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Russia, Georgia... And Iran

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  • Russia, Georgia... And Iran

    RUSSIA, GEORGIA... AND IRAN
    by Howard Schweber

    Huffington Post
    Sept 1 2008
    NY

    Yesterday, Dmitry Medvedev said Russia will provide military aid to
    South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This is significant for several reasons,
    but the most important may be that a continued Russian presence
    means a continued threat to the operation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
    pipeline. Russian forces did not take over the pipeline in their
    operations in Georgia, but they certainly demonstrated that the can
    close it down at will and that the U.S. has no military capacity to
    stop them -- particularly so long as our forces are tied up in Iraq.

    The obvious target of all this is Europe. Russia has established its
    willingness to use its control over oil to gain leverage over European
    nations, and the Europeans are very rightly afraid of the consequences
    of Russian control of the pipelines in Georgia and especially the
    pipeline in Ukraine. But it's worth taking a moment to look East: what
    does Russia's presence in Georgia do to its relationship with Iran?

    First, a little review is in order. First, let's recall the U.S. moves
    over the past seven years that have left Russia feeling threatened. The
    Bush administration cut off participation in U.S.-Russian actions that
    stretched back through the Clinton and G.H.W. Bush administrations,
    abrogated the anti-ABM treaty, pushed for the expansion of NATO
    right up Russia's borders and have made noises about including
    Ukraine and Georgia in the alliance, built an oil and gas pipeline
    through Southern Georgia explicitly in order to ensure that it would
    be outside Russia's control, armed and trained the Georgian military
    and brought the Israelis in to do the same, and reached an agreement
    to station missiles and U.S. forces in Poland and Czechoslovakia on
    the laughable premise that these nations need to be protected against
    Iran. In the last month that pretense has been dropped completely:
    Polish government representatives, in particular, are quite explicit
    about their desire to have Americans standing in the way of any
    Russian incursion to guarantee an American military response.

    The point is that Russia is not just feeling unfriendly toward
    us; Putin and Medveydev view the U.S. as something close to an
    outright enemy. On August 27th Russia's envoy to NATO stated that
    U.S. assistance to Georgia would be a "declaration of war"; on August
    29th Putin suggested that the U.S. had deliberately encouraged Georgia
    to attack South Ossetia in order to help McCain's presidential
    campaign and that U.S. military advisors had helped the Georgian
    forces during the conflict; today (Sept. 1) Russian sources are
    claiming that U.S. ships carrying humanitarian aid have also been
    supplying the Georgians with weapons..

    Second, a quick review of the background with respect to oil and gas
    pipelines. Since 2005 Russia has coveted control over the oil and
    natural gas pipelines that run through Georgia, particularly since
    the opening of an oil pipeline running from Azerbaijan through Georgia
    and into Turkey. Control that pipeline and you control the spigot on
    the flow of fuel into Armenia and points South, and into Turkey and
    points West. Russia wants control over the pipelines running through
    Ukraine for the same reason, which would give Russia total control
    over the flow of oil and gas into Europe from the East.

    But! Control over the Georgian pipelines also limits the flow
    of oil from Iran West and North. In 2006, around the same time
    Russia was cutting off fuel supplies to various other nations to
    demonstrate its muscle, Gazprom imposed a huge price increase on
    Georgia in an effort to coerce it to accept an offer to purchase the
    Georgian pipelines. Georgia refused and went looking for suppliers
    elsewhere. One source was Azerbeijan; the other was Iran. Russian
    control over the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline gives it the ability
    to limit Iran's (and Azerbaijan's) ability to sell its own oil and
    deprives Georgia of their previous security against a Russian fuel
    embargo.

    All of this also provokes the U.S. and Israel, which from Russia's
    perspective is also all to the good. Which brings us to the other
    news of the day: a positive flurry of reports predicting imminent
    military action against Iran. The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports
    that Dutch military intelligence has suspended an operation aimed
    at sabotaging Iran's weapons industry based on their expectation
    of a U.S. attack in the coming weeks, a story that is being pushed
    by Israeli sources. Then there is a report in the Sunday Telegraph
    about a proposed deal in which Russia would sell sophisticated S-300
    anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. A Pentagon official is quoted as
    saying "Purchase of S-300 missiles would change the game." Unnamed
    U.S. intelligence "operatives" are quoted as saying that Russia
    plans to use the proposed sale to create a foreign policy crisis as
    a way to test the incoming administration president. In response,
    the Israelis reportedly have stopped providing weapons to Georgia,
    and have sent representatives to Moscow to try to persuade Russia
    not to sell the missiles to Iran.

    >From the Russian perspective, all of this is close to ideal: they
    have everybody running scared. Having demonstrated their ability to
    threaten the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, they have shown Iran that
    they can cut off their land route for exports - the only route that
    would be available if the Straits of Hormuz were to be closed. (From
    the Russian perspective, how great would it be if the U.S. were to
    shut down the Straits by a blockade? True, experts have cast doubt
    on the feasibility of closing the Straits completely, but no one
    really knows what would happen in the event of military action.) If
    Russia is really, really lucky the U.S. could remain in an expanded
    Iraq-Iran quagmire for a decade or more, absorbing the brunt of
    the reactions, increasing resentments throughout the Muslim world,
    ensuring a steady stream of terrorist attacks, pushing the Americans to
    continue bellicose support for the Israeli Right and its expansionist
    strategies -- all of which makes the Russians look positively benign
    by comparison. Alternatively, if the U.S., its domestic political
    will exhausted, pulls out altogether, to whom can the Arab states
    turn for help in containing a potentially expansionist Iran?

    Or, well, what is the endgame for Iraq? Five years from now, would
    an independent or quasi-independent Kurdish state be interested in
    hearing from new allies? The reference to a potential Kurdish state
    takes us back to the days of the Great Game. During WW II both the
    USSR and UK invaded Iran militarily, followed by a treaty in 1942 that
    was supposed to put an end to interference, but didn't. The Soviets
    stirred up separatists movements -- notably among the Kurds -- in
    an attempt to destabilize the country. At the end of the war Stalin
    proposed that Russia and the U.S. simply split Iran between them. We
    were horrified, of course, and began our 40 years of intervention in
    Iranian politics (remember the Twin Pillars of Stability back in the
    1970s?) There are currently 4 million Kurds in Iran, concentrated in
    the western part of the country.

    So try this scenario. Israel launches preemptive strikes against
    Iran with U.S. support. Iran strikes back in various ways (missiles,
    terrorist operations, etc.) The U.S. moves aggressively to dislodge
    the current Iranian administration by force. Joining us in our war
    against terror -- "we have our differences but Islamic terrorism is
    a therat to us all" -- Russia moves forces into northern Iran after
    using its control of the Georgian pipeline to compel the Azarbaijanis
    to permit them to cross their territory. One has to go pretty far
    South to get to major oil fields, but even in the Northwest there is
    plenty of strategically interesting territory: there is a gas pipeline
    into Turkey, a refinery at Tabriz. Now declare a Kurdish puppet state,
    with Russian peacekeepers in place just to be sure the Turks do not
    launch aggressive military action the way those evil Georgians tried
    to do way back in 2008.

    No matter what happens, Russia's establishment of a strategic presence
    to the South gives it tremendous indirect leverage over the Middle
    East, and the missile deal announcement suggests that they want to
    continue in that direction. And what opened up the possibility for
    all this mischief? Our invasion of Iraq.
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