Georgia is in the news today. In the U.S. state of Georgia, a runoff election will determine the victor in the race between GOP senator Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin. Chambliss has a slight edge in the polls heading into runoff day. If the Democrats win, they will hold 59 seats in the next Senate, with a sixtieth - the Minnesota seat currently held by Norm Coleman - yet to be determined.

The small country of Georgia, invaded and occupied by Russia in August, is also in the news. Georgia's elected president, Mikhail Saakashvili, provides his account of the run-up to last summer's war in the Wall Street Journal.

Two other recent articles on Georgia (the country), both of which appear in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, are also worth mentioning: Stephen Sestanovich on where U.S.-Russia relations go from here, and Charles King on the history of turmoil in the Caucasus. King's piece is subscriber only. (And, for what it's worth, I find his chronological narrative more compelling than his policy prescriptions.)

That's the question Robert Kagan asks in this new essay. Today's so-called "realists," Kagan argues, have inverted the lessons of their predecessors:

Leading realists today see the world not as Mr. Morgenthau did, as an anarchic system in which nations consistently pursue "interest defined as power," but as a world of converging interests, in which economics, not power, is the primary driving force. Thus Russia and China are not interested in expanding their power so much as in enhancing their economic well-being and security. If they use force against their neighbors, or engage in arms buildups, it is not because this is in the nature of great powers. It is because the United States or the West has provoked them. The natural state of the world is harmonious; only aggressive behavior by the United States disturbs the harmony. ...

The original realists had no patience for such Candide-like optimism about the inevitable upward progress of mankind. "Whoever thinks the future is going to be easier than the past is certainly mad," wrote Mr. Kennan in 1951, six years after the most destructive war in history, five years into the Cold War, and one year into what was widely seen at the time as disastrous and seemingly hopeless American intervention in Korea. Mr. Kennan's provocative assertion aimed to jolt Americans out of their yearning to believe that the future would be different. But now it is leading realists who embrace The End of History, with an unshakable faith in the inevitable convergence of humanity around shared values and common interests. These were exactly the hopes and dreams Mr. Morgenthau set out to vanquish decades ago.

Want an example? Read Richard Haas in Newsweek. Haas says punishing Russia for its invasion of an independent democracy would be counterproductive. No, Haas argues, we should actually reward Russia, by lowering "U.S. barriers to Russia's joining the World Trade Organization, not rais[ing] them." Because "[a]utocratic Russia is more likely to evolve into something more open if it is integrated into modern institutions than if it is left outside."

No it isn't. But such is today's "realism," which has eschewed considerations of power in favor of Rodney-King style, "Can't we all get along" claptrap. WWMD: What would Morgenthau do?

Vladimir Putin will propose an underwater tunnel linking Russia to Alaska--two places no one in the world wants to go--in a meeting with President Bush next week. Tsar Nicholas II initially proposed the tunnel in the early 1900s. One imagines if constructed, hoards of Russians will infiltrate Alaska a la Red Dawn. Only instead of imprisoning freedom-loving Americans, they’ll simply demand the $1,600 annual subsidy paid to each resident for living on the real-world set of Waiting for Godot.

The tunnel would cost $66 billion. No word on whether Russia will pay this entire sum, or expects America to go Dutch on this frivolous project. In any case, this is only slightly dumber than another underwater tunnel idea to emerge in the last few months. A private real estate developer is pushing for approval to build a $10 billion tunnel connecting Long Island and Westchester. Under his plan, commuters would pay $25 each way for the benefit of using the private road. At least this tunnel has the benefit of being privately paid for and not a deceased tsar’s vanity project.

The president signals his support for Georgia to join NATO:

President Bush indicated support yesterday for Georgia's aspirations to join NATO eventually, but left uncertain whether he will try to start the process at the alliance summit next month in Bucharest, Romania.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear he opposes the prospect of Ukraine and Georgia -- former satellites of the Soviet Union -- joining NATO, leaving some alliance countries leery about provoking a conflict with Russia.

After meeting with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in the Oval Office yesterday, Bush said he would like to see Georgia become a NATO member at some point. "I believe that NATO benefits with a Georgian membership. I believe Georgia benefits from being a part of NATO. And I told the president it's a message I'll be taking to Bucharest soon," Bush said.

Just another ally that will be unwilling to dirty its hands in Afghanistan? Or would the Georgians turn out to be shooters like the Poles? NATO also needs fresh troops to unscrew the mess that is Kosovo, but perhaps the alliance should focus on properly integrating the current force before they start bringing more newbies on board.

Still, I love the idea of Ukraine signing the charter. Putting NATO on a new eastern European border (Estonia and Latvia are already there) with the Russians gives me nostalgic Cold War warm fuzzies. And--if nothing else--it'd make the alliance somewhat less of an anachronism.

A friend sends along this interesting analysis of the relationship between North Korea and Iran, the two remaining members of the axis of evil. The author, Alon Levkowitz, is a lecturer at the Department of East Asian Studies at Tel-Aviv University.

According to Levkowitz, there is ample evidence of nuclear cooperation between the two regimes, and Iran appears to have provided much of the finding for the North Korean missile program. The returns on that investment were apparent in Iran's proxy war with Israel last summer. And there's little reason to doubt that the close relationship between the two will hasten Iran's nuclear capability.

Another example of the cooperation between the two states involved reports of the joint development of an advanced version of the C-802 cruise missile, used by the Hezbollah in the last Lebanon war against the Israeli battleship "Hanit". On July 4, 2006, North Korea held missile testing that included the failed launch of the Taepodong-2 (ICBM) missile and other upgraded short and middle range missiles. According to foreign sources, an Iranian delegation participated in the missile tests.

These events provided yet another indicator of the continuing missile collaboration between the two states. Such cooperation not only increases North Korea's domestic export, but also allows Pyongyang to share information and benefit from missile experiments in Iran while avoiding political costs of conducting flight tests on home ground. Furthermore, the partnership contributes in advancing North Korean missile sales to other customers in the Middle East, such as Syria and Egypt. . . .

