The latest recipient of US-induced `regime change' was not some miscreant Muslim `rogue' state but the mainly Christian mountain nation of Georgia.
Eduard Shevardnadze, the 75-year old strongman who has ruled post-Soviet Georgia's 5.1 million citizens since 1991, was overthrown by a bloodless coup that appears to have been partly organized and financed by the Bush Administration.
Shevardnadze's sin, in Washington's eyes, was being too chummy with Moscow and obstructing a major US oil pipeline, due to open in 2005, from Central Asia, across Georgia to Turkey. Georgia occupies the heart of the wild, unruly, and very strategic Caucasus region, which I call the Mideast North.
In recent months, Shevardnadze had given new drilling and pipeline concessions to Russian firms. He should have recalled the fate of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which, like Georgia, was a US client and recipient of American aid until it turned down a major pipeline deal with US oil firm Chevron and awarded it to a Latin American consortium. Taliban was immediately put on the outlaw list and marked for `regime change.'
Shevardnadze was no democrat. He rigged elections, used goon squads to silence opponents, and ran Georgia like a medieval fief. But he was also a fascinating man, as I found when extensively interviewing him in Moscow in 1989 when he was Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union.
`Shevy-Chevy,' as we used to call him, looked like an amiable grandfather, with his wispy white hair and bulging eyes. In fact, he had been the tough, ruthless party and KGB boss of Georgia. Yet this dedicated communist became Mikhail Gorbachev's right hand man in implementing glasnost and perestroika reforms. He played a decisive role in ending the Cold War and breaking up that criminal empire, the Soviet Union.
Like Gorbachev, Shevardnadze became a hero in the west, but was reviled at home as a traitor and wrecker. Many Russians believed Gorby was a British agent and Shevardnadze a CIA `asset.'
After the USSR's collapse, Shevardnadze returned to Georgia and, backed by US funding, seized power from the fiery post-independence leader, Zviad Ghamsakhurdia, who may have been murdered. Shevardnadze survived two assassination attempts over the past decade.
Georgia is wild, turbulent, dirt poor, and very beautiful. I still savor the memory of the majestic, mist-shrouded mountains of Abkhazia, the lovely Black Sea coast that recalls the French Riviera, and Georgia's famed, highly potent yellow wines.
Georgia has been a battleground for much of its 2,500-year history. Georgia's knights and warriors, who battled under the banner of St George, waged a heroic struggle against the Persian, Ottoman and Russian Empires. Neighbor Armenia and Georgia are the two oldest existing Christian nations. Georgian, Albanian, and Basque are Europe's oldest living languages.
Like all mountain nations, Georgia is deeply divided by topography and fierce clan rivalries. Minorities of Armenians, Azeris, Ossetians (a Christian Turkic tribe), Mingrelians, and Muslim Abkhaz add further volatility. The Caucasus has over 100 feuding ethnic groups, a time bomb waiting to explode. Stalin was an Ossetian or perhaps a Mingrelian (as was henchman Lavrenti Beria)
Abkhazia and Ossetia seceded from Georgia after bloody fighting and ethnic cleansing that killed 10,000 and left 250,000 refugees. Today, Russian `peacekeeping' troops keep the two rebellious regions, and a third Muslim enclave, Azharia, independent of Georgian control. Just to the north, the Chechen's ferocious struggle for freedom from Russian rule grinds on, with the bloody struggle spilling into Georgia. Moscow repeatedly accused Georgia of aiding Chechen independence fighters, which is likely true. Neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan have waged a sporadic war for over a decade.
Shevardnadze kept Georgia independent by deftly playing off the Americans against the Russians, both of whom had designs on the little nation. But his luck finally ran out.
Washington sent high level emissaries, including former Secretary of State James Baker, to warn Shevardnadze not to do anything that threatened the proposed oil corridor, ie deal with the Russians. When he went ahead with Russian oil deals, Washington denounced Georgian elections in early November as rigged - which they were - though it always turns a blind eye to rigged elections in useful allies like oil-rich Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan, Morocco, etc.
Cash and anti-Shevardnadze political operatives from the US poured into Tibilisi to back up the president's American-educated principal rival, Mikhail Saakashvili. The rigged election ignited mass protests by Georgians, fed up with corruption and crushing poverty. Saakashvilli forces stormed parliament a drove out Shevardnasze, who resigned after army and police refused to defend him.
What next? Saakashvili appears almost certain to become president in early January. But the three political clans who united to overthrow the ancient regime, and now support him, may, true local tradition, soon be at one another's throats. In hot-blooded Georgia, civil war is never far away.
Russia will try to limit US influence in Georgia and extend its own by stirring the pot and finding new Georgian allies. Washington will shore up its man in Tibilisi, Mr Saakashvili, and may send more Special Forces troops under the pretext of the faux war on terrorism.
The entire Caucasus is near a boil. Sharply increasing rivalry between the US and Russia for political and economic influence over this vital land bridge between Europe and the oil-rich Caspian Basin promises a lot more intrigue, skullduggery and drama.
Foreign Correspondent
Foreign Correspondent
