G-E-O-R-G-I-A

This has been an especially tough situation to get a hold of for those of us (read: most of the American media, as well as the authors of this blog) who have not spent the last twenty years studying the former Eastern Bloc, the Balkans, the National Endowment for Democracy, post-Soviet Russian politics, etc. A few simple facts: In 2003, the US and the National Endowment for Democracy backed the so-called Rose Revolution in Georgia, ousting Eduard Shevardnadze and installing current Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili committed 2,000 Georgian troops to Iraq, wants in on NATO and the US design for a missile defense shield over Eastern Europe, along with Poland and the Czech Republic. Georgia hosts a stretch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline, which runs (as its name suggests) through Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, connecting the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas--which is co-owned by BP, Chevron, and others (though no Russian oil companies), and is a concentrated attempt to subvert Russian influence in the region by having a major pipeline that lies in no Russian soil and over which the Russians have no control. Georgia is, in short, of great 'strategic interest' to the United States, with the added bonus of being a former Soviet satellite, so that a cozy political relationship that benefits largely only the US can be presented as the triumph of "democracy" over authoritarianism.

A November 2006 referendum in South Ossetia, with 91% of the population participating, voted in a 99% majority for union with North Ossetia and Russia. The US and Russia ignore the results of the referendum. In July of this year (July 15-31), Georgia and the US hold the "Georgian-US Immediate Response 2008" military exercises in Georgia. During the first week of August, Saakashvili moves into the South Ossetian capital, Tshinkavali, killing several Russian peacekeepers (there under international agreements) and displacing upwards of 35,000 civilians, who flee across the border into North Ossetia, where they are welcomed by the Russian government. Russia sees the Georgian military move as a deliberate provocation.

We in no way wish to even appear to condone the deliberate use of violence against civilians, and it would be difficult to argue that the Russian response has not been disconcertingly aggressive. But the hypocrisy of American politicians and media has been in full swing. It's almost laughable to hear John McCain say that "in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations." It's similarly ridiculous for Zbigniew Brzezinski to compare Putin to Hitler--the same Brzezinski who, as Jimmy Carter's National Security advisor, helped the CIA develop its Afghanistan policy and fund Osama bin Laden's jihadis against the Russians in Afghanistan in 1979. A Cold War mentality still infects the US media's perception of Russia's every move, as Seamus Milne shows in today's Guardian.

Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out a few facts that would be germane to any nuanced understanding of an immensely complicated situation. And, as Foreign Policy in Focus's Michael Klare points out, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan oil pipeline that runs through Georgia (owned and operated by, among others, Texaco and Chevron) is a crucial "fact on the ground".

Stay tuned...

Works Consulted #11

rosemary ashton- george eliot: a life. london: penguin, 1998.

samuel beckett - the unnamable. new york: grove press, 1958; l'innomable. paris: les editions de minuit, 1953; disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment. london: john calder, 1983

lauren berlant - the anatomy of national fantasy: hawthorne, utopia, and everyday life. chicago: u chicago press, 1991.

robin blackburn - the overthrow of colonial slavery. london: verso, 1988.

maurice blanchot - the infinite conversation (trans. susan hanson) minneapolis: univ of minnesota press, 1993.

pascale casanova - samuel beckett: anatomy of a literary revolution. london: verso 2006.

anthony cronin - samuel beckett: the last modernist. london: harper collins, 1996.

charles dickens- our mutual friend. new york: penguin, 1997.

frederick engels- socialism: utopian and scientific. new york: international publishers, 1989.

fredric jameson - a singular modernity: essay on the ontology of the present. london: verso 2002.

james knowlson - damned to fame: the authorized biography of samuel beckett. london: bloomsbury, 1996.

jenny uglow- george eliot. london: virago, 2008.

raymond williams- marxism and literature. new york: oxford university press, 1977.

Obama in Jerusalem

On the occasion of Senator Barack Obama's recent world travels (which brought him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied West Bank, and Germany, and will soon see him in Britain and France), we point you to an editorial written for the Guardian by the Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah. Pressure from the Israel lobby (in the form, as always, of Alan Fucking Dershowitz) has caused Obama to distance himself even from someone as "establishment" as Zbigniew Brzezinski--do we detect the long arm of a rejuvenated (and sadly ignored) Jimmy Carter and his calls for a "new role" in the world for America? On his visit to Israel--which included the better part of one hour spent with Mahmoud Abbas in occupied Ramallah--Obama sought to reassure Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and the Israeli public that his commitment to the safety, security, and right to "self-defense" (that old reality-twisting litany) of the State of Israel ought not to be doubted. The obligatory references to the dangers of a nuclear Iran (despite a recent "slap in the face" of Israel delivered by America) were also made. Nothing, as Abunimah points out, about a freeze on settlements, dialogue with Hamas, or negotiation of the refugee problem.