During the last two decades, nuclear experts and political delegates from North Korea and Iran have held visitations and increased the technological collaboration between the two states. Delegations from both countries have visited Pakistan as well. According to intelligence communities, Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has provided the knowledge and some of the hardware for both the Iranian and the North Korean nuclear programs. Foreign intelligence sources even stated that the North Korean nuclear program was partially funded by Iran. The increase in Iranian financial assistance to the North Korean nuclear program, in conjunction with a decrease in other foreign assistance to that country, has made Iran an important ally to North Korea. According to intelligence reports, the nuclear test that North Korea conducted in October 2006 coupled with the sanctions on North Korea, Security Council resolution 1718, and the tension between Iran and the United States will further increase the nuclear collaboration between Iran and North Korea.

You can read the full analysis (pdf) here.

Igor Khrestin, a researcher in the Russian Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in with news and links from the Russian-language media (you can also click here to read his latest piece in THE DAILY STANDARD):

In the wake of Putin’s unequivocal rejection of the “one master, one sovereign” world order in Munich last week, the Kremlin is putting its money where its mouth is. Clearly displeased by Washington’s decision to build missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated in an interview today with Rossiyskaya Gazeta that “Undoubtedly, we will react. But we will do so without hysterics. We cannot allow [Russia] to be drawn into a new arms race.”

Russia’s top military commander, General Yuri Baluyevsky, doesn’t seem to share the top diplomat’s views. In an interview with the RIAN news agency, Baluevsky declared that his country is being forced into a new arms race, while noting that “being aware of the technical characteristics [of US military hardware], we can with complete certainty state that despite declarations that these systems are not aimed against Russia, they can affect our deterrence potential.”

In order to counter America’s “aggression at Russia’s borders,” the Kremlin apparently plans a tit-for-tat response. The Rossiyskie Vesti weekly reports that Russia’s Air Force chief, Vladimir Mikhailov, has made a visit to Armenia in order to lobby for joint missile defense systems to be installed on the territory of Russia-friendly post-Soviet states. The newspaper notes that a three three-tiered geographical structure is planned: European (in Belarus), Caucasus (Armenia), and Central Asian (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).

In the meantime, Sergei Ivanov, who was only recently promoted from minister of defense to deputy prime minister, has been lobbying hard for increased funding for the Russian military. Earlier this month, Ivanov stressed the need for wholesale modernization of Russia’s armed forces, while on February 2, an article in Moskovskiy Komsomolets noted that during Ivanov’s six-year tenure as defense minister, the defense budget increased sixfold. During this Monday’s national security briefing, Ivanov even proposed the military-industrial complex model as a means of modernizing Russia’s economy. As reported by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Ivanov argued “with unhidden pride” that defense industry growth levels--10 percent in 2006--far exceed those in other industrial areas.

A series of photographs showing Russian President Vladimir Putin's pimped out plane recently appeared on a Russian blog operated by a man identified only as "hectop." I first saw the story over on FP Passport, where Blake Hounshell speculated that the opulent interior might spark a backlash against the president. "It'll be interesting to see if the Russian public reacts to the photos like some Venezuelans did back in 2002, when they discovered the luxuriousness of Hugo Chávez's own private IL-96-300," said Hounshell.

It's easy to understand why Venezuelans would be bothered by Chávez's lavish transportation, though from the BBC story Hounshell links to, it seems the hypocrisy may have been lost on most of his supporters. Far more bizarre is the resistance of the British to the purchase of a new aircraft for their own prime minister. That stinginess has forced Blair to fly commercial for any trip that isn't related to affairs of state and led to an incident last Christmas that saw Blair's British Airways flight skid off a runway at Miami International Airport. It's as though the British public is determined to cast off any remaining vestiges of great-power status. After all, the Royal Yacht was decommissioned nearly ten years by Blair's own party. No surprise then that the opposition fought tooth and nail to stymie Blair's plan for a new jet. (Blair did get his way, but he'll have to share the refurbished 737 with the Queen. In the event of a scheduling conflict, the prime minister will have to find other arrangements.)

My guess is the Russian people will expect their president to travel in luxury befitting a czar--unlike the British, the Russian people still believe their country is a great power, despite the crumbling of the Soviet empire. Hounshell also writes that "what started out as poking fun at Putin's grotesque taste could well end up getting someone in deep trouble." That point is well taken, hectop would be wise to purchase a dosimeter.

You should see the dojo.

Yesterday I posted on the subject of alleged cooperation between the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. In that post I made reference to skeptical remarks by two well respected experts, Paul Kerr and Jeffrey Lewis, that both seemed to step back from in subsequent posts. I also spoke with John Pike, who told me there was no way to confirm such reports, but that the North Korean, Iranian, and Pakistani nuclear programs were essentially "one program in three places."

Kerr feels I misrepresented his comments, and has attributed such misrepresentation to either dishonesty or stupidity on my part. I strongly deny that there was any intent to deceive (only time will tell if the other charge sticks), so let's go through point by point.

First Kerr says, "he claims (falsely) that additional evidence [of collaboration] has made the claim more plausible." The additional evidence I was pointing to was this piece by Bill Gertz on collaboration between North Korea and Iran on ICBM technology. Kerr says the piece I "refer to is about missile, not nuclear, cooperation." True enough, and I said as much, but any reasonable person could draw the conclusion that collaboration on technology for delivering a nuclear warhead makes collaboration on warhead design seem more plausible. If Kerr chooses not to make that leap, fine, but I'd have to disagree with him.

Second, Kerr says the two haven't changed their minds. I did mistakenly attribute a cross-post by Kerr that appeared on Lewis's site to Lewis himself. So, my apologies to Dr. Lewis. But Kerr subsequently posted that his initial impression--that North Korean data would be of little use to Iran--was not correct, since information from the test of a weapon with a plutonium core (North Korea) would, in fact, be useful to a country working to design a weapon with a uranium core (Iran). I inferred that Kerr's realization meant he was more inclined to believe that collaboration was possible, since there was much to be gained from the Iranian perspective. Kerr says, "that post only indicates that Iran could perhaps benefit more from North Korean test data than I had previously suspected. That doesn’t mean that North Korea is actually providing such data."

Again, Kerr chooses not to make this leap, I disagree--to me his statement implies that, in light of this new information, collaboration is more likely.

Finally, Kerr says I inaccurately claimed that, "In Kerr’s opinion, the only way to significantly shorten that estimate [the IC’s 5-10 year estimate] was if the North Koreans sold weapons-grade fuel, presumably plutonium, to the Iranians." Kerr had written that,

"there’s no reason why the cooperation between North Korea and Iran discussed in [Couglin's] article would impact the US IC’s 5-10 year estimate. My understanding is that that estimate applies to Iran’s ability to produce HEU . . . North Korea’s program uses plutonium."

