The Bear… and a Fading General
Topic: Europe, Middle East| 3 Comments »Acting almost as a counterweight to the peace and harmony of the 2008 Summer Olympics, events in the world seem to be spinning in directions even the CIA must find challenging.
The Russian invasion of their former republic of Georgia this week caused many old enough to recall the Prague Summer of 1968 when Warsaw Pact forces crushed the attempt by Czechoslovakia to liberalize in what was known as the Prague Spring. But the Russians learned much from their WW II foe, Nazi Germany. In almost a rehash of the events that led to the German seizure of Czechoslovakia in 1938, Putin (though no longer President but surely the conductor of recent events) appears to have incited the Russian militias in the Georgian province of South Ossetia to rebel, forcing Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvilli to react. Machiavelli is alive and well in the new Russia. The Russian occupation of Georgian territory was done under the ruse of Georgian oppression of its Russian minorities.
Vladimir Putin has expressed the belief that relinquishing the non-Russian republics was a huge mistake following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some experts have indicated Russia will continue to use the notion of oppressed Russian minorities throughout the former Russian republics to re-exert Russian dominance along her borders. Though no one believes Putin is a Hitler, he sure is reading from the Fuhrer’s playbook.
Russia, however, may have overplayed its hand. Her other neighbors are now worried they may get the same treatment. In 2004 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned and nearly died. Many believe Yushchenko’s pro-western stance brought about the attack. The Kremlin backed Yushchenko’s advisary. Ukraine has reason to fear the Bear on their border.
Poland has begun to act. They are now asking the US to install an anti-missile defense on their territory; a move surely to infuriate Moscow. These fledgling democracies are turning to the West for assistance in the wake of Russia’s aggressive posture. The dynamics of this new tension are just now beginning to play out.
Another sequence of events whose outcome is less than clear is taking place in Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf, the long time president and US “ally” will be stepping down within the next couple days. Facing impeachment and losing support among his inner circle, Musharraf is brokering a deal that would allow him to either live in Pakistan with immunity from prosecution or to live in exile. This is occurring as rival groups are jockeying to fill the void that will be left by Musharraf’s departure. As the US stands on the sidelines waiting for the fallout, there is uncertainty of what America’s relationship with the new leadership will be. At a time of shifting resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, the outcome of the political machinations that is gripping Pakistan will have significant implications in the continuing war against extremism in the region.
With a big foot in the Arab world and another in South Asia the United States is now forced to keep an eye further north in the Caucasus. The Russians have decided to play their hand now, making an already complicated American foreign policy even more so.
Highlighted in these latest reports is the impact the Iraq War had on the real “war on terror”. Key assets that were required to aggressively go against Al Qaeda and Taliban elements in Pakistan were sent to Iraq. Even CIA operatives were diverted to the Iraq War in the years following 2003. As a result the terrorist organization that was responsible for the death of 3000 US civilians has effectively reconstituted itself several hundred miles from where they planned the 2001 attacks. The following article details the facts of how the current administration has duped the American people into believing we are safer as a result of their leadership and how their use of fear as a reason to be elected is nothing short of a sham. George Bush has done very little since taking office in 2001. The engine of his presidency has been the Iraq War, and as it sucked out all the oxygen from the room, the real threat continues to burn brightly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Spanish were easily routed from the last vestiges of their empire and their colonies became American spoils. The global political climate, however, did not involve altruism for altruism’s sake. Manifest destiny seemed to no longer be bound by the limits of seas and oceans. The Cubans (along with the Filipinos) soon realized that one colonizer had been replaced by another. Though tucked neatly in the Cuban Constitution like a thorn on a rose bush, the Platte Amendment set the stage for a long US commitment in Cuba, one in which the Cubans played a secondary role in ruling their own nation. The results of such heavy handedness are still being felt. A Fidel Castro would never had risen in an independent and democratic Cuba.
