United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

For the first time, Russia admitted an incursion in Georgian airspace, one that occurred only "hours before Condoleezza Rice, U.S. secretary of state, visited Tbilisi with a message of support," the Financial Times reported Friday.[1] -- Stefan Wagstyl called the Russian foreign ministry statement "the latest escalation in a dispute in which Russia has backed South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a second Georgian separatist territory, partly to put pressure on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s pro-west president, and block Tbilisi’s efforts to join NATO." -- An account in the Moscow Times gave a fuller picture, noting the "lines separating the Georgian military from separatist forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers who operate under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States, according to an agreement signed by all sides in the conflict following two wars in the early 1990s."[2] -- But neither article even alludes to what is really at stake in Georgia, as well as Afghanistan: the fabulous oil resources of the Caspian basin. -- The U.S. has a special interest in Georgia because of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. -- In this context, it is interesting to review an August 2005 Iranian analysis of U.S. policy in the Caucasus region that said that "the U.S. has begun to intervene openly in the Southern Caucasus, favoring certain political parties jostling for power. . . . Since February 2002, U.S. forces have been stationed in the Pankisi Valley of Georgia under the pretext of fighting al-Qaeda terrorists, but not even a single terrorist has been apprehended. . . . The U.S. seeks to control oil and gas exploration in the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus in order to keep out Iran and Russia, which are the two major regional powers. . . . The U.S. has no intention of resolving the chronic crises in the region such as that of Qarabagh and Abkhazia, and merely wants to procrastinate the problems in order to justify its presence and intervention." -- The U.S. is especially interested in Azerbaijan, where U.S. oil interests invested heavily in the 1990s, and to which the Clinton administration effectively extended the Carter Doctrine (Michael Klare, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency [Metropolitian Books, 2004], pp. 132-39). -- Chapter 11 of Jeremy Scahill's book on Blackwater is entitled "Caspian Pipeline Dreams"; Scahill wrote: "Beginning in July 2004, Blackwater forces were contracted to work in the heart of the oil- and gas-rich Caspian Sea region, where they would quietly train a force modeled after the Navy SEALs and establish a base just north of the Iranian border as part of a major U.S. move in what veteran analysts in the region call the 'Great Game'" (Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Nation Books, 2007], p. 167)....

RUSSIA SAYS JETS FLEW OVER GEORGIA
By Stefan Wagstyl (London) and agencies (Tbilisi)

Russia on Thursday admitted its fighter jets overflew the breakaway Georgian territory of South Ossetia in a sortie that took place just hours before Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, visited Tbilisi with a message of support.

It was the first time in years of tension between Moscow and Tbilisi that Russia has made such an admission, even though it has frequently been accused by Georgia of flying warplanes over its territory. The foreign ministry statement is the latest escalation in a dispute in which Russia has backed South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a second Georgian separatist territory, partly to put pressure on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s pro-west president, and block Tbilisi’s efforts to join NATO.

Moscow said the “brief flight” took place on Tuesday to prevent an attack by Georgian forces. Georgia condemned the statement as an “unprecedented acknowledgement of aggression.”

Speaking in Tbilisi on Thursday, Ms. Rice criticized Moscow, saying it needed “to be part of resolving the problem and solving the problem and not contributing to it.” But she also appealed for calm, saying: “The violence needs to stop and whoever is perpetrating it, and I have mentioned this to the president [Mr. Saakashvili], there should not be violence.”

Mr. Saakashvili said the Russian sortie was “a very worrisome development” and Tbilisi recalled its ambassador to Moscow in protest.

Later, American officials travelling with Ms. Rice said Washington was pushing for talks over the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, involving the U.S., Russia, U.K., France, Germany, and Georgia -- plus the Abkhaz separatists. But they gave no further details.

As Abkhazia is much larger than South Ossetia it is regarded as the more significant of the two disputed regions, although violence has flared in both.

Abkhazia has been hit by four explosions, including one in which four people died while two more were killed this month in fighting between Georgian and South Ossetian forces.

This year, tensions flared along the Inguri River dividing Georgian and Abkhazian territories after a Russian jet shot down an unmanned Georgian reconnaissance drone.

The Georgian government and its Western allies have reacted to the ongoing escalation of tensions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia by pushing harder for changes to the peacekeeping and conflict-resolution arrangements there.

The push by Tbilisi and Washington for a more diversified format is being blocked by the separatist leaderships in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are recognized parties to the peace talks and whose consent is required for any significant change, analysts said.

The past several weeks have seen violence flare up along lines separating the Georgian military from separatist forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers who operate under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States, according to an agreement signed by all sides in the conflict following two wars in the early 1990s. Several people have been killed in sporadic exchanges of gunfire, and Abkhazia has been shaken by a series of blasts, which the separatist leadership in Sukhumi blames on Tbilisi.

The separatist leadership and Moscow have placed the blame for the escalation on Tbilisi, which has rejected the accusations and countered that the bombings and shootouts are further evidence that Russia had failed to keep the peace or make any progress in its role as co-mediator in the conflicts for more than a decade.

"If the format is not changed, then Georgia will face the necessity of unilateral action against the peacekeepers," Georgian parliament Speaker David Bakradze said Wednesday. Bakradze and other Georgian leaders have repeatedly said Russia is blocking the resolution of the frozen conflicts to discourage Georgia from joining NATO.

Georgia has repeatedly threatened to take action to end Russian-led peacekeeping missions and called for the European Union and United States to get involved in both mediation and peacekeeping.

Changing its position from one that had called for no changes in the format, Washington this week announced that it would support deployment of a new international force in Abkhazia.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that Abkhazia "urgently" needs an international police presence in areas where bombings have killed four people and wounded several more. On Wednesday, visiting U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice said in Tbilisi that "[Russia] needs to be a part of resolving the problem and solving the problem, and not contributing to it," Reuters reported.

Both the United States and E.U. have accused Russia of taking sides in its peacekeeping and mediation activities in the separatist regions.

Russia has rejected the accusations of bias, even though it has provided tacit support by granting Russian citizenship to tens of thousands of residents in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Abkhazia has angrily rejected the U.S. calls for the deployment of an international police force on its territory, while Russia's Foreign Ministry went further, not only criticizing the proposal, but linking the bombings and gunfights to efforts by Georgia and its Western allies to sideline it from mediation.

"The aim of escalating tensions . . . is to destroy the peacekeeping architecture in the region with the hope of replacing it with new mechanisms that fit Georgia's purposes," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Artur Martirosyan, senior program manager with the Mercy Corps' Conflict Management Group, said the dismantling of the mediation format is possible.

"The challenge will be in putting something