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Has The West
Been Hypnotized By Russia?
It would seem the West has still not fully understood the
scale of the catastrophe the world now faces. It is not just Georgia that is at
stake. By attacking Georgia, the Kremlin has essentially declared itself a new
global aggressor, one with arsenals of nuclear weapons and vast energy
resources. It is an aggressor that no country in the world seems able or
willing to confront.
The clearest example of this new stand came when the deputy
head of the Russian General Staff, Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a few
days ago threatened Poland with nuclear destruction if it proceeds with its
role in the U.S. missile-defense system.
You can only draw two conclusions from a statement like
this: either Nogovtisyn has psychological problems or this has been the real,
if hidden, position of the Kremlin, the General Staff, and the secret services
for years. They have just been hiding under a civilized mask and waiting for
the right moment to show themselves.
But when President Dmitry Medvedev said shortly afterward
that "the military is correct regarding Poland," there could be no
doubt that Nogovitsyn was speaking for the ruling elite. Or maybe there is some
sort of dangerous psychotropic virus that is moving around Moscow at a
tremendous rate and infecting people in various government agencies.
Infected By Same Virus
Even though the next day Russian diplomats came to their
senses and tried to soften this position slightly, it was clear that Nogovitsyn
had been infected by the same virus that had - long before the Georgia war -
prompted high-ranking Russian military officials to threaten the West - in
true Soviet style - with the possibility of basing nuclear weapons in Cuba.
Remember about a year ago this virus prompted then Russian
President Vladimir Putin to declare that Russia might target some of its
nuclear weapons at Europe. And, before that, he said the collapse of the Soviet
Union was "the greatest tragedy of the 20th century." That is, for
Putin the tragedy is not the gulag, not the destruction of millions of innocent
people in Russia and neighboring states, not the turning of neighboring peoples
into slaves, but the fact that these outrages came to an end. And this position
was not some sort of misstatement. And it is precisely this position that Putin - who remains the main powerbroker in Russia - is making real step by step on
all fronts.
Judging by the waffling tone with which German Chancellor
Angela Merkel spoke with Medvedev in Sochi on August 15 - as if he weren't the
commander in chief of a country that had just attacked its neighbor - the
virus can also strike foreign leaders traveling in Russia. Dismissing a war -
the dispatching of tanks and bombers into another country - as a
"disproportionate reaction" is simply turning one's head and
pretending one just doesn't see.
It seems absolutely surreal to me. I want to grab Europe's
leaders and ask them: "You are being directly threatened with nuclear
attack and all you can do is talk about your 'optimism' and some 'long-term
partnership'!?! What will it take to awaken you from your hypnosis?"
Germany and France, because of their soft position on
Russia, bear the primary responsibility for the fact that the Kremlin dared to
turn its back on international law and attack Georgia. That country's fate was
not decided on August 8, but on April 3, when German and French leaders at the
NATO summit in Bucharest - enchanted by Putin's promises of good prices for
energy - blocked Georgia's and Ukraine's entrance into the NATO preparatory
club.
Different Outcome
If NATO had decided instead to take Georgia under its wing
in April, it is a sure thing we would not have seen what we saw in the last few
months - regular and unrelenting provocations against Georgia by the
separatists, who are controlled by Russia's security services; the regular
violation of Georgian airspace by Russian military planes; the
"accidental" launching of Russian rockets onto Georgian territory
(all of which was denied by the Russians, who claimed the incursions were just
"Georgian insinuations" and maintained that Russia would never
violate an international border); and the professional training of Abkhaz
fighters by Russian military-intelligence specialists.
The Kremlin's blitzkrieg against Georgia was not a
spontaneous decision. It was part of Putin's overall design, a fundamental and
organic part of his ideology, as well as a natural yearning of the siloviki
that form his entourage. The Kremlin had just been waiting over the last six
months for the right moment, and it ramped up its provocations until that "right
moment" appeared.
So, by taking away these bits of Georgian territory for its
puppet regimes, the Kremlin has not only publicly punished Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili (who at least resisted as much as he could), but world
leaders as well. They spent the first five days of the crisis acting as if
nothing terrible had happened and expressing their "deep concern."
The action sent a message to all those who invited Putin and Medvedev to dinner
like friends and who looked in their eyes and assured the world that these were
people who could be trusted.
Now the masks are gone.
Medvedev - the de jure head of state - probably didn't
even realize what he was admitting when he touchingly told journalists:
"This tragedy glued us all to our television screens and the Internet. And
I also, as an ordinary person, received some of my information from
there."
Putin - the real head of Russia - has been very successful
over the years at dealing with Western leaders in the style of a classical
tempter. First, he seduced them all individually - some with oil, some with
gas, some with multimillion-dollar posts at Gazprom, some with promises not to
make trouble in Iraq - and then forced them all to turn their backs on the
destruction of human rights in Russia. And now those same Western leaders have
been trampled into the mud along with all their claims to be defenders of
democracy and international law.
Want To Be Feared
The West seems unable to understand one simple thing: the
Kremlin clan doesn't need to be respected. They want to be feared and they want
money. That's all. It's that simple. Therefore any effort to end the conflict
"in a civilized way" or, still worse, "through compromise" - as opposed to through the plain language of harsh ultimatums - will be seen
by the Russian leadership as a sign of weakness.
The only weak point this new monster - which the West has
fed from its own hand over the last eight years - has is that it is
fantastically money-hungry. The only understanding of "civilization"
that Putin's clan has is owning a home in London, yachts, villas in France or
Italy, and improbably expensive art works. Civilization for them does not mean
that you don't kill and pillage other people, even if you really, really want
to. And it certainly doesn't mean working selflessly to pull your own country
out of poverty instead of turning it into a colony for the extraction of
resources.
Today the only language that will be understood in the
Kremlin and could stop its aggression would be for all Western countries to
stop buying Russian oil and gas. Followed by a ban on leading Russian officials
and Kremlin-connected businesspeople from traveling to the West. I don't think
turning off the Russian gas would be a disaster for Europe - Russian gas makes
up about 30 percent of German imports and 20 percent for France. It might be
difficult, but it is really a matter of political will and a drive to diversify
energy sources.
But judging from Merkel's meeting with Medvedev, there isn't
much desire to get off Russia's gas needle. Western Europeans still haven't
realized that such a needle at the mercy of the whims of an unabashed aggressor
will sooner or later present a deadly threat to the West itself, and not just
to its eastern neighbors.
If something categorical, decisive, and collective is not
done immediately in reaction to Georgia, then the next logical step according
to the logic of today's Kremlin leaders will be a more open alliance with the
world's outlaw regimes and the real blackmail of the West with the help of
Iran.
As far as the situation in Georgia is concerned, there can
be no doubt that the Kremlin will continue its bid to remove Saakashvili. I
don't think it was by chance that the tabloid "Tvoi den," which has a
reputation as a place for Kremlin trial balloons, reported a fairytale about
how Saakashvili tried to kill himself when the war seemed lost. The report
included the somber prediction that he might well try again in the future. One
Georgian president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was already removed through a mysterious
death.
Yelena Tregubova is a Russian journalist and author of the
2003 book "Tales of a Kremlin Digger." The views expressed in this
commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
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