[wvns] Eric Walberg: Recess Games
Recess Games
by Eric Walberg
October 19th, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/10/recess-games/
It's been a busy week for Russian President Vladimir Putin. First he
had a visit from French President Nicolas Sarkozy 9 October, followed
by both United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates 12-13 October, who were in Moscow for talks
with their Russian counterparts the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov and First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. He then
squeezed in a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas prior
to departing to Wiesbaden to meet with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel. Then he set off to Tehran to meet Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, despite reports that suicide terrorists had been trained
to assassinate him in Iran.
As the dust settles on the shiny new dynamo in the Elise Palace,
Sarkozy is beginning to look like a bit of a goof. He is widely
compared to Monsieur Jourdain of Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, a
comically vulgar, social-climbing figure who can never attain the
veneer of nobility he seeks. It's not just his clownish, sad-sack
grin, his bluster and his frantic, pointless globe-trotting, but his
continued loud protestations of friendship with the US administration
for which he gets absolutely nothing in return. He twice proclaimed
himself to Putin as "clear ally of the United States", and earlier
described Russia as "a country which complicates the resolution of the
world's greatest problems." God forbid that we live to see Sarkozy's
resolution of these problems. No doubt it would include reducing Iran
to smoking ashes.
After meeting with Putin, he rushed off to visit Chechnya human rights
activists. One can only marvel at his chutzpah, or his stupidity.
Putin was not amused and coolly told Sarkozy to tell his "clear ally"
to forget about independence for Kosovo and that there was no evidence
that Iran was intent on producing a nuclear bomb.
Putin is a busy man and all these pointless meetings clearly disrupted
his schedule. He kept Rice and Gates waiting 40 minutes at his private
dacha while Lavrov entertained US reporters about possible
breakthroughs at the talks. "Breaks, definitely. Through or down, I
don't know." Putin swept in and proceeded to lecture his guests on the
crimes of their boss. Rice scowled as she scribbled away in her
notebook, while Gates remained impassive. No doubt he was recalling
gleefully how, as a CIA adviser under President Carter, he organised
and armed Al-Qaeda and their friends in Afghanistan and helped bring
down the Soviet Union. He reiterated his invitation for Russia to join
NATO as a full partner in a brand-new Joint Regional Missile Defence
Architecture, complete with invitations for Russian and American
officers to be stationed at each other's missile defence sites. "We
remain eager to be full and open partners with Russia on missile
defence," he crooned. Like their "clear ally", they also met with
human rights activists.
And just what did the whirlwind of diplomacy accomplish?
As for the Americans' human rights activities, Tanya Lokshina,
director of Demos, said that given the focus on security matters, the
meeting with rights campaigners was mostly symbolic. She complained
that the US had "lost the high moral ground. The American voice alone
doesn't work anymore. The Russians are not influenced by it."
According to her, Rice bristled at the criticism, replying sharply,
"We never lost the high moral ground." Ouch.
Kosovo is threatening to declare independence from Serbia on 10
December over Russia's strenuous objections. Russia has hinted it
could retaliate by pressuring the pro-US government of Georgia through
its relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that broke
away from Georgia with Russian military help. No change.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated both his threat to quit
the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe accord by 12 December if the US
goes forward with its missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic,
and his offer of an old Soviet radar facility in Azerbaijan if the US
backs down. Gates thanked Putin for his offer of the base, but said
this couldn't possibly replace but only supplement the one in the
Czech Republic. How clever: let's station the CIA and US military in
Azerbaijan as well as in eastern Europe. Gates said on his scout's
honour there is absolutely no intention of targeting Russia's 4,162
nuclear warheads from these new bases close to Russia's boarders.
Lavrov was not impressed and warned that Moscow would be forced to
take measures to "neutralise" the shield if it is built as planned. So
no change there either.
Just as President George Bush has become famous for his mangled
malapropisms, Putin has become known for cutting through the
diplo-speak with sharp sarcasm. He described the American antimissile
bases as a reaction to a threat that had not yet materialised: "Both
of us, one day, may decide that an antimissile defence system can be
deployed on the moon. But before we get there, the possibility of
reaching an agreement may be lost because you will have implemented
your own plans." He smoothly added, "but our American partnersÕ
constructive disposition on continuing the dialogue is, of course, a
very positive signal."
