Saakashvili: Putin 'Wants to Be Feared'

Mar. 04, 2014 - 7:53 - Former Georgia president on Ukraine crisis

Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili Faces the Vengeance of His Rivals

Mikheil Saakashvili

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Mikheil Saakashvili was once the centre of the world's attention for standing up to Russia, but as Georgia heads to the polls, he faces police questioning, the end of his political career and an uncertain future

For a few days at the height of summer in 2008, one of the youngest heads of state in the world stood at the epicentre of a grave international crisis.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, then aged just 40, was locked in a confrontation with Russia over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia. He faced a full-scale invasion, with columns of Russian tanks moving down the highway towards to his capital, Tbilisi. For a moment, he became that rarest of politicians – a European leader waging a war on his own soil.

Last week, however, the man who once commanded the world's attention was moving out of the presidential residence and into a modest second floor flat in Tbilisi, the city he once pledged to defend against Russian invaders. As he stood amid a jumble of cardboard boxes in his old home, Mr Saakashvili might have reflected that at the age of 45, he has suffered comprehensive political defeat. » | Damien McElroy, Tbilisi | Saturday, October 26, 2013

Georgien: Gewalt gegen Demonstranten
In Georgien sind Sicherheitskräfte mit grosser Gewalt gegen Demonstranten vorgegangen. In der Hauptstadt Tiflis wurden zwei Personen getötet. Einschätzungen von Christoph Wanner, SF-Korrespondent, in Tiflis

Viewpoint from Russia: War Crimes Wash Off with West’s Help

Vladimir Putin 'Wanted to Hang Georgian President Saakashvili by the Balls'
TIMESONLINE: Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, planned to topple the President of Georgia and "hang him by the balls", according to the chief adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

Mr Putin outlined his aims to Mr Sarkozy when the French leader flew to Moscow on August 12 to broker a ceasefire after the Russian invasion of northern Georgia, Jean-David Levitte told le Nouvel Observateur news magazine. It published the account today.

President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia, who is in Paris, laughed nervously when he heard of Mr Putin's threat on French radio this morning and said that he was aware of it.

Mr Sarkozy was aware from intelligence reports that the Russian army was aiming to overthrow Mr Saakashvili and install a puppet government. He told Mr Putin that the world would not accept this, according to Mr Levitte, Mr Sarkozy's foreign policy chief, who was in the Kremlin for the talks.

"I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls," Mr Putin replied.

Mr Sarkozy responded: "Hang him?"

"Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein," said Mr Putin.

Mr Sarkozy replied, using the familiar "tu": "Yes but do you want to end up like (President) Bush?" Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then replied: "Ah, you have scored a point there." >>> Charles Bremner in Paris | November 13, 2008

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Russia: The New Order Cometh
INTERNATIONAL ANALYST NETWORK: There are two critical lessons to be learned from the recent Russian-Georgian war. First, Western security commitments should not to be made unless they can be enforced; and second, autonomous ethnic regions within tiny nations that border powerful states carry the potential for future conflicts.

The Russian-Georgian war was the by-product of a poorly thought out American foreign policy in the Caucasus because it attempted to gain American influence against Russia without providing sufficient American power to sustain that policy when challenged by Russia. This does not excuse the brutal application of Russian power against a tiny neighboring state, but it goes a long way in explaining why America responded as it did, and why American foreign policy in the Caucasus has proven to be without substance.

During the war, President Bush proclaimed America’s "unwavering support" for the former Soviet republic of Georgia. For the U.S. however, it was just another hollow gesture that reinforced an unfortunate pattern of American hubris. Bush lauded the Rose Revolution that swept Mikheil Saakashvili to power, backed Georgia's bid to enter NATO, and traveled to Tbilisi in 2005 to give his "pledge to the Georgian people that you've got a solid friend in America". In response, the Georgians aligned themselves with the U.S., sent 2,000 troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan beside American forces, and even named a main road in Tbilisi after Bush. At the White House last March, Saakashvili expressed his gratitude to the president for having "really put Georgia firmly on the world's freedom map."

Nevertheless, when push came to shove, the American response to the Russian invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was all rhetoric in large measure because the U.S. was already over-extended in Iraq and Afghanistan and had neither the power, the strategic necessity nor the political capital to take on the Russians over Georgia – and the Russians knew it. The weak U.S. response to the Russian invasion has not only diminished U.S. standing in the region, but arguably as a world power as well. As a friend and ally, Georgia was abandoned to the mercies of the Russian war machine and the other former Soviet republics have no doubt taken note of this.

