Dateline: BUCHAREST

I’ve been following quite closely EU energy politics lately, partly to get a better focus for my PhD work. There is a lot of wrangling in Brussels regarding future energy transit corridors, with each country trying to milk the European cow for its own pet project.  

One of the proposed pipelines is Nabucco, which has the somewhat lukewarm endorsement of the EU, but faces the less than enthusiastic stance of Germany, who does not want to jeopardize its own agreement with the Russians regarding the Nord Stream gas pipeline. The other problem with Nabucco is that we still don’t know where it will get its supply from [Azerbaijan will duly provide some resources, but the bulk is yet uncommitted, and should come from Central Asia and/or Middle East]. 

And today, two seemingly unrelated pieces of news made me think of a possible [long-term] solution for Nabucco. One of them said that Russia turned down the offer to get involved in the Nabucco project, and that it will go with SouthStream [the contending, Russian-sponsored project for transporting gas to Europe]. The other announced Iran was planning to double its gas production by 2025. 

The Russian Nyet to Nabucco is of course unsurprising. The Iranian commitment to increasing natural gas output, however, may show that Tehran might be interested in boosting its gas exports. And where to, if not Europe? 

So, if Europeans play their cards right, and the current US overtures to Iran bear fruit, we might be seeing Tehran playing an increasingly large role in the EU’s energy economy. Which is to say that Iran may become one of the main suppliers for Nabucco. 

Given the current geopolitical game between the US, Russia and Iran, a potential envolvement of Tehran in EU Gaspolitik is worth keeping an eye on.

Europeans’ love affair with Obama is very soon likely to hit some serious roadblocks. In a statement yesterday, Angela Merkel hinted that Germany is not considering increasing its troop commitment to Afghanistan. She said that Germany ”will live up to its responsibilities in Afghanistan,” but she added ”[w]e are willing to discuss how we could possibly move forward more decisively on the political level, but nothing will change immediately for Germany because we have already really taken on responsibilities.” German troop deployment in Afghanistan is currently at 3,300, likely to increase up to 4,500 according to a commitment last year by the German administration. But the numbers are misleading, since German troops are stationed in the quieter Northern areas, and mostly sheltered from combat. 

The German Chancellor’s statements are a bad harbinger of future Transatlantic relations. The single most important cooperation issue between Europe and the US is now Afghanistan, as identified by the incoming President Obama. The US said it plans to increase the troop numbers there by 30,000, following the ’surge’ strategy patented in Iraq by Gen. Petraeus. And Washington will need European support in the form of troops, with Germany one of the most likely providers. 

Merkel also seemed to rebuke a second tenet of Obama’s foreign policy -  engaging Iran. The German Chancellor said she was skeptical of the result of talks with Tehran. “We have held talks with Iran on multiple occasions, but unfortunately very unsuccessfully over a long period of time,” said Merkel. 

Ironically, Merkel’s message comes just days after a meeting with Putin that put an end to the gas crisis. There, Putin and Merkel worked together to solve the stalemate and prop up the Nord Stream project. It is too early on in the game to talk about a German departure from its firm transatlantic commitment. But there are now strong signs of what appears to be a German preference toward pursuing a more selfish foreign policy, balancing its traditional relations with the US with a stronger propensity towards bilateral dealings with Moscow.

What is more, Germany is riding a trend of shunning military coomitments within NATO. A FT poll shows a majority of Europeans opposed to supplementing current troop levels of Iran. And EU governments are unlikely to go against the tide of public opinion, with France complaining of its troops being stretched thin between multiple missions, and UK troops already deeply involved in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Europe’s enthusiasm toward Obama’s election as 44th president could translate in practice to a mere role as a cheerleader from the sidelines, letting the US doing all the hard work. [See also this Reuters analysis ]

With only one day to go until Obama’s inauguration, I guess everybody is gearing up to see what his first actions will be. Expectations are sky-high and the likelihood of disappointment is, as a result, high as well. While waiting for Obama to take his oath, take a minute to look at a set of memos offering advice to the incoming President, written by various academics at the M.I.T., that I came across from Walt’s FP blog. 

The memos include such ideas as:

- establish an international security force in the West Bank to help Fatah deal with its problems
- focus on Israel’s relations with all Arab states instead of only on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; work a solution based on the Arab peace initiative
- engage Russia, invite Medvedev to D.C. and try to raise the stakes of further bullish behavior by offering Moscow some carrots
- link climate change and nuclear nonproliferation, by recognizing that any serious efforts to tackle the former will lead to an increase in the use of civilian nuclear energy
- appoint a European NATO SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander), to push the Europeans into a greater commitment toward the Organization [translating into more troops for NATO’s. 

For the full list, take a look at the report. I hope Obama reads it too.

D: B is back today, after a hiatus of over a month. We will return to ‘normal’, i.e. to blogging about the most important issues of the day, as well as some more trivial matters that have to do with the authors’ extracurriculars. Also, stay tuned as we are working on launching a blog focusing specifically on Georgia and the South Caucasus.

And what a way to re-start this, than by posting an extraordinarily embarassing comment by Sarah Palin, on CBS’s evening news. When asked what she thought about the financial crisis, she threw in every shred of information that remotely smelled of economics, and that had been crammed into her head by advisors during the past few weeks. Also watch Jack Cafferty and Wolf Blitzer who go good cop - bad cop on Palin.

