Witnesses reported
Obama's deputy initially sought to avoid a handshake or even
eye contact. But the Georgian's bullying won through, obliging
Biden to arrange a chat the following day.
Saakashvili followed this forced encounter by telling
journalists: "It is obvious that during all types of
negotiations between the United States and Russia, Georgia
will be high on the agenda." Not so. Obama's trip to Moscow
last month made it clear that last August's war between
Georgia and Russia neither revived the cold war nor had any
impact on the trend towards greater US-Russian co-operation
that Obama promised during his election campaign. Georgia is a
sideshow.
The
reason is clear. A year on from the five-day war, most
European governments as well as the Obama administration agree
Saakashvili bears most of the blame. As Nino Burjanadze, once
a close Saakashvili ally, put it in a Guardian comment article
the other day, "Saakashvili, deeply unpopular at home,
launched a desperate and doomed military adventure in South
Ossetia, so providing the Russians with an excuse to reoccupy
bases they lost only three years ago".
Biden's
latest encounter with the Georgian president, in Tbilisi last
month, reconfirmed the shift of tone from the Bush era.
Although Biden made the usual noises about recognising
Georgia's territorial integrity and rejecting any Russian
sphere of influence, no formal agreements were made. The trip
was only arranged to show that Georgia had not been totally
forgotten. Unless there were secret agreements as yet
unreported, Biden disappointed Saakashvili by giving no clear
promise to re-arm Georgia's battered forces. He told the
Georgian parliament the US would modernise the country's
military "with the focus on training, planning and
organisation". Uncoded, that could mean greater US oversight
over the army and tighter control over any repetition of last
August's folly.
Biden's
officials also used the visit to deny Saakashvili's hints that
US monitors would soon join the European Union team that
patrols the Georgian side of the border with the breakaway
region of South Ossetia. The EU has confirmed no such plans
exist, and that the issue will not be discussed until the
autumn, if at all. That is welcome news. While Russian
officials oppose any US role as "extremely harmful", that is
not the best reason for the EU to reject it. The EU must be
able to operate independently of the US, and the Georgian
mission is a good place to show it can, especially as it was
European rather than US mediation that achieved a ceasefire
last August.
Biden's
call for democratic reforms, and his meeting with opposition
politicians in Tbilisi, also struck a different note from the
Bush period. While Bush pressed for Georgia to enter Nato
while turning a blind eye to Saakashvili's attacks on civil
liberties, the new US administration wants an end to
repression while turning a blind eye to Georgia's Nato
aspirations.
The
stalemate between Saakashvili and his local opponents
continues, and the situation on the ground remains deadlocked.
The villages where Georgians once lived inside South Ossetia
have been ethnically cleansed and razed. The exodus of
Georgians from Akhalgori, the last mixed area, carries on
remorselessly. Diplomatically, the Russians have got their way
by achieving the withdrawal of the observer mission from the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which
used to work in and around South Ossetia, as well as the UN
mission that covered Abkhazia, Georgia's other breakaway
region.
In theory
this could raise the risk of border clashes, but for the
moment that is out of the question. This post-Soviet conflict
is back to being "frozen". Russia has won all it wanted (short
of Saakashvili's resignation), and has no interest in
provoking new clashes. Saakashvili's forces are too weak to
take action.
Can
nothing be done to improve matters? Tom de Waal, a respected
analyst of the Caucasus, argues that the west should open
links to Abkhazia without recognising its independence by
taking "status-neutral" measures like supporting a direct
shipping route between Abkhazia and Turkey, and getting
Georgia to support it. This would not help Georgia recover
Abkhazia, but it would lessen Abkhaz ties to Russia.
Steps of
this kind would be useful, but they leave the big picture
unchanged. Tens of thousands have lost their homes and
hundreds their lives in a war for which Saakashvili – in spite
of some slaps on the wrist from Obama and Biden – still has
not had to pay a serious price.
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