Because Couglin's article was confined to collaboration on warhead design, I surmised that this only left the transfer of nuclear fuel as a collaborative measure which might speed up the Iranian program. I'm not sure what else goes into building a bomb other than designing the warhead and procuring the fuel--these seem to be the two significant obstacles. So if the estimate applies to producing HEU, it seems reasonable to conclude that, in Kerr's opinion, only a transfer of fuel from North Korea to Iran would shorten the estimate.

Again, I spoke to no one who thought Coughlin's story was particularly credible. But the fact that Gertz later reported on ICBM collaboration between North Korea and Iran, and that Kerr later acknowledged that test data from North Korea would be valuable to Iran, led me to conclude that Kerr's skepticism had softened and Couglin's claims seemed more credible. If Kerr insists that none of this new information has led him to change his position, fine. But I think he's sticking his head in the sand. We must assume the worst about these two regimes, and any evidence that confirms those assumptions ought to be treated as serious, rather than dismissed out of hand.

Did the Islamic Republic really send experts to observe the North Korean nuke test last fall? Writing in the Telegraph, Con Coughlin mentions unconfirmed reports to that effect, and, citing an unnamed "European defence official," claims that the North Koreans invited Iranian scientists "to study the results of last October's underground test to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own--possibly by the end of this year."

According to John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, Iran could be ready to test a nuclear weapon as early as May of this year. Pike was skeptical that they would, saying such a test would likely be "more trouble than it's worth," but, assuming Russia delivers fuel for the newly built reactor at Bushehr some time this spring, and assuming the Iranians divert that fuel and start enriching it as soon as it is received, the worst case scenario is a nuclear Iran by this summer.

Pike said he had no reason to doubt reports of collaboration, but confirming such reports would be nearly impossible. Still, Pike says that between Pakistan, North Korean, and Iran, what we are seeing is "one [nuclear weapons] program doing business in 3 places." So does anyone still believe that Iran's nuclear program might not be a weapons program? Last night on MSNBC, Hillary Clinton had this to say about Iran:

Right now we are flying blind when it comes to Iran. We don't have good intelligence about Iran, about, you know, what their real motivations are, who is calling the shots. The same with Syria. And I would immediately open a diplomatic track.

And I don't think we would lose. In fact, I think we would gain insight. I mean, if we have to take a firm stand against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons, let's get more information before we do that.

We do have to take a firm stand against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons, and the only information we need before doing that is how far along the program is and where the critical facilities are. It's highly unlikely a diplomatic track would provide answers to either of those questions.

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar signed a memorandum of understanding with Leonid Maltsev, his Belorussian counterpart, yesterday. According to UPI, "the agreement formalizes the development of relations between Iran and Belarus, emphasizing expanding and solidifying defense ties between the countries."

Belarus is often referred to as Europe's last dictatorship, and Condoleezza Rice included the country in a list of six "outposts of tyranny" during her confirmation hearings in early 2005.

Iran has been a lucrative market for military exports from Belarus, which include tanks, artillery, and APCs, and Belarus has offered outspoken support for Iran's nuclear program in exchange. The Bush administration accused Belarus of selling military communication equipment to Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion and in violation of a U.N. embargo, so it seems unlikely there is any limit to the support Belarus might offer Iran in the absence of any international sanctions regime. Of course this is just the latest example of Iran cozying up to the world's most offensive regimes. Said Ahmadinejad, “In the light of their current abundant potentials, Iran and Belarus can complement each other in different areas.” Causing trouble seems to be the only thing for which these two regimes have "abundant potential."

Belarus Defense Minister Leonid Maltsev and his Iranian counterpart Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar; from IRNA.

With Moscow wielding its energy club on its neighbors, Ukraine, Georgia and now Belarus, there’s been a growing awakening in Europe to the perils of being too dependent on the Kremlin for energy supplies. The latest is Germany. Radio Free Europe reports that Economy Minister Michael Glos welcomed “the agreement reached the previous night between Gazprom and Belarus on securing Russian gas supplies to Belarus,” but, Glos continued, "’the conflict shows that Europe ought not to make itself too dependent on gas supplies from the East.’" Indeed.

(Russian obstructionism at the UN has strengthened the hardliners in Tehran, argue the editors of the Washington Post today. So far, it’s win-win for Moscow and Tehran. Russia, a G-8 member, abets Iran’s nuclear program, rakes in lots of cash doing so, and yet remains on a path to gain membership in the World Trade Organization. Tehran defies the Security Council, moves forward with its nuclear program, and yet there are boisterous calls for “hardliners” in Washington to be more reasonable.)

Posted December 10, 2006:

That was the date the UN Security Council gave Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activities or else. But it’s been nearly 4 months, and there’s little evidence the “or else” will amount to much anytime soon. And with the release of the Iraq Survey Group’s report, Tehran has dug in its nuclear heels even more. The ISG report cites Iran dozens of times, but you won’t find a single reference to the “August 31” deadline. Holding Iran accountable for thumbing its nose at the international community would get in the way of dialogue. Iran has learned that deadlines don’t have consequences and that, so far, it can have its nuclear cake and eat it too. From the AP:

Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges in an expansion of its uranium enrichment program that brings the Islamic nation significantly closer to large-scale production of nuclear fuel, the president said Saturday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also claimed that the international community was caving in to Tehran's demands to continue its nuclear program.

"Resistance of the Iranian nation in the past year forced them to retreat tens of steps over the Iran's nuclear issue," the semi-official Fars agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Fars is considered to be close to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Prior to any talks, a serious Security Council would come down hard on Iran (and Syria for that matter), though it’s hard to see that happening. So as it now stands, Ahmadinejad and Assad believe they are dealing with the world from a position of strength and they’re probably right.

Garry Kasparov marches in Moscow. From the BBC:

The rally is being organised by former chess world champion Garry Kasparov, who has said its participants would try to avoid any possible provocations.

The march is against what protesters describe as rampant corruption and a Kremlin crackdown on democracy.

("Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project,” the Guardian reports, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.” The Times has more here.)

BusinessWeek has an interesting piece this week on the Russian economy and the growth of direct foreign investment in Russia since 2002. With high oil prices, the Russian economy has been humming along, but so has the Kremlin's appetite for gobbling up private companies.