President Dmitry Medvedev announced yesterday, August 17, that Russia is to begin pullout of its troops today. The announcement came at a press briefing following a meeting with French President Sarkozy. As the self-imposed deadline approached, reports of continuing looting and abuse kept pooring in from Georgia. There have been complaints from aid agencies and the EU that aid delivery is being obstructed by Russian forces.

As the Russian intervention seems to be finally coming to an end, the international community is considering the appropriate framework for dealing the post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization efforts. The EU has announced last Wednesday, after the European Council ministerial meeting, that it is willing to deploy personnel on the ground in Georgia. French FM Kouchner has confirmed that several EU countries have expressed their will to provide support for EU Mission. This is a shift in EU policy, as the 27 had previously been reluctant to provide on-the-ground assistance in Georgia. The idea of a EU border monitoring mission had been floated around, but it never quite got off the ground.

While the nature of the EU mission is still fuzzy, it probably won’t be a full-fledged peace-keeping mission. Whatever personnel the EU deploys in Georgia, they probably will be unarmed. What seems most likely is a lighter, less controversial monitoring mission similar to that of the OSCE. The exact mandate of the mission may range from ceasefire monitoring to training police. Given the track record of the EU toward Georgia, any such mission will be radically different from the one deployed in Kosovo, where it had the upshot of consolidating the structures of the separatist region and ultimately facilitating its independence.

Now that the Russian-Georgian conflict is nearing its end, it is time to start taking a step back and ponder the true dimensions of the conflict, its causes and long term consequences. But to do that, we should first escape the simplistic approach to the conflict that was prevalent all over Western media.

The view that Russia was the aggressor, the bad guy in this conflict, was the main take of Western news sources. Reports of indiscriminate violence and acts of aggression committed by the Russian troops triggered a similar approach by this blog.

Now it’s time to balance this view. First, we provided you with a number of articles taken from the Russian press, and showing how the conflict was viewed frm Moscow. Next on the list  this article from eXiled, republished from The Nation. The article takes a far more critical view of Saakashvili’s regime then has been the norm in Western media [with regard to the recent conflict], and points to some critical tensions that lie at the hear of the Russo-Georgian conflict:

• Does Georgia fit the paradigm of a small democratic nation, given Misha’s authoritarian tendences?
• How does West choose its side, when confronted with the self-determination / national sovereignty dichotomy?
• How much is America willing to risk in order to secure Georgia?

All this from a leftist American perspective. Regardless of whether you agree with the argument, the article is worth reading.

With analysis and commentary abounding throughout all major media sources in the West, it is easy to lose track of the Russian perspective of the conflict. Below are several recent articles that appeared in major Russian media sources, showing how the war in Georgia is seen from Moscow.

Russians see United States behind Military Actions

[US Open Source Center, August 12]

Following US official statements critical of Russia’s disproportionate actions in Georgia and the US airlift of Georgian troops and equipment home from Iraq, Russian officials rebuked the United States for fanning the flames of conflict in the Caucasus. Some Russian officials also suggested that the US Administration was using Georgia for domestic electoral purposes. Media observers went further than official statements, alleging that Georgia was a pawn in a larger US plan to undermine Russia.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed surprise at the “scale of cynicism” on the part of the United States, which in criticizing Russia and transporting Georgian troops from Iraq to Georgia was “passing off white as black and black as white.” He accused US diplomats of maintaining a “Cold War mentality” and viewing Saakashvili as they had Nicaragua’s Somoza: “An SOB, but our SOB” (Channel One, 11 August).

Other officials placed the blame on the United States for both inciting the conflict and impeding its end.

Deputy Chief of the General Staff Anatoliy Nogovitsyn opined: “Everything speaks to the lack of desire of official Tbilisi and Washington to settle the conflict. Otherwise why did US military planes transport 800 (as published) Georgian servicemen with military hardware from Iraq to Georgia?” (Izvestiya, 12 August). Continue Reading »

[Provided data is operational and may be subject to verification. Information comes from the Government of Georgia.]

Timeline by 13th of August 22:00

21:20 Russian troops begane pooling back towards north from the Tbilisi – Poti highway in Gori district. They still stay in town Gori
21:10 First cargo plane organized by American Military landed in Tbilisi International Airport.
21:00 Reports of eyewitness continue to come to police stations about atrocities and crimes committed by South Ossetian separatist forces.
20:12 Population of villages Breti and Aradeti, Kareli district is leaving their villages and moving towards Tbilisi. Ossetian separatists are robbing these villages.Reported by: Naili Gachechiladze
18:00 Russian soldiers have robbed drivers of the Turkish travel company, taking their buses.

Continue Reading »

Earlier reports of Georgian police being allowed back into Gori are now being denied by our sources on the Ground. According to an eyewitness, police forces were told to leave the city, and Russian troops resumed control of Gori. Apparently, the same situation is happening in Poti.

These confusing reports paint a strange picture of the situation in Georgia. This may be due to flaws in the Russian chain of command, or to deliberate attempts to create confusion and generate a sense of volatility on the ground. Another possible reason for these contradictory reports  could be the operation, in parallel, of Russian regulars and so-called ‘volunteers’, or irregular militias.

The same developments are now being reported by Civil.ge