- MOSCOW -- The free hand given
to Russia to prosecute its own "war on terrorism" - an ongoing
fight against Chechen separatists - is now being slapped by Washington.
-
- Russia received a stinging rebuke from the White House
over the weekend, after Russian planes on Friday reportedly bombed targets
some 20 miles inside the border of its southern neighbor Georgia. Sunday,
a force of 1,000 Georgian Interior Ministry troops began an anticriminal,
antiterror operation in the volatile Pankisi Gorge, according to wire reports.
The gorge is a suspected refuge for Islamic militants.
-
- Analysts say the American scolding is the sign of deeper
unease with a growing number of Russian policies.
-
- The crisis in Georgia - where US Special Operations units
are now training Georgian forces - is the latest in a recent string of
moves by Russia that fly in the face of American strategy. They include
deepening friendships and military deals with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea
ñ all members of what George W. Bush calls an "axis of evil"
- as well as China.
-
- "There are a whole array of issues where the US
and Russia are at loggerheads, from the Caucasus to the Yellow Sea,"
says Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst in Moscow. "If
[Russian President] Vladimir Putin will not intervene to change this pattern
of policies, Russian-American close cooperation may be at an end."
-
- Mr. Putin has turned Russia into a newfound friend of
Washington, fostering warm personal ties with Mr. Bush, and bringing Russia
closer to Europe and to NATO. But he has also struggled against many members
of Russia's political and military establishments to shift Russia toward
the West.
-
- One recent bright spot in US-Russia relations: Before
dawn last Thursday, US, Russian, and Yugoslav officials cooperated secretly
to remove enough vulnerable, weapons-grade nuclear material to make 2 1/2
nuclear bombs from a research reactor near Belgrade. It was flown to a
secure facility in Russia to be blended down.
-
- Friendship at a crossroads
-
- While that operation attests to the power of US-Russia
partnership, other concerns are emerging.
-
- "There are serious forces [in Russia's ruling elite]
that want to change Russia's very close relationship with Washington, and
right now they are on the verge of success," Mr. Felgenhauer says.
"Moscow has to make a decision: Is it an American ally? Or does it
just make ad hoc partnerships, when our interests coincide?"
-
- The US reaction to the latest Russo-Georgian crisis,
which was sparked a month ago when Georgia refused to extradite 13 Chechen
fighters who were forced by a Russian attack to flee across the border,
and were arrested by Georgian security officials, is the sternest warning
to Moscow to date.
-
- At least four bombing runs ñ confirmed by members
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has monitors
on the Russo-Georgian border ñ left one man dead and seven wounded,
according to Georgian officials. Russia denies that any bombs were dropped.
-
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Saturday
that the US "regrets this loss of life and deplores the violation
of Georgia's sovereignty."
-
- The American stake is not small. US Special Operations
units have been helping train and equip Georgian forces since May, in a
$64 million program to enable them to establish control over the lawless
Pankisi Gorge, a green valley north of Tbilisi, which has been home to
hundreds of Islamic militants, including a number of Al Qaeda fighters.
-
- Crackdown in the Pankisi Gorge
-
- Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has promised that
Georgian security forces - some trained by the US troops - are beginning
operations to clean up the Pankisi, sending in 1,000 Interior Ministry
troops Sunday following a warning to Chechen men among the 4,000 Chechen
refugees there to leave.
-
- Several previous Russian bombing runs in Georgia - and
heated claims by senior Russian officials that they would have no choice
but to deploy troops into the lawless Pankisi Gorge - have met with little
more than token US condemnation.
-
- Russia has used many of the same arguments to justify
any preemptive attack in the former Soviet state, that the Bush administration
is using to justify possible military action against Iraq.
-
- "The Russians pushed too far," says George
Khutsishvili, the head of the International Center on Conflict and Negotiation
in Tbilisi. "The fact that the early American reaction was not so
strong, was a sign to Russia ... that they had a free hand in dealing with
their neighbors, even if it did not take a humane form."
-
- Moscow's tone has been harsh throughout the crisis. Earlier
this month, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov called the Pankisi a
"nest" of international terrorism and, several days later, added:
"It is clear that the Chechen fighters will never be wiped out in
Pankisi without Russian military involvement."
-
- There have also been "mistakes" from the Georgian
side, says Mr. Khutsishvili. "Not extraditing the Chechen terrorists
to Russia was a very dangerous move ... there were several steps that provoked
Russia."
-
- Among them was a staunch denial - until this month -
that the Pankisi was home to any militants at all. Operations are beginning
now, Khutsishvili says, because "the terrorist groups have left the
region. The calculation was: While it was a [militant] stronghold, there
would be blood [to establish government control]."
-
- That Washington made such an issue of the Russian air
raids - and that so many of Russia's recent policy moves appear designed
to take advantage of the US war on terror - raises questions about Russia's
commitment to the anti-terror alliance.
-
- This month alone, Russia has stepped closer to those
nations deemed to be strategic enemies by Washington. For example, Moscow
and Baghdad agreed to a $40 billion trade and infrastructure deal.
-
- Moscow also announced an agreement with Iran to expand
a civilian nuclear reactor deal into a $10 billion program to include six
reactors.
-
- Russia continues to sell sophisticated military hardware
to China, that Washington fears could help it take on Taiwan - or US military
forces that might come to the island's defense.
-
- And Putin met in Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok
last Friday with North Korean President Kim Jong Il, who is on a marathon
train journey in Russia.
-
- "This doesn't mean we are going to begin a new cold
war, or will become actively anti-American," says Felgenhauer. "But
Georgia would not flare up into an open row between Washington and Moscow,
if there weren't other, much more important, issues. They would find ways
for more quiet diplomacy."
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- http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0826/p01s02-wosc.html
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