The Kremlin has taken control of some two dozen Russian companies since 2004, including oil assets from Sibneft and Yukos, as well as banks, newspapers, and more. Despite his sporadic support for pro-market reforms, Putin has backed national champions such as energy concerns Gazprom and Rosneft. The private sector's share of output fell from 70% to 65% last year, while state-controlled companies now represent 38% of stock market capitalization, up from 22% a year ago. "The tendency that really worries us," says William Tompson, the oecd's senior Russia economist, "is the big increase in state property."

And the Kremlin hasn’t been shy about employing its property to advance political ends. Putin has used government-controlled energy companies, for example, to punish neighboring Ukraine and Georgia for not kowtowing to the Kremlin.

From AFP:

MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors said they were opening their own murder inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko as a funeral was held for the former Russian spy at a central London mosque.

A spate of new poisonings added further intrigue to the affair, including that of a private Russian security agent Dmitry Kovtun who met Litvinenko last month in London, according to Russian officials.

I have to wonder what exactly the president got out of his stopover in Moscow on his way to the APEC summit a little over a week ago. He traveled well out of his way to chat with Putin. Since then, and despite our objections, the Kremlin has gone ahead with the delivery of an air-defense system to Iran. The Tor-M1 system will reportedly be deployed around Iran’s nuclear facilities – facilities the Russians are helping to build.

Tor-M1

(Source: AFP)

On top of this, Russia and China show no sign of acting responsibly on the UN Security Council in the face Tehran’s continued defiance over its nuclear enrichment program. The Council gave Iran until August 31 to stop its enrichment program or face real consequences. Iran ignored the deadline, and today the Council dithers.

After Air Force One departed Moscow, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told reporters that the Putin meeting “really wasn't about business it was about social, it was about personal." That’s nice. It would also be nice to believe that when they did talk “business” the president received a private assurance from Putin that Moscow would back tough action against Iran, but it’s a hope getting dimmer by the day.

On Iran, the Russians appear to be all business.

(The Washington Post reports: "British police are investigating the poisoning of a former Russian spy and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin and have placed him under protective guard at a London hospital…. Alexander Litvinenko, 43, began vomiting shortly after he had lunch on Nov. 1 with a man who gave him documents related to the recent killing of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist.")

Posted on October 7, 2006:

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered last night in Moscow, reports Reuters:

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow, police said.

"According to initial information she was killed by two shots when leaving the lift. Neighbors found her body," a police source told Reuters. Police found a pistol and four rounds in the lift.

Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mother of two, won international fame and numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Putin's government, particularly in the violent southern province of Chechnya.

"The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime," said Vitaly Yaroshevsky, a deputy editor of the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked.

I’m told that Politkovskaya had written an article on Russian atrocities in Chechnya due to be published on Monday.

Last January, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine to punish Kiev. Earlier this month, the AP reported that Gazprom “would more than double the price of gas for Georgia,” a struggling pro-Western democracy. Now, the Financial Times reports:

A confidential study by Nato economics experts, sent to the ambassadors of its 26 member states last week, warned that Russia may be seeking to build a gas cartel including Algeria, Qatar, Libya, the countries of Central Asia and perhaps Iran.

The study, by Nato’s economics committee, said Russia was seeking to use energy policy to pursue political ends, particularly in dealings with neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine….

Although there is disagreement over whether Russia could create any such cartel, the report highlights the deepening tensions between Western Europe and Moscow over energy security.

Energy company executives say the biggest threat to gas prices comes from Russia’s own investment shortfalls and possible moves by Moscow to convince other producers, such as Algeria, to limit investment.

Russia supplies 24 per cent of Europe’s natural gas, with Norway selling 13 per cent and Algeria, a major exporter to Spain and Italy, supplying 10 per cent.

Last week, the International Energy Agency warned of “the possibility of major gas-exporting countries co-ordinating their investment and production plans in order to avoid surplus capacity and to keep gas prices up.”

…Last month, before an EU summit with Russia, Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, highlighted a Russian deal with Algeria, which he said stopped Algeria selling majority stakes in gas projects to foreign investors.

“We are witnessing some form of mutual agreement as Russia and Algeria restrain investment,” said one industry analyst.

“Moscow has tightened the grip using Gazprom and Algiers has just changed its hydrocarbons law giving [Algeria’s] Sonatrach 51 per cent of every project instead of 30 per cent.”

In July, the G-8 held its annual summit near St. Petersburg, Russia. One of the major topics discussed: energy security.

(On October 2, 2006, I wrote: "Last January, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine to punish Kiev. Is Tbilisi next?” Evidently, it’s approaching that line. The AP today reports: “Russia’s state-controlled natural-gas monopoly [Gazprom] said it would more than double the price of gas for Georgia, raising the economic pressure on Moscow’s small southern neighbor amid tensions between the two countries.” So if the Georgian democracy crumbles, the West should be sure to thank its fellow G-8 member for delivering the blow.)

Posted October 20, 2006:

Putin's efforts to destabilize the Republic of Georgia, a pro-Western democracy, continue. The Associated Press reports that Russian sanctions

have effectively severed the Caucasus nation from its biggest market and supplier. Transport and postal links are suspended. Russian canned foods, cooking oil, and sausage are disappearing from store shelves; Newsstands report a run on popular Russian-language magazines, especially women's journals that don't appear in Georgian translation.

Georgian businesses say millions of dollars worth of orders are stuck at Russian checkpoints. Georgian Airlines, banned from flying into Russia, predicts its losses will exceed $600,000 by month's end.

Hundreds of Georgians have been deported as allegedly illegal migrants, and more are rumored to be on the way, putting at risk the estimated $2 billion that Georgians in Russia send home annually to feed their families. Some analysts predict the blockade could shave a percentage point off the country's GDP growth rate of around 6 percent….

Georgians say they have learned to cope with hardships. Power cuts are routine, so they stock candles. They maneuver their cars over axle-busting potholes. Some apartment blocks get running water only two hours a day…. The official unemployment rate is 13 percent and thought to be unrealistically low. The average salary is about $75 a month.

Where is the West’s condemnation of all this? Is anything being done to help our friends in Tbilisi? Will Russia, a G8 member, succeed in breaking the Georgians?

