatum expired - the president flew to Poti and then traveled through the same border post on his way to meet Abashidze in Batumi. The two rivals met for four hours, then met journalists. Abashidze will ostensibly permit free elections in the upcoming republic-wide parliamentary vote on March 28, and some presidential oversight on customs duties. Saakashvili for his part will lift the blockade. "I stress that there has been no conflict between Tbilisi and Batumi," Saakashvili told his mystified audience.
From press accounts, it appears that Saakashvili has come out the winner in this. He'll be the winner if he wrings any concessions out of the Ajars. None are likely to come, however. This deal was a cease-fire, allowing Saakashvili to avoid still another election (like Shevardnadze's first) fought in the shadow of war, and allowing Abashidze time to regroup.
But what was lost? Once again, the American media had a real chance to point out the stakes at risk in our short-sighted intervention in Georgia. Once again, they blew it. The handful of reports which made it into the papers in this country failed to point out the dangers of playing poker with heavily (and nuclear) armed foes over such a pittance. Both sides in the Georgian conflict believe - quite rightly - that their foreign protectors will back them to the hilt.
It wasn't as spectacular as the Cuban Missile Crisis, but we just witnessed something no less important for the world we live in. The battlelines are drawn. Sadly, few people in either country even know where the battlefield is.
Mark Irkali
March 21, 2004