Crossfire War – Moscow – Berlin – Washington Watch – South Caucasus Theatre: Berlin – Washington – Moscow – Yerevan – Batumi – Tskhinvili/Tbilisi – Baku – Ankara – Tehran; South Ossetia – Georgia Trade Accusations and Exchanges of Fire Overnight
Night Watch: TSKHINVILI – Right after Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov returned from Washington, Tbilisi – Georgia and Tskhinvili-South Ossetia traded accusations on exchanges of fire that took place overnight. RIA reports the Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution, Merab Antadze stated, “We emphatically state that the Georgian side is committed to the principles of the peaceful settlement of the conflict and urge the Tskhinvili leadership de facto to consider all problematic issues within the bilateral format through a constructive dialog.” South Ossetia seceded from Georgia in 1990 as the Cold War was ending since most of its residents identify with Russia as do most of the citizens of the other republic which seceded from Georgia, Abkhazia on the Black Sea. [RIA]
War did take place in the early 1990s in both areas and thousands of people were killed with the issue never completely resolved, only suspended, as Moscow was forced to concentrate on the heavy fighting in the North Caucasus that began 1994 in Chechnya and spread into Dagestan 1999. Moscow, under President Vladimir Putin’s more effective administration, also had to combat the massive corruption that established itself in Russia’s government and banking – industrial circles after the Cold War. Tehran-Ankara’s direct involvement in supporting Islamic units and nationalistic governments in this strategic energy region between the Black and Caspian Sea has made the Caucasus the deciding front in World War III.
Moscow, and the energy industry all over the West and in Japan, do not want to watch Tbilisi continue to increase its defense cooperation with Tehran-Ankara. If Georgia continues to do so, not to mention Baku-Azerbaijan then Tehran would almost exclusively control the world’s most strategic crossroads of energy pipelines, with Iran’s military Axis partner China being one of the primary beneficiaries. Beijing knew Tehran and its offensive foreign policy had the potential to weaken three of Beijing’s rivals, the West-India-Russia. China’s readiness to arm Iran with nuclear-ballistic weaponry was an extension of its long support of Pakistan and was also the reason Beijing sold 50-60 CSS-2 missiles to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s, each one with a range of 2,500 miles (4,000 km).
I suspect the real topic on the agenda of the Russian Foreign Minister’s visit to Washington was Moscow’s creating reasons to attack Georgia’s military bases and installations in a massive response that will send an obvious message to Tehran-Ankara. Today’s message being that Russia is not the fragmented, ill-equipped, unpaid military that lost the first Chechen war 1994-96. But that under President Vladimir Putin Russia has seriously reformed its entire military, supported by a growing, reliable economy, and is ready to resume control over areas it withdrew from in 1990 at the end of the Cold War.
Moscow is no longer in retreat and the West wants Russia to be successful. If Russia’s responses are effective enough, then before this year expires, Moscow-Tehran could enter into serious negotiations to end the war and merge their international policies and a lot of their economy. Since Tehran does not hate Russia as much as it hates the West and India, Iran will confront Russia mostly through governments opposed to Moscow like Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan and possibly Tajikistan where Russia has a base used to track high orbital objects, Iran’s satellites.
Regular readers of crossfirewar.com know that recently it mentioned the Chairmen of the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. General Peter Pace was sent to Russia for a four day working visit in late October and that since then Berlin airlifted to Russia hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium. This is a result of Washington-Berlin having increased their military – international cooperation for more than a year. Banking and industries in both countries share the identical financial-industrial concerns – access to raw materials and its safe transport.
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