The Kremlin hasn't been too interested in slapping stiff sanctions on Iran over its rogue nuclear program. On the Security Council, Russia, with an assist from China, has acted more like defense counsel for Tehran than a responsible member of the international community seeking to stem nuclear proliferation. While Beijing invests in Iran’s (and Sudan’s for that matter) energy industry, the Russians have opened the arms spigot to Tehran. Today's New York Times reports on a new Congressional Research Service study of international arms sales:

The [Russian] sales to improve Iran’s air-defense system are particularly troubling to the United States because they would complicate the task of Pentagon planners should the president order airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.

The Bush administration has vowed a diplomatic solution in dealing with Iran. But as United Nations diplomats argue over potential sanctions against Iran for its nuclear ambitions, Russian officials have expressed reluctance to vote for the most stringent economic sanctions, partly owing to Moscow’s extensive trade relations with Tehran….

The Russian sales in 2005 included 29 of the SA-15 Gauntlet surface-to-air missile systems for Iran; Russia also signed deals to upgrade Iran’s Su-24 bombers and MIG-29 fighter aircraft, as well as its T-72 battle tanks.

Putin's efforts to destabilize the Republic of Georgia, a pro-Western democracy, continue. The Associated Press reports that Russian sanctions

have effectively severed the Caucasus nation from its biggest market and supplier. Transport and postal links are suspended. Russian canned foods, cooking oil, and sausage are disappearing from store shelves; Newsstands report a run on popular Russian-language magazines, especially women's journals that don't appear in Georgian translation.

Georgian businesses say millions of dollars worth of orders are stuck at Russian checkpoints. Georgian Airlines, banned from flying into Russia, predicts its losses will exceed $600,000 by month's end.

Hundreds of Georgians have been deported as allegedly illegal migrants, and more are rumored to be on the way, putting at risk the estimated $2 billion that Georgians in Russia send home annually to feed their families. Some analysts predict the blockade could shave a percentage point off the country's GDP growth rate of around 6 percent….

Georgians say they have learned to cope with hardships. Power cuts are routine, so they stock candles. They maneuver their cars over axle-busting potholes. Some apartment blocks get running water only two hours a day…. The official unemployment rate is 13 percent and thought to be unrealistically low. The average salary is about $75 a month.

Where is the West’s condemnation of all this? Is anything being done to help our friends in Tbilisi? Will Russia, a G8 member, succeed in breaking the Georgians?

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered last night in Moscow, reports Reuters:

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow, police said.

"According to initial information she was killed by two shots when leaving the lift. Neighbors found her body," a police source told Reuters. Police found a pistol and four rounds in the lift.

Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mother of two, won international fame and numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Putin's government, particularly in the violent southern province of Chechnya.

"The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime," said Vitaly Yaroshevsky, a deputy editor of the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked.

I’m told that Politkovskaya had written an article on Russian atrocities in Chechnya due to be published on Monday.

(The Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial (sub req’d) this morning on standing with Georgia. They write: “The world needs to watch Russia’s current pressure on Georgia. Its decision this week to ban trade, travel and postal links to neighboring Georgia isn’t the first time Moscow has tangled with the former Soviet republic. But it is a fresh reminder of just how paranoid and bullying the Kremlin’s foreign policy has become in the hands of President Vladimir Putin…. The world should not let the Russians bring Georgia to heel.”)

(The Russian screw tightens, reports The Independent in Britain.)

(Moscow has never fully accepted Georgia's independence and continues its intimidation campaign against this struggling democracy. Last January, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine to punish Kiev. Is Tbilisi next? Will the E.U. and the U.S. stand firmly against another Russian power play?)

Posted September 20, 2006:

Since the Georgian democratic revolution in 2003, U.S.-Georgia relations have warmed considerably. The U.S. military recently signed another military assistance accord with the former Soviet republic, and Radio Free Europe reports that NATO will announce tomorrow that formal talks will begin with Tbilisi that could eventually lead to full NATO membership. As you can see, Georgia sits in a strategically significant region of the world and, so far, has been a success story for American diplomacy.

(Source: UN)

(The Russian screw tightens, reports The Independent in Britain.)

(Moscow has never fully accepted Georgia's independence and continues its intimidation campaign against this struggling democracy. Last January, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine to punish Kiev. Is Tbilisi next? Will the E.U. and the U.S. stand firmly against another Russian power play?)

Posted September 20, 2006:

Since the Georgian democratic revolution in 2003, U.S.-Georgia relations have warmed considerably. The U.S. military recently signed another military assistance accord with the former Soviet republic, and Radio Free Europe reports that NATO will announce tomorrow that formal talks will begin with Tbilisi that could eventually lead to full NATO membership. As you can see, Georgia sits in a strategically significant region of the world and, so far, has been a success story for American diplomacy.

(Source: UN)

The Georgian interior ministry revealed Monday that an attempt had been made on August 28 to down the helicopter carrying US ally [Georgian president] Saakashvili and a team of US senators led by influential Republican lawmaker John McCain.

"A Strela-2 anti-aircraft missile was fired at the helicopter over the (Ossetian) village of Avnevi," it said in a statement. "The shell exploded a short distance from the helicopter."

The interior ministry said that fragments of the Russian-made surface-to-air rocket had been found and handed over to US officials.

Evidently, the one person at the G-8 summit who has irked the Kremlin the most isn’t even an elected official. From the Telegraph:

Cherie Blair goaded the Kremlin yesterday when she volunteered legal assistance to Russian campaigners seeking to challenge a law that imposes strict controls on activists.

The Prime Minister's wife was hailed as a heroine by Russia's browbeaten human rights community when she slipped away from the G8 summit in St Petersburg to meet some of the Kremlin's fiercest critics.

She was the only leader's spouse to break away from the official summit, leaving her colleagues as they toured a handicraft exhibition….

Mrs Blair's offer of legal assistance from Matrix, the legal chambers where she works, will irritate the Russian president further. Despite the likely problems, Mrs Blair pressed ahead with the visit organised by Human Rights Watch and Citizen's Watch, a St Petersburg group.

Most of the meeting was conducted in secret but the offer of help came when discussions turned to the non-governmental organisation (NGO) law.

Critics say it gives officials the power to close groups critical of the government and imposes such draconian bureaucracy on operations that their ability to function is seriously hampered….

