Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

I'm Thinking U.S. Behind Russian Airliner Explosions


What one diplomatic observer called "the message of Sochi" is already becoming an issue, if only because of the perhaps not-so-coincidental similarity of the meeting this week with an earlier meeting of the same political leaders, when President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany stood shoulder to shoulder to form what came to be called the Berlin-Moscow-Paris axis in opposition to American policy.

Why, it is being asked of Sochi, for example, was Britain's Tony Blair not at the meeting, if its purpose, as announced, was to discuss matters of interest to Russia and the European Union? And why have these stalwarts of the old coalition of the counterbalancers agreed to meet in a couple of weeks with the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the other major European leader who, though not then in power, fiercely opposed the Iraq war? Is the message of Sochi that the antiwar partnership (the words alliance and axis seem too strong) has taken on a life of its own, becoming a sort of permanent structure to guard against overweening American power?

As Putin vacationed in Sochi awaiting the arrival of Chirac and Schroder two Russian airliners exploded, one was on its way to Sochi and a probable assassination of Putin which would have put an end to the Berlin-Moscow-Paris axis meeting that the United States was very much against.

Chechen militants carrying explosives were said to have been involved in the crash of these planes.

The U.S.--and specifically the Clinton White House--was determined to oppose any "north/south" pipelines. The White House adopted a plan, cooked up by long-time ruling class strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, to create an "east-west" pipe which would bypass both Russia and Iran.
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The Bush Administration is even more adamant than the Clinton White House in its efforts to stop any north/south or Russian controlled pipelines.

First the U.S. government simply and firmly ruled out any Iranian pipeline. They announced they would not lift their embargo on Iran--and they would not allow major U.S. companies to participate in any major projects there. That was the end of the Iranian pipeline.

Then the Russian plans for the northern pipeline "suddenly" ran into huge problems: War broke out in Chechnya and Dagestan--border areas of Russia where oil from Baku travels on its way to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossisk.

War broke out in Dagestan in August 1999--just as the aging Baku-Novorossisk pipeline broke down and the Russian oil corporations were trying to move Baku's oil through Dagestan by rail. Then the fighting spread from Dagestan to nearby Chechnya. The Russian army initiated a brutal campaign to crush resistance and pacify the region. About 200,000 Chechens are refugees, as many as 4,000 may be dead, and much of this small nation has been devastated.

Meanwhile, plans for northern Russian-controlled oil pipelines have been torpedoed by this fighting--during exactly the timeframe when the oil companies have to decide on which pipeline to begin building. There is no documented evidence that the U.S. unleashed and armed the Muslim secessionist forces of Chechnya. But clearly the timing of this new war has been very useful for U.S. plans in the Caspian.

The Russian Defense Minister has accused the U.S. of wanting the "permanent smoldering of a manageable armed conflict" in this region.
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So it is suspected that the U.S. unleashed and armed the Muslim secessionist forces of Chechnya and clearly the timing of this new war has been very useful for U.S. plans in the Caspian. In the same manner the timing of the Russian airliner crashes attributed to the Muslim secessionist forces of Chechnya was opportune for the United States.

It is also well acknowledged that Bush is backing Saakashvili of Georgia in his efforts to instigate a war in the regions of South Ossetia in the northern mountains and Abkhazia on the southwest coast to keep Russia busy in another smoldering but manageable armed conflict. The best-case scenario for the United States would be a reintegration of Abkhazia and South Ossetia into a Georgian state with a pro-Western government which would better protect the U.S. backed, east-west Baku-Tbilissi-Ceyhan pipeline.

After the Sochi meeting Putin was scheduled to visit Turkey. Turkey is considered a "reliable ally" of the U.S. and Germany--it is firmly dominated by U.S. and German imperialism and overseen by a fascist military that operates within NATO. Putin was now not only forging an alliance with both Germany and Turkey there is a pipeline involved.

The two-day state visit to Ankara which was to start Thursday by Russian President Vladimir Putin, three decades after the last visit by the Soviet Union's president Nikolay Podgorny in 1973, underlines the reshuffling of strategic perceptions by major players in the region.

This comes after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan's recent visit to Tehran, which capped warming relations between Turkey and Iran and their efforts to put aside deep-rooted historical and ideological differences, because of developments in the region. Clearly, Turkey is moving away from its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally the United States, and its good regional friend, Israel.

Now Russia is keen on a Trans-Thracian pipeline, which would allow its oil to reach the Mediterranean from the Black Sea without passing through the congested Bosporus. Oil traffic through the strait has risen by 30% to about 2.8 million barrels per day in the past two years, mainly from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. This figure will increase as exports to the Black Sea via the Caspian pipeline from Kazakhstan are set to grow to 67 million tons per year.
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The United States wants control of the pipelines, whoever controls the pipes ultimately controls the oil.

Right before Putin was to leave for Turkey to discuss among other things the building of a Russian controlled Trans-Thracian pipeline what are believed to be secessionist Chechen rebels have seized control of a Russian school taking hostage about 400 people _ half of them children _ and threatening to blow up the building forcing Putin to cancel his two-day state visit to Ankara much to the delight of the United States.

ANKARA, Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday phoned his Turkish counterpart Ahmed Necdet Sezer, saying he had to postpone his visit to Turkey due to the hostage crisis in North Ossetia.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-09/02/content_1939640.htm

God bless the Chechens they couldn't be helping us more if we were covertly backing them.