leadership and the multitude of Iranians wished for a similar deal with AIOC. When they were rebuffed by the British a new Iranian leader stepped forward. Mohammed Mossadeq was elected by the Iranian Parliament. Mossedeq was the leader of the Iranian National Front, a liberal, nationalist, social democratic organization that wished to bring democracy to Iran and strengthen itself by nationalizing its oil reserves. Soon after being elected Prime Minister in 1951 Mossedeq and the Iranian Parliament passed the Oil Nationalization Act. The British protested vehemently, first to the UN and the World Court and then proceeded to pull their technicians out, leaving Iran with lots of oil but no specialists to extract and refine it. After much debate within Britain, they decided to initiate a coup d’etat but the Iranians caught wind of it and expelled all the English diplomatic corps which stopped the coup before it could begin. 1951 turned into 1952 and this was an election year in the US. The Truman administration refused to act alongside Britain. But the new Eisenhower administration was different. The Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles. Dulles had been a lawyer for large multi-national corporations prior to joining the incoming administration and he was 
sympathetic to the British and the AIOC’s cause. Though democratic, the Mossadeq government with their oil nationalization program smelled of communism. Dulles (aided by his brother Allen) took on the cause of overthrowing the Iranian government. Code named Ajax, Dulles chose the great grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt to initiate the coup. Hatched in the basement of the US embassy in Tehran, the overthrow of a democratic Iran succeeded and the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza was installed as the new dictatorship. The Shah of Iran ruled harshly until 1979 when the Islamic Revolution swept through the country led by the aging Ayatollah Khomeini. Among the acts initiated by the supporters of the fanatical religious leader; the takeover of the US embassy. Why? Because these new leaders believed the US would again try to oust the fledgling government from the basement of the embassy just as they did in 1953. The ramifications of Operation Ajax are profound. As the radical government of Iran takes hold in the months following the revolution, Saddam Hussein seizes the opportunity to invade Iran as he views incorrectly a weak oil rich neighbor. The Soviet Union, fearing a spread of radical Islam through their southern republics invaded Afghanistan to begin its halt there before it could infect its own possessions. The decade long war weakened the Soviet Union but in the process the US armed the mujahadeen, the very same militants which would become Al-Qaida and the Taliban. And now we are faced with a government in Iran that is politically hostile to the US and eyes a nuclear program. What would the climate be in the Middle East if we had just kept our grubby little hands to ourselves. Sometimes you must be weary of the unintended consequences. This seems to be a lesson that Americans have a tough time learning.
To make matters worse, this same President proceeds to Saudi Arabia, a country who requires our military technology to keep their people in line, and begs them if they could do us a favor and up the oil production. Our allies in the Gulf merely brush the President of the free world aside like a bum on the curb with a tin cup. Most conservatives would tell the bum to go get a job. Well I’m telling the bum to get working on an energy policy where we don’t have to be beholden to any dictator. Who is the true appeaser? 
Fortunately, many Conservatives are not very savvy when it comes to history. In fact, many right wingers I have argued with over the years have a hard time getting past what they hear on their favorite sycophant’s radio program. What do I mean, you say? Chris Mathews today tried to carry an argument with one such right winger and talking points seemed to get in the way of the facts. Enjoy.
The biggest issue we have, however, is Musharraf has many reasons to not track down and kill Osama Bin Laden. Actually he has billions of reasons in the form of US dollars. If Al-Qaeda was neutralized in Pakistan the US would do what they always do. They would turn their attention elsewhere and take their checkbook with them. Musharraf receives billions of dollars in aid, much of it simply disappears into the oblivion of the corrupt Pakistani government infrastructure with little to show for it. The death of Bhutto has shone a nasty little light into the corner of the world where we should be most active. While the nation has been laboring over the Bush war in Iraq, our policy in the eastern recesses of the Middle East has been festering like a bad sore when the wrong medicine is used. It is a shame it took the death of Benazir Bhutto for the nation to reexamine our relationship with Musharraf and Pakistan but it is one that was a long time in coming. 
Perhaps the surge in Iraq didn’t allow the Iraqi government to get its act together. Rather, it allowed the US public to take a breath and to reassess its lack of attention to the region of the Middle East that brought us September 11.