The G-8 meeting is supposed to send a clear signal to Tehran: stop enriching uranium or else – the else being UN-imposed sanctions. Unfortunately, the one message -- aside from the meeting's muddled response to Iran's proxy war against Israel -- the Iranian regime has apparently taken from the summit so far is that it expects Russia (and China) to cover its back on the Security Council. According the Islamic Republic News Agency, Tehran “expects Russia and China to defend its inalienable nuclear rights…. Asked about remark by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a joint press conference with his US counterpart George W Bush Saturday on Iran's nuclear case, he [the foreign ministry spokesman] added,

‘Putin's remark should be regarded as comprehensive. He announced Russia does not agree to imposition of sanctions against Iran.’”

This quote from the Russian foreign minister is rich. The Kremlin took a flamethrower to Groznyy and made much of it a wasteland by conducting an air and artillery bombardment with no concern for civilian casualties. Israel’s actions are the exact opposite of how the Russians operate. From Reuters:

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced both Israel's attack on Lebanon and its operations against the Palestinian territories.

"This is a disproportionate response to what has happened and if both sides are going to drive each other into a tight corner then I think that all this will develop in a very dramatic and tragic way," he told reporters on a flight from Paris to Moscow, Interfax news agency reported.

(From AP: "Russia had a military intelligence unit operating in Iraq up through the 2003 U.S. invasion and fall of Baghdad, a Russian analyst said Friday. A Pentagon report said Russia provided Saddam Hussein with intelligence on U.S. military movements and plans. The unclassified report does not assess the value of the information or provide details beyond citing two captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians collected information from sources "inside the American Central Command" and that battlefield intelligence was provided to Saddam through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad."

Posted on January 30, 2006:

From Stephen Hayes:

A follow-up on Dan McKivergan’s post on Russia and Iran. Dan wrote of the worrisome prospect of the U.S. putting its trust in Putin on Iran: “We better have a Plan B if Moscow's recent past is prologue. “ The examples he and Mort Zuckerman provide are deeply disturbing. There are more. Russian intelligence services, for instance, trained Iraqi intelligence operatives as late as September 2002, even as Putin and his cronies spoke publicly of a “common goal” on Iraq between the U.S. and Russia.

It’s September 2002. President Bush gives a speech to the UN making clear that his administration would hold Iraq to account for its defiance of UN resolutions. The Russian government, which for years had carried Iraq’s water on the UN Security Council, announced that it would not send troops in the event of war in Iraq and fought hard against U.S. and British efforts to confront Saddam Hussein.

Nonetheless, Russia eventually endorsed UN Resolution 1441, which threatened “serious consequences” that would result from Iraq’s continued flouting of previous UN resolutions. Putin’s government spoke of its partnership with the U.S. on the war on terror. Putin spokesman Sergei Prikhodko declared: "Russia and the United States have a common goal regarding the Iraqi issue" – disarmament. And Russian Foreign Minister Boris Malakhov proclaimed that the U.S. and Russia “are partners in the anti-terror coalition.”

Not quite.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Robert Collier wrote a series of articles in April 2003 on Russian double-dealing on Iraq. The articles provide a stark reminder of the perils in working with Putin’s Russia and of the need to expedite the exploitation of 2 million documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan:

A Moscow-based organization was training Iraqi intelligence agents as recently as last September -- at the same time Russia was resisting the Bush administration's push for a tough stand against Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqi documents discovered by The Chronicle show.

The documents found Thursday and Friday in a Baghdad office of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, indicate that at least five agents graduated Sept. 15 from a two-week course in surveillance and eavesdropping techniques, according to certificates issued to the Iraqi agents by the "Special Training Center" in Moscow.

The Russian government, which has expressed intense disagreement with the U.S.-led war on Iraq, has repeatedly denied giving any military or security assistance to the Hussein regime. Any such aid would violate U.N. sanctions that have severely limited trade, military and other relations with Iraq since 1991.

U.S.-Russian relations have been strained by the split over Iraq. It is unclear whether these revelations, coming on top of U.S. charges that Moscow has been supplying other forms of forbidden assistance to Baghdad, may damage them further.

The “Moscow-based organization,” it turns out, was the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

Russian intelligence officials have confirmed that Iraqi spies received training in specialized counterintelligence techniques in Moscow last fall -- training that appears to violate the United Nations resolution barring military and security assistance to Iraq.

A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Boris Labusov, acknowledged that Iraqi secret police agents had been trained by his agency but said the training was for nonmilitary purposes, such as fighting crime and terrorism.

Said Labrusov: "The SVR does not refuse cooperation with secret services of different countries in the areas of counter-terrorism and war, fighting drug traffic and investigating the illegal trade of weapons.”

The Chronicle article continues:

However, it seems likely that the Iraqi agents who were trained at the Moscow center were using their skills for other purposes. Found in the same Mukhabarat office with their personnel files and graduation certificates were a host of other documents, including orders for wiretaps and for break-ins at such sites as the Iranian Embassy, the five-star al-Mansour Hotel and private doctors' offices.

Ronald Reagan’s famous aphorism about dealing with the Soviets was “Trust but Verify.” Perhaps it needs updating.

“Don’t Trust.”

Today's Washington Post reports on a bipartisan report released by The Council on Foreign Relations on U.S.-Russia relations. The report makes some good points.

The Bush administration should stop pretending Russia is a genuine strategic partner and adopt a new policy of "selective cooperation" and "selective opposition" to the authoritarian government of President Vladimir Putin, a bipartisan task force has concluded....

The report crystallizes a growing reassessment of Russia in Washington five years after Bush first met Putin and looked into his soul, as the president put it at the time. Rather than champion democracy and Western values, the former KGB colonel has moved to reassert control over Russian society and eliminate opposition.

Administration officials have been disturbed by other actions in recent months, including Russian maneuvering to force U.S. troops out of Central Asia, Moscow's use of energy exports as a weapon against smaller neighbors, and Putin's outreach to Hamas, the radical Palestinian group that just won parliamentary elections.

At the same time, Moscow has moved closer to Washington in the effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Once considered a virtual accessory to Tehran's alleged nuclear arms program, Russia lately has turned around and collaborated with the Bush administration to pressure the Islamic state to renounce any such ambitions, although the Kremlin still resists sanctions.

China's leaders haven't acted much better. They have refused, so far, to put the screws on North Korea; they have cut energy deals with Khartoum and Tehran; and they have opposed any real action in the UN Security Council to end the atrocities in Darfur or pressure Iran to come clean on its nuclear program. UN Ambassador John Bolton isn't a threat to an effective Security Council. His critics should spend a little more time spotlighting the obstructionism of Moscow and Beijing.