-Am

Europa: Looking more closely at the message of Sochi
Richard Bernstein NYT
Thursday, September 02, 2004


BERLIN



Sochi, a place on the Black Sea coast probably not known to most Europeans or Americans, is not likely to become a name for the ages, even if the presidents of Russia and France, and chancellor of Germany did meet there this week.

And yet, what one diplomatic observer called "the message of Sochi" is already becoming an issue, if only because of the perhaps not-so-coincidental similarity of the meeting this week with an earlier meeting of the same political leaders, when President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany stood shoulder to shoulder to form what came to be called the Berlin-Moscow-Paris axis in opposition to American policy.

Why, it is being asked of Sochi, for example, was Britain's Tony Blair not at the meeting, if its purpose, as announced, was to discuss matters of interest to Russia and the European Union? And why have these stalwarts of the old coalition of the counterbalancers agreed to meet in a couple of weeks with the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the other major European leader who, though not then in power, fiercely opposed the Iraq war? Is the message of Sochi that the antiwar partnership (the words alliance and axis seem too strong) has taken on a life of its own, becoming a sort of permanent structure to guard against overweening American power?

"From the standpoint of New York," said Christian Schmidt, the influential German opposition legislator, who was attending the Republican National Convention in the United States, "seeing Putin, Schröder and Chirac in the same picture gave the idea that there is no tendency to overcome the trans-Atlantic gap. This is not good."

In fact, as Schmidt knows, in Germany and Russia certainly there has been a concerted effort over the past year to bridge exactly that gap, and, probably, no intention, even on the part of Chirac - the only dyed-in-the-wool counterbalancer among the three - to see it widen.

"The world has moved on," a German government official said, responding to the view that some secret motive was involved at Sochi. "It was simply a meeting between three important European leaders. And it was Putin who set up the guest list. He was eager to discuss the relationship between Russia and the European Union, and with Chirac and Schröder he catches the two largest members."

This did not quell the suspicion among some observers that there was something both vague and empty in the Sochi meeting, which gave a stage to world leaders but nothing much to say on it.

"What this can bring to France, other than the idea that they are waging grand diplomacy, I don't know," said Pierre Hassner, a well-known French writer and commentator on international affairs. Putin has a motive, Hassner and others say, which is for Russia to get the economic advantage of a close relationship with the EU, without having to observe the democratic norms that the EU members themselves are required to observe.

On that point, the German press harshly and almost unanimously gave Schröder very bad grades for his performance at Sochi, criticizing him precisely for giving Putin respectability while avoiding any public mention of Putin's brutal war in Chechnya or, more generally, of Russia's creeping, almost Czarist authoritarianism.

"The chancellor always wants to please Putin," the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote on Wednesday. "This unshakable loyalty is especially unpleasant as regards Chechnya and Iran. It discredits Schröder when he describes the election in Chechnya as acceptable."

Indeed, Schröder did say that the election in Chechnya was "acceptable," despite the suspicions elsewhere in Europe that it was not. The question of Iran, however, was more complicated. During the meeting, Schröder pressed Putin on Iranian cheating in its ostensible development of nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and, in response, Putin vowed to cooperate with the EU and the International Atomic Energy Agency to prevent the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons.

Russia, he said at the post-summit press conference, "is categorically opposed to enlarging the club of nuclear states, including the addition of Iran."

Russia of course is the outside power most suspected of complacency with regards to a possibility that alarms most European countries and the United States - that the Iranian regime, controlled by extremist Islamic clerics, could acquire the bomb. Russia is building a nuclear power plant, in the coastal region of Bushehr in Iran, that is supposed to be for generating electricity but is likely, members of the Bush administration believe, to be diverted to military purposes.

In fact, Russia, which needs the $800 million it is reportedly getting for the Bushehr plant, may or may not follow up on Putin's words. Meanwhile, however, the fact that a Russian president has publicly signed on to the European and American goal regarding Iran has to be considered a genuine achievement for German diplomacy.

Schröder and Putin are known to have a close personal relationship and Schröder has a special feeling for Russia - he and his wife recently adopted a Russian girl. Putin speaks fluent German, so the two men need no interpreter.

More to the point, the good relationship between the two of them is part of the long-term process by which Germany and Russia, who determined the course of Europe for the worse in centuries and decades past, are now determining it for the better.

This indeed may be the deeper "message" of Sochi. For Schröder to go to Russia is, in a sense, to perpetuate the relationship with Russia built by former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose famous meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 led both to the reunification of Germany and the expansion of NATO to the Russian frontier.

"And don't forget Kohl and Yeltsin - Kohl's extraordinary effort to bring Yeltsin into the Western club and to build a special relationship of trust," said Christoph Bertram, director of German Institute for International Politics and Security.

"If there's a personal relationship among these three guys," he said of Chirac, Schröder and Putin, it's good for them to get together, provided that the political flanks are well protected and it doesn't produce the wrong vibes."

It is in the historical sense that Schröder is unlikely to ignore any invitation from Putin to talk. It is also why just about any German chancellor is likely to keep criticism of Russia in the domain of what the Americans like to call quiet diplomacy, even if that kind of realpolitik caution does not satisfy a German public that likes to perceive of its country as doing good.

In any case, Schröder is not the only world leader to work for a special personal relationship with Putin, despite the renascent imperial presumptions of Russia.

"You know," Bertram said, referring to the Sochi gathering, "if Bush and Putin get together in Crawford and run around in T-shirts, it's not fundamentally different."

Richard Bernstein can be reached at [e-mail].

Tomorrow: Roger Cohen writes about the days before sushi and cappuccino went global.



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