Putin's second war can have only one victor

Putin's second war can have only one victor

Russian prime minister claims to be offering stability in Georgia, but critics say military action is part of a wider strategic game

For more than 200 years, tsars, generals, and politburos in Russiahave controlled Georgia. But for the past 17 years since the collapse of the Soviet empire, the small country on the south side of theCaucasus has gingerly embraced a new experience as an independentstate - unstable, immature, chaotic, corrupt, but hopeful.Vladimir Putin cannot abide that notion and appears bent on trying torestore a version of the status quo ante.

"Russia has played a positive, stabilising role in the Caucasus forcenturies, a guarantor of security, cooperation and progress," theRussian prime minister said at the weekend. "This is how it was in thepast and this is how it is going to be in future. Let there be nodoubt about this."By the time his 58th army, his air force, his spetsnaz paratroopers,and his Black Sea fleet are finished in Georgia, Putin knows where hewants to be.

The Georgians, he said, "will objectively assess theircurrent leaders" and their "criminal policies".In other words, President Mikhail Saakashvili, wayward darling of thewest, will either be much diminished or finished. Saakashvili thinksthat's the whole point. "This is not about South Ossetia, this is noteven about Abkhazia," the Georgian leader said. "

"It's all aboutindependence and democracy in Georgia. Putin is personally commandingthis operation. The purpose is to depose the democratically electedgovernment of Georgia."A former Pentagon official long involved with Georgia agrees: "Thestrategic objective is regime change. Putin wants a puppet, a satrap.He is playing an extremely good game."Georgia is Putin's second war. The first was launched nine years ago,also in August, in neighbouring Chechnya at the beginning of Putin'srule and it entrenched him in power.

The current campaign, at thestart of President Dmitri Medvedev's term, marks a watershed - thefirst time the Russians have wielded their guns in anger beyondRussia's borders since the Soviet collapse and the end of the cold war.Putin despised Saakashvili's predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, theformer Soviet foreign minister and Georgian president, as the man whogave away the Soviet Union. But his contempt for Saakashvili is muchmore intense.Since the American-educated Georgian led the 2003 Rose Revolution,Putin has striven mightily to subvert Tbilisi - trade boycotts,embargoes on Georgian wine, fruit, and mineral water, deportingthousands of Georgians who run Moscow's vegetable markets, cuttingtransport links over and through the Caucasus, turning off the oil andgas and stopping the post.

It's personal. Saakashvili has been telling western officials anddiplomats for months of a looming war and of a foul-mouthed exchangewith Putin in April. Last month in Dubrovnik, the Georgian leader toldsenior US state department officials about the war plans and waswarned there could be no military solution to the intricate ethnicconflicts of the Caucasus.Saakashvili blundered. Perhaps he imagined he could pull a fast one inSouth Ossetia last week, perhaps he walked straight into a Russiantrap. The results would be risible if not so tragic.

His crackUS-trained troops - a tenth of his army - took the Ossetian town ofTskhinvali and managed to hold it for all of three hours before beinghammered by the Russians.While George Bush watched baseball in Beijing, Putin created facts onthe ground. European leaders rushed back from the beaches and villasof August for an "emergency meeting" in Brussels, while McCain andObama used Georgia to sling mud at one another.Saakashvili, who came to power pledging to recover control ofGeorgia's breakaway regions, has lost South Ossetia and Abkhazia,probably irretrievably, and will be much weakened.

Nicolas Sarkozy of France, in Moscow and Tbilisi today, willgrandstand as peacemaker and offer to mediate. The Kremlin willdictate the terms of any negotiations and Putin will probably refuseto accept Saakashvili as a legitimate negotiating partner.There is enough blame to go around. The Russians, the Georgians, theEuropeans and the Americans are all responsible for the mess. There isonly one victor, Vladimir Putin. If he succeeds in bringing downSaakashvili, it will be a greater victory yet, not only over Georgia,but over the west.