If Iran strikes a nuclear agreement with Russia, it won't be a shock to learn that Moscow also agreed (perhaps in a Gore-like secret side deal) to block any substantial Security Council action against Tehran. Beijing may also be in on the deal given China's huge energy interests in Iran. Such a deal would help Iran guard against the possibility that the West rejects the nuclear agreement and goes for UN sanctions against Tehran. To see the Moscow-Beijing alliance in action, look no further than Sudan.

From ABC News:

The U.N. Security Council remained divided Monday on imposing punitive measures over the conflict in Darfur despite calls for sanctions against Sudanese allegedly blocking peace in the region.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, on the next to last day of the U.S. presidency of the council, scheduled a closed-door meeting to discuss a report by a U.N.-appointed panel that recommended sanctions against key figures from all groups.

Most of the 15-member council were in favor of sanctions, led by the United States, Britain, France and Denmark but Qatar, China, and Russia were strongly opposed, council diplomats said. Qatar is the only Arab member of the council, China is a major buyer of Sudanese oil, and Russia traditionally opposes sanctions.

Perhaps Bolton haters can lighten up a bit and support him on this one.

"Aid to Iran..."

"... And Cuts for Russia"

Outside of its current shareholders, no one is exactly sure. RosUkrEnergo is a Swiss-registered company, formed in the aftermath of the Kremlin's cut off of the Ukrainian gas supply in January, that is now supposed to be the guarantor of Ukraine's gas supply -- and make billions and billions doing so. But who will get these billions is a good question. Bruce Jackson, who heads The Project on Transitional Democracies, believes the money belongs to "the people of the Ukraine" and wants to make sure that happens.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Project on Transitional Democracies Announces Bid for RosUkrEnergo

Washington, DC. At 9:30am this morning, The Project on Transitional Democracies announced a bid for the shares of RosUkrEnergo held by Ukrainian investors. RosUkrEnergo is a Swiss-based joint venture between Ukraine and Russia which on January 4, 2006 signed an agreement with GAZPROM and the Government of Ukraine to supply Ukraine with gas on a temporary basis and to lease Ukrainian gas storage and pipelines through 2030.

Bruce P. Jackson, President of the Project on Transitional Democracies, announced, “We are responding to Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov’s announcement yesterday that he will order the State Property Fund to announce a tender for any part of RosUkrEnergo which belongs to Ukraine. We are bidding.”

On February 8, Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov told journalists, "I will order the State Property Fund to immediately announce a tender if somebody finds that any part of RosUkrEnergo belongs to Ukraine. It will be sold for one hryvna (4 U.S. cents, 3 Euro cents)."

The Project on Transitional Democracies is a non-profit US Corporation based in Washington, DC. Its Board of Directors and International Advisors are evenly divided between Europe and United States. Mr. Jackson was unwilling to divulge the details of the Project’s bid until after the publication of the Ukrainian tender. Mr. Jackson did disclose that the US-European bid would be “all cash” and that “Due to the Corporation’s non-profit status, we will commit to return all profits to the people of Ukraine who are the legal owners of the assets from which the Project would otherwise be improperly and illegally profiting.”

In response to questions about the source of PTD financial backing, Ms. Irina Krasovskaya, PTD Board Member and President of WE REMEMBER, a world-renowned human rights group in Belarus, stated, “Those of us in Belarus could not let the Ukrainian people be sold into the same slavery to which our people have been condemned. We have gathered our hryvnas and are prepared to meet the Prime Minister’s price for the economic sovereignty of our friends in Ukraine. It is the least we could do.”

Mr. Jackson added, “The opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the greatest asset-stripping operation in European history for a less than a dollar was something our Board could not pass up. At a minimum, our representatives will be able to attend the secret Board meetings in Switzerland and St. Petersburg where they will get to drink champagne with the FSB and the mafia bosses who have stolen the future of Ukraine.”

The Board, its financial condition and beneficiaries are a matter of public record and its activities are both transparent and fully compliant with US and European Union law. The Project will file appropriate notifications of intent to bid with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the European Union upon the publication of the Ukrainian tender.

For additional information, please contact The Project on Transitional Democracies at 202-986-1949 or bruce@ptdemocracy.org.

From Stephen Hayes:

A follow-up on Dan McKivergan’s post on Russia and Iran. Dan wrote of the worrisome prospect of the U.S. putting its trust in Putin on Iran: “We better have a Plan B if Moscow's recent past is prologue. “ The examples he and Mort Zuckerman provide are deeply disturbing. There are more. Russian intelligence services, for instance, trained Iraqi intelligence operatives as late as September 2002, even as Putin and his cronies spoke publicly of a “common goal” on Iraq between the U.S. and Russia.

It’s September 2002. President Bush gives a speech to the UN making clear that his administration would hold Iraq to account for its defiance of UN resolutions. The Russian government, which for years had carried Iraq’s water on the UN Security Council, announced that it would not send troops in the event of war in Iraq and fought hard against U.S. and British efforts to confront Saddam Hussein.

Nonetheless, Russia eventually endorsed UN Resolution 1441, which threatened “serious consequences” that would result from Iraq’s continued flouting of previous UN resolutions. Putin’s government spoke of its partnership with the U.S. on the war on terror. Putin spokesman Sergei Prikhodko declared: "Russia and the United States have a common goal regarding the Iraqi issue" – disarmament. And Russian Foreign Minister Boris Malakhov proclaimed that the U.S. and Russia “are partners in the anti-terror coalition.”

Not quite.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Robert Collier wrote a series of articles in April 2003 on Russian double-dealing on Iraq. The articles provide a stark reminder of the perils in working with Putin’s Russia and of the need to expedite the exploitation of 2 million documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan:

A Moscow-based organization was training Iraqi intelligence agents as recently as last September -- at the same time Russia was resisting the Bush administration's push for a tough stand against Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqi documents discovered by The Chronicle show.

The documents found Thursday and Friday in a Baghdad office of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, indicate that at least five agents graduated Sept. 15 from a two-week course in surveillance and eavesdropping techniques, according to certificates issued to the Iraqi agents by the "Special Training Center" in Moscow.

The Russian government, which has expressed intense disagreement with the U.S.-led war on Iraq, has repeatedly denied giving any military or security assistance to the Hussein regime. Any such aid would violate U.N. sanctions that have severely limited trade, military and other relations with Iraq since 1991.