In many ways, the war was inevitable. Post-World War II Western strategy toward the Soviet Union and its satellites was shaped by George Kennan’s 1947 Cold War doctrine of “containment”. For decades, the U.S. alliances that encircled the Soviet bloc sent a clear message to Stalin and his successors: “Not one more inch!” With the fall of the Soviet Union, that policy was extended under the Clinton and Bush administrations to the former Soviet republics but was propelled by the idea of promoting democratic change and stability in the newly-freed countries that border Russia. While the Russians continually questioned Western motives for this expansion, there was little they could do about it. Over the last few years, however, a newly empowered and resurgent oligarchy under Russian nationalist Prime Minister Vladimir Putin began to see these American overtures as an existential threat. Russia: The New Order Cometh >>> By Mark Silverberg | August 29, 2008

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Buchanan’s Viewpoint: Pushing Russia Into the Cold
TOWNHALL.COM: A year after taking power, in June 1934, Adolf Hitler made his first visit abroad -- to his idol Benito Mussolini in Venice.

Babbling on incessantly about "Mein Kampf "and the Negroid strain in Mediterranean peoples, the Fuhrer made a dismal impression.

"What a clown this Hitler is," Mussolini told an aide.

Two weeks later, Hitler executed the Roehm purge and murdered scores of old Stormtrooper comrades. In late July, Austrian Nazis, attempting a coup, assassinated Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, a friend of Mussolini whose wife and child were then his guests.

Il Duce ordered four divisions to the Brenner Pass and flew to Vienna to vent his rage and disgust with Hitler. He called a summit at Stresa with Britain and France to agree on military action should Hitler make any new move in violation of Versailles.
At the time, however, Il Duce was also plotting revenge on Abyssinia for a bloody border clash with Italian Somaliland.

Mussolini thought his Allies would understand if he invaded the Ogaden to add an African colony to his new Roman Empire, just as the British and French had so often done in previous decades.

Mussolini miscalculated. Morally outraged, Britain and France went before the League of Nations and had sanctions imposed on Italy that were too weak to defeat her but punitive enough to insult her.

Friendless, isolated and condemned as an aggressor by Europe, Italy and Mussolini had nowhere to turn now but Hitler's Germany.

Thus, over the fate of an Abyssinian slave empire, Britain drove her faithful World War I ally into the arms of a Nazi dictator Mussolini loathed and had wished to confront beside Britain. And Abyssinia was overrun.

Are we making the same mistake in the Caucasus?

Mikheil Saakashvili started this war with his barrage attack and occupation of South Ossetia. Russia's war of retribution was far less violent or excessive than the U.S. bombing of Serbia for 78 days over Kosovo, or our unprovoked war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which has brought death to scores of thousands, or Israel's 35 days of bombing of Lebanon for a border skirmish with Hezbollah.

Yet, declared John McCain of Russia, "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations." Even Dick Cheney must have guffawed. Pushing Russia Into the Cold >>> By Patrick J Buchanan | August 26, 2008

THE GUARDIAN:
Georgian President Urges US and EU to Boycott Russia’s Winter Olympics: Mikheil Saakashvili calls for package of sanctions to punish Moscow for invading Georgia >>> By Luke Harding in Tbilisi | August 26, 2008

NZZ Online:
Die EU will den Druck auf Russland erhöhen: Der Georgien-Gipfel soll innereuropäische Differenzen beilegen >>> | 26. August 2008

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Despite Pullout, Russia Envisions Long-Term Shift
THE NEW YORK TIMES: MOSCOW — As the Russian Army withdrew most of its forces from Georgia, it was becoming ever more clear on Friday that Moscow had no intention of restoring what once was — either on the ground or diplomatically.

The West wants a return to early August, before an obscure territorial dispute on the fringes of the old Soviet empire erupted into an international crisis. But Russia’s forces are digging in and seizing ribbons of Georgian land that abut two breakaway enclaves allied with Moscow, effectively extending its zone of influence.

At the same time, the Kremlin is nearing formal recognition of the independence of the enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, possibly as early as next week.

These moves indicate that despite the French-brokered cease-fire framework that Russia accepted, it is striving to maintain considerable economic and military pressure on Georgia, a close ally of the United States. The ultimate goal, it seems, is the ouster of its president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who is detested by the Russian leadership, and the installation of a government that it considers less hostile. Despite Pullout, Russia Envisions Long-Term Shift >>> By Clifford J Levy | August 22, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Georgia Rejects Russian Claims of Withdrawal: Russia's defence minister has said his forces have completed a promised withdrawal from the main body of Georgia into the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia >>> | August 22, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Even Today, Fighting Might with Might Is Often the Only Solution >>> By John O'Sullivan | August 23, 2008


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