In a separate editorial, the Guardian points out that while Obama's visit may have done some good for his shaky reputation as "friend of Israel," it did nothing nothing for peace in Israel/Palestine. And, as the New York Times reports, not many people in the Arab World expect this to change.

Late add: Nicholas Kristof offers this uncharacteristically lucid, accurate, and politically practical editorial in today's New York Times, saying that what Israel needs from Obama is "tough love."

2008

As the Senate passes George Bush's domestic eavesdropping program, 2+ years after it was introduced, and with the new-found support of Senator Barack Obama--who had once claimed he fully intended to vote against it, rejecting the false dualities of the "strong on terror" discourse--we'd like to take a minute to reiterate something we've found that the ultra-left in America has failed repeatedly to understand. We do understand ("appreciate" is not the best word) that, in running a national campaign, Obama ought to be expected to hover somewhere around the center. Any policy statement that radically breaks from the mainstream would torpedo his candidacy months before the general election. And Obama does represent a yearning among the bulk of American voters for radical change. That he will inevitably disappoint those blindly expecting a radical transformation is also something that must be accepted. However, in supporting an unprecedented expansion in the Executive's spying capabilities, as in, for example, calling for East Jerusalem to remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel (to take examples from Obama's recent domestic and foreign policy stances), Obama seems to go above and beyond the call of a mediocre "centrist" politics. And his going out of his way yesterday to remind his supporters--who are increasingly uneasy with his recent moves--that he is "no doubt" a "progressive"--is simply no consolation whatsoever.

Aijaz Ahmad: What Would a Rational U.S. Foreign Policy Look Like?

In a two-part analysis for The Real News, Aijaz Ahmad considers the working assumptions behind U.S. foreign policy decisions, assumptions that can often seem intractable, the unchangeable "way of the world." Starting with "the most basic assumption of U.S. foreign policy...that the United States is, and must remain, the world's most powerful, preeminent country," and moving to the question of why the U.S. finds it unquestionable that it have military bases around the world, Aijaz offers a concise and coherent projection for what a "rational" American foreign policy just might look like.

Part I



Part II

Well-Made World 36

al-Ahram's Khaled Amayreh reports on the impending reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, preparations for which have seen the previously-unlikely release of a number of Hamas supporters from Palestinian jails or the custody of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority. Most significant in this attempted rapprochement is the likelihood that any joint statement of agreement issued by the two factions will be based on the so-called Prisoners' Statement of 2006, which originally called for a release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and Israel's full retreat from lands occupied in 1967.

Ilan Pappe, now at Exeter, offers to the Inter-Press service some general thoughts on the current state of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, the 2008 election in the US, and the prospective role of Islam in the daily lives of Palestinians.

Patrick Cockburn fills in some details of a new Iraqi-American security agreement. George Bush wants it signed by 31 July; Moqtada al-Sadr sees in it a ploy to put "an American in every house."

As reported earlier this week, John McCain and Barack Obama find themselves both supporting the FISA amendment, which would not only legalize the Bush administrations warrantless wiretaps but would obscure entirely the breadth and scope of the program since it was instituted after 11 September. This constitutes a stark reversal of position for both men. Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, speaks to The Real News's Zaa Nkweta.

'The presumptive Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama'

More than the disingenuousness of his previous foreign policy statements, Barack Obama's speech at this year's AIPAC conference the day after securing the Democratic nomination for President highlights the inevitable rightward shift that his campaign, at least in tone, will continue to make as November approaches. Below, in two parts, Aijaz Ahmad unpacks Obama's statements to the Israel lobby.

No one ought to be surprised by Obama's unequivocal stance; as even Jon Stewart points out, "you can't say anything remotely critical of Israel and still be elected president." Of particular interest for us is the reaction of the Palestinian leadership to Obama's speech, notably that of Fatah negotiator Saeb Erekat. Erekat has the audacity to say that Obama's speech was "the worst thing to happen to Palestinians" since the Six Day War, thus completely obscuring his own Fatah party's comprador role in the years since Oslo, not to the deepening political and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Moreoever, as Aijaz notes, Gaza is likely to be conveniently forgotten when the borders of the putative "cohesive and contiguous" Palestinian state are drawn.

In the second video below, Aijaz further analyzes Obama's language at the AIPAC conference, which includes the suggestion that Iran, not Iraq, would have been the 'right war,' and a call for greater unilateral action, 'outside of the United Nations,' on the part of the United States. As Aijaz tells us, 'with liberalism like this, no one needs the neo-cons.' Videos are below.

AS the transformation of Barack Obama nears its completion, Uri Avnery finds that last week's AIPAC spectacle confirms in full even the most "extreme" conclusions drawn by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their seminal The Israel Lobby, published late last year--a book that Obama had already denounced for its critique of the increasingly "special" relationship between the State of Israel and the US.
Part I


Part II