| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Bob Dog" |
| Date: |
29 Nov 2003 10:01:58 AM |
| Object: |
OT: The Coke calling the kettle black |
....Because Clinton was the pot.
"The United States and the international community
stand ready to support the new government in holding
free and fair parliamentary elections in the future,"
said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
Only because Shevardnadze was pro-Russia, not pro-US, and
Shevardnadze wouldn't capitulate to Shrub's war on islam
- I mean terrorism! (Strangely, the US *did* support the
new regime in Azerbaijan who seized power and now run a
dictatorship that is pro-US and anti-islam....)
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069493521430
Bob Dog
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Crisis in Georgia expose flaws in US's strategy
By Guy Dinmore
Published: November 26 2003 19:43
From the US perspective, Georgia and Azerbaijan have much in
common. Both joined the "coalition of the willing" against Iraq
and are crucial to Washington's global energy strategy - and
both held flawed elections.
Yet in Azerbaijan the Bush administration ignored the outcry of
independent monitors and backed the founding of the first post-
Soviet dynasty, while last weekend - less than a month later -
it withheld support from Georgia's Eduard Shevardnadze as the
opposition forced him out.
Analysts in Washington doubt, however, that US foreign policy
is suddenly being guided by higher moral principles. Instead
they see events in the Caucasus as another example of clumsily
executed US Realpolitik being played out across central Asia,
where the Bush administration courts autocratic regimes that
share an interest in combating Islamic militants.
Events have also illustrated that the US and Russia will set
aside differences over pipelines and energy policy, knowing they
cannot afford to have Georgia as another "failed state" in the
Caucasus.
Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, called Igor Ivanov the
moment the Russian foreign minister landed in Tbilisi on
Saturday, shortly before he worked out a face-to-face deal for
the Georgian president's departure.
Mr Powell also telephoned Mr Shevardnadze on Saturday and Sunday.
The State Department insists that neither he nor Richard Miles,
the US ambassador, asked him to resign. But Mr Powell thanked him
for doing so and expressed US support for Nino Burdzhanadze, the
interim president.
But the US position, in public at least, had not been so clear
cut. The day after the disputed November 2 polls, the State
Department described reports of significant irregularities as an
"overstatement". Only on November 21 did the US say it was
"deeply disappointed" with the election's conduct.
In Azerbaijan, the US acted more decisively, quickly
congratulating Ilham Aliyev as the new president even as his
security forces were arresting the opposition, and after
independent observers had criticised the polls. Observers believe
the US had also hoped to keep Mr Shevardnadze, its old favourite,
in office until the scheduled 2005 presidential election.
Eric Miller, an official monitor of the elections, maintains that
the US was trying privately "to work out some kind of compromise"
between the opposition and the president. This, he said, was in
line with the US policy to "cozy up" with regimes in the region.
"The US got lucky," the Caucasus expert said, speaking of the
peaceful outcome of Georgia's "velvet revolution".
Critics of the US administration also note that no mention was
made of Georgia when President George W. Bush delivered his
vision of global democracy in what his aides described as a
landmark speech on November 6. US officials say this is unfair
and point to consistent pressure on Mr Shevardnadze to hold fair
parliamentary elections. Mr Miles had hammered home that message,
as did James Baker, the former secretary of state, in July when
sent as Mr Bush's special envoy.
The US also expressed its displeasure in September by announcing
a cut in aid for 2004. Georgia had been the second biggest per
capita recipient of US aid.
But Kaan Nazli of the Eurasia Group said this was more of a
reflection of the strain in relations with Georgia over what
Washington saw as its tilt towards Russia. Azerbaijan's Aliyev
family, however, was seen as firmly pro-US.
Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution and a
former deputy secretary of state, says pragmatic Realpolitik has
guided US policy in the region since the al-Qaeda attacks of
2001. "The US has decided that the war on terror will trump other
considerations," he said, referring to Uzbekistan's human rights
record. While the dynastic succession in Azerbaijan, from the
ailing Heydar Aliyev to his son, had been "in the works for some
time", the situation in Georgia was more fluid, Mr Talbott said.
The opposition was also emboldened by the presence of more than
600 members of the international community watching events. "That
made it much more difficult to steal the thing," he said.
Workers at the US National Democratic Institute, which has worked
extensively in the Caucasus, also noted that the Aliyev family
had been more effective in stealing the elections, through
control over television, the campaign and on voting day itself.
Charles Fairbanks, an election monitor and central Asia expert at
Johns Hopkins University, said the "Washington Realpolitik
school" had played the Georgia crisis badly. Still, events had
delivered the Bush administration "its first great success in
regime change".
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