U.S.-Russian relations have been strained by the split over Iraq. It is unclear whether these revelations, coming on top of U.S. charges that Moscow has been supplying other forms of forbidden assistance to Baghdad, may damage them further.

The “Moscow-based organization,” it turns out, was the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

Russian intelligence officials have confirmed that Iraqi spies received training in specialized counterintelligence techniques in Moscow last fall -- training that appears to violate the United Nations resolution barring military and security assistance to Iraq.

A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Boris Labusov, acknowledged that Iraqi secret police agents had been trained by his agency but said the training was for nonmilitary purposes, such as fighting crime and terrorism.

Said Labrusov: "The SVR does not refuse cooperation with secret services of different countries in the areas of counter-terrorism and war, fighting drug traffic and investigating the illegal trade of weapons.”

The Chronicle article continues:

However, it seems likely that the Iraqi agents who were trained at the Moscow center were using their skills for other purposes. Found in the same Mukhabarat office with their personnel files and graduation certificates were a host of other documents, including orders for wiretaps and for break-ins at such sites as the Iranian Embassy, the five-star al-Mansour Hotel and private doctors' offices.

Ronald Reagan’s famous aphorism about dealing with the Soviets was “Trust but Verify.” Perhaps it needs updating.

“Don’t Trust.”

If you ever get the chance, go visit this outstanding tribute to America's World War II generation.

In typical Clinton fashion (and with Bush's poll numbers down), he now says going into Iraq was a "big mistake," but he's glad Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. His remarks remind me of his clever answer to a question on how Gov. Clinton would have voted on the first Gulf War resolution had he been in Congress at the time. "I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the argument the minority made," Clinton said in 1991. But does the former president have an opinion on his "big mistake"?

Here's an interview PBS' Frontline conducted with Richard Clarke in March 2002.

Some also say that due to the Lewinsky scandal, more action perhaps was never undertaken. In your eyes?

The interagency group on which I sat and John O'Neill sat -- we never asked for a particular action to be authorized and were refused. We were never refused. Any time we took a proposal to higher authority, with one or two exceptions, it was approved....

But didn't you push for military action after the Cole?

Yes, that's one of the exceptions.

How important is that exception?

I believe that, had we destroyed the terrorist camps in Afghanistan earlier, that the conveyor belt that was producing terrorists sending them out around the world would have been destroyed. So many, many trained and indoctrinated Al Qaeda terrorists, which now we have to hunt down country by country, many of them would not be trained and would not be indoctrinated, because there wouldn't have been a safe place to do it if we had destroyed the camps earlier.

Reuel Marc Gerecht also wrote on the lesson of the USS Cole bombing for the Weekly Standard in October of 2000.

Yesterday's parliamentary election in Azerbaijan "deteriorated progressively during the counting and, in particular, the tabulation of the votes," reported the OSCE, which monitored the election. Ballot counting was "bad or very bad in 43 per cent of counts observed" and election violations included "tampering with result protocols, intimidation of observers, and unauthorized persons directing the process." In addtion, the results of an exit poll conducted by USAID varied widely from the official count in many races.

The fraudulent vote comes on the heels of Secretary Rice's visit to Central Asia where she delivered the message to each capital that "one of the elements of a strong and deep relationship with the United States these days is moving forward with democracy." Two years ago, the U.S. and many other nations rejected the results of a rigged parliamentary election in neighboring Georgia. Azerbaijan should be no different if the U.S. is serious about promoting real democracy in the region.

Weekly Standard contributor Dan Twining offers his insight on the push for democracy east of the Black Sea:

In the new 'Great Game' underway in the Caucasus and Central Asia pitting the United States, Russia, and China in a bid for strategic influence and access to natural resources, not only America's power but its democratic ideals give it a decisive advantage against the designs of regional countries' great power neighbors. In this Washington Post piece on the upcoming elections in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan -- both autocracies, both oil-rich, and both keenly interested in moving closer to America strategically and economically -- Jackson Diehl highlights the welcome price the Bush Administration is setting for strategic partnership with Washington: a commitment to free and fair elections. Democratic revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan -- as in Eastern Europe in 1989 -- demonstrate that people free to choose, choose to partner with America. The crushing of the popular uprising in Uzbekistan, and consequent rupture in U.S. strategic relations with Tashkent, demonstrates the danger of alliance with fickle autocrats. The West has a lot to offer transitional and emerging democracies, and we should be confident in the power of our values to attract them to our cause, not insecure that our values handicap us in any geopolitical contest. Holding leaders in Baku and Astana to democratic standards is not only right; it is good policy.

As the Iranian government moves forward on its "peaceful" nuclear program, President Putin is there to lend a hand to help Tehran build better missiles and acquire enriched uranium.

Secretary of State Rice is now in the midst of a trip that will take her to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and finally to Afghanistan. UPI reports that during a stopover in Ireland Rice said that "one of the elements of a strong and deep relationship with the United States these days is moving forward with democracy," and that she would carry this message to the capitals of Central Asia. Another place the Secretary may want to consider delivering this message to is Azerbaijan, where parliamentary elections are scheduled for November 6. Just as former Secretary of State James Baker's trip to the Republic of Georgia in July of 2003 helped advance democracy there, a brief stop in Baku on her way back to Washington spotlighting the need for a free and fair election may help deepen democracy in this important region.

The Post's Kennicott continues his coverage of the upcoming vote in yet another test of what Secretary Rice describes as "the forward march of democracy."

The European Union has slapped an arms embargo on the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan for its refusal to allow a legitimate investigation into the shooting of hundreds of protestors there last May. But Moscow will not honor it. Southwest of Uzbekistan, Moscow will not stop selling its nuclear technology to the regime in Iran. And the possible consequences may be found here should that regime someday join the nuclear weapons club

Philip Kennicott has a piece in the Washington Post on the upcoming parliamentary election in Azerbaijan scheduled for November 6. With neighboring Georgia to the east and Iran to the south, the election is a critical test of whether the Bush administration’s democracy promotion can establish deeper roots in the region. Azerbaijan’s last election in 2003 was widely viewed by international monitors as illegitimate with the Baku government engaged in a "pattern of intimidation against opposition supporters."

In July of 2003, the Bush administration sent former Secretary of State James Baker to Georgia prior to their parliamentary election to signal Washington’s deep commitment to a free and fair vote. Will the administration put as high a priority on Azerbaijan’s?