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Posted on November 7, 2008 - by

Saakashvili’s Endgame

European Union Featured Georgia Russia
Saakashvili’s Endgame

As waning wartime patriotism in Georgia gives way to realistic assessments of the facts, Saakashvili can now see the end of his political career rapidly approaching. As predicted, the situation in Tbilisi is developing rapidly and Saakashvili may be expected to make his endgame early next year, probably soon after Obama’s inaugural speech in Washington. Information about the brief but devastating war with Russia is slowly trickling down to the masses not through the government-controlled television or newspapers, but mostly through the Internet.

Few Georgians have computers, let alone Internet access, and so people in Tbilisi are passing around copies of news articles from Western newspapers and printouts from the InoSMI.ru – a Russian site that publishes translated news articles from around the world. Russian remains by far the most widely-spoken foreign language in Georgia. The Georgians are gradually learning how their youthful, pro-Western president in three days lost much of their army and a big chunk of their country. They are learning how the West didn’t support Georgia in this war.

Most Georgians, who listened to Saakashvili’s fiery speeches over the years, were well aware of his aggressive plans for the country’s former breakaway provinces. And so very few were surprised by the recent “Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question” exposé by The New York Times, which published reports by OSCE observers stationed in Georgia prior to the war, throwing a giant shadow of a doubt on many of official Tbilisi’s claims.

“It was clear to me that the attack was completely indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been any, provocation,” Mr. Grist said. “The attack was clearly, in my mind, an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town.”

(Ryan Grist, a former British Army captain who was the senior O.S.C.E. representative in Georgia when the war broke out, talking about Georgia’s attack on Tskhinvali)

It now appears that OSCE – and, by extension, the EU and NATO – were very much aware of the situation on the ground in Tskhinvali prior to the Georgian attack. Not only OSCE failed to perform its duties and endangered Russian peacekeepers, the organization’s leadership attempted to sweep under the rug any inconvenient facts by silencing its observers and, in some cases, forcing them to quit their jobs.

OSCE headquarters in Tskhinvali after Georgian attack

OSCE headquarters in Tskhinvali after Georgian attack

The elaborate alternate reality Saakashvili built over the past months out of lies and half-truths is now crumbling under its own weight. As if the quick defeat of the US-trained Georgian army was not enough embarrassment for Saakashvili’s handlers in the White House, now the EU is starting to dig through the facts Washington would prefer to keep undisturbed. But the worms are out of the jar and certain key EU members, like Italy, have already changed their position from accepting Saakashvili’s story to embracing Moscow’s version of events.

“The knowledge of facts should help the international community understand what really happened, to overcome disinformation that is taking us far from the reality. I wish everyone in Europe and the world knew the real facts which led to this conflict.”

(Italy’s Prime-Minister Silvio Berlusconi talking about the war between Georgia and Russia during November 6 meeting with Medvedev; source: “G8 will closely cooperate with Russia on financial crisis – Berlusconi“, Wiadomości, Poland, Nov. 6, 2008)

Even Britain, Latvia and Estonia decided to abandon their opposition to the “business as usual” with Russia and voiced support for resuming negotiations on a new strategic partnership agreement with Russia. This left Lithuania (with muted support from Poland) the only EU member still opposed to talking to Russia, but no longer able to block negotiations. The economic crisis in the EU underscored the need to work closely with Russia and outweighed any other considerations.

The Financial Times published an article entitled “EU split on how to restore Moscow ties“. Conservatives in Britain still like to imagine that there is a debate going on and that the EU can play hardball with the Kremlin. If you ask me, Lithuania’s opposition hardly qualifies as an “EU split”. A recently-leaked 16-page European Commission working document detailing the EU’s financial and energy interests in relations with Russia – the so-called “Solana document” – shows that Brussels is ready to acknowledge Russia’s “privileged interests” claim on Caucasus and the “near abroad” in exchange for Moscow’s support on major foreign policy and economic issues:

“In these areas, where nothing can be achieved without – let alone against – Russia, co-operation can be described as intensive and broadly constructive… It is assumed that …Russian forces will not compromise the security of ESDP [European Security and Defence Policy] mission personnel but contribute positively to the security of the mission in areas … increasingly located in regions that are sensitive for Russia.”

The driving force behind all these remarkable changes in the EU attitude toward the war in Georgia and the reasons why facts gathered by OSCE observers in Georgia back in August are finally starting to trickle through the media have everything to do with the ongoing economic crisis. The EU can no longer afford a confrontational policy toward Russia and so, staring in the face of an economic recession, Gordon Brown had no choice but to get off his white horse and order his Sancho Panza to resume partnership talks with Russia. And while David Miliband still complained that “the sight of Russian tanks rolling into parts of a sovereign country on its neighboring border will have brought a chill down the spine of many people”, he spoke in support of resuming talks with Russia.

The “Partnership and Cooperation Agreement” negotiations between the EU and Russia were frozen by Brussels – at the insistence of the UK and its three musketeers: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – following the events in Georgia in August. Russia’s response was that it will not seek to resume the talks: the EU needed this agreement more than Russia did. The response from Brussels was that, naturally and as usual, Kremlin’s bravado was not rooted in reality. And now we learn that Putin’s reality was far more real than Gordon Brown’s, as the UK, hat-in-hand, is asking to go back to the negotiating table, prompting accusations from some EU diplomats of betraying Georgia and handing victory to Russia.

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Related posts:

  1. Timeline of Georgia-Russia Conflict
  2. Georgia’s Blunder
  3. War in Georgia: Reviewing EU Findings
  4. Photos: Russians in Georgia
  5. Saakashvili’s Army on the Run

This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 6:57 pm and is filed under European Union, Featured, Georgia, Russia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    November 8, 2008

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    FkD said:

    Would be interesting to by Captain Grist a pint and hear him talk!

    You might have read the NYTImes recent article about this, and one thing that gives me a modicum of hope is the many comments to it, showing that the American people are all not complete morons….

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    November 13, 2008

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    peter said:

    From what I have read Italy sided with Russia on this matter from the very beginning:

    “…
    Italy, whose prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is a friend of Putin’s, is sympathetic to Russia’s position.
    “We cannot create an anti-Russia coalition in Europe, and on this point we are close to Putin’s position,” said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, speaking to the newspaper La Stampa. “This war has pushed Georgia further away . . . from Europe.”"
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081100482_pf.html

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    Venik Reply:
    November 13th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    I wouldn’t say that Italy was with Russia on this from the start. The “anti-Russian” resolution adopted by the EU in September was the softer version prepared and pushed along by Italy, which clearly had a more balanced position but, still, it did not accept Russia’s point of view at the time. Berlusconi’s recent remarks are to date a strongest sign of support for Russia’s position on Georgia to have come out of the EU.

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