Putin has already said that Russia would target its nuclear arsenal at
Europe for the first time since the Cold War if the "shield" is not
moved. In order to hit Europe, Russia could move its short-range
missiles to Kaliningrad. But it is hampered by the 1987 Intermediate
Nuclear Forces treaty. The Kremlin is unhappy about the treaty because
of the growing mid-range nuclear arsenals of its immediate neighbours
China, Pakistan, India and now Iran. The treaty currently only applies
to the US, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It was highly disadvantageous
to the Soviet Union as it did not include US naval nuclear cruise
missiles or the nuclear arsenals of Britain or France. Analysts say
that Russia's withdrawal from the INF treaty is all but inevitable.
So, some change here. US foolhardiness means a historic peace treaty
is being thrown in history's rubbish bin.
Rice and Gates also raised the issue of ways to extend limits on
nuclear weapons when the existing nuclear arms proliferation treaty
expires in 2009. That no doubt provoked a chuckle in the Kremlin.
Concerning upping US/EU sanctions against Iran, Lavrov said, "we
believe collective work would be much more effective if there were no
parallel steps to use unilateral sanctions against Iran, let alone
recurring calls to use force against Iran." Rice fired back, saying
the United States would continue to impose financial sanctions on
Tehran for funding "terrorist activities". Under US pressure European
trade to Iran has fallen shaprly Ñ by up to 40 per cent this year. No
change, at least not for the better.
As for the meeting with Merkel, it merely emphasised that Ostpolitik
is dead. "Germany used to be an active mediator between Russia and the
West," says Alexander Rahr, director of Russian policy at the Germany
Council on Foreign Relations. "Merkel is now just a passive player,
and this means there is no European strategy toward Russia." Putin's
summit with Merkel was probably the last before March presidential
elections in Russia. Since taking office nearly two years ago, she has
gone out of her way to placate Poland and the Baltic states, and has
made confrontation with Putin on human rights the centrepiece of her
politics, unlike Schroeder, who focussed on economic relations and
apparently developed a genuine friendship with Putin. He was recently
feted in Moscow, launching the Russian edition of his memoirs.
The irony in this obsession with "human rights" is that real human
rights have never been more scrupulously observed in Russia's entire
history than they are today, exposing the hypocrisy of this ruse to
return Russia to its traditional role as the West's enemy.
No doubt Putin, in Tehran this week for a regional conference on
Caspian oil, commiserated with Ahmadinejad about this. Incidentally,
this is the first trip by a Kremlin leader to Teheran since 1943, when
Joseph Stalin met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and, presumably, the Iranian head
of state Mohamed Reza Shah, son of the exiled Reza Shah. The allies
had brusquely overthrown their puppet monarch in 1941 as a suspected
Nazi sympathiser in favour of his more staunchly pro-American son, who
reigned as a faithful friend of the US until the Islamic Revolution in
1979, the symbolism of which no doubt is not lost to Ahmadinejad.
Of course, the answer to any unresolved issues between the US and
Iran, as recognised by rational people of all political persuasions
(which seems to exclude current Western leaders), is direct US talks
with the Iranians. This would not only weaken Russian influence
(surely a logical US policy goal), but give a real boost to the
supposedly pro-American Iranian people (surely another logical US
policy goal) suffering under their supposed dictatorship, who now can
only be accused of being traitors.
Sadly, these visits are really just schoolyard games, where the
bullies taunt and threaten the aloof new boy on the Free World block,
clearly planning to gang up on him when no one's looking and possibly
throw some Free World projectiles at him. But the composed Vlad merely
spits in their faces and continues to practise his judo chops, ready
for all comers.
Not to be entirely left out, Belarussian President Aleksandr
Lukashenko announced he was closing ranks with his big brother, that
Russia is still Belarus's best friend despite a quarrel over energy
prices earlier this year. The Belarussian leader now fancies himself
as peacemaker, both apologising for his angry outbursts against Moscow
and calling for improved relations with Western countries. In the
kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is still king.
Eric Walberg is a journalist who worked in Uzbekistan and is now
writing for Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo. You can reach him at his site:
www.geocities.com/walberg2002/ Read other articles by Eric, or visit
Eric's website.
This article was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 5:01 am and
is filed under Anti-War, Europe, Russia, Human Rights, Science-Tech,
Iran, Military/Militarism and Nukes. Send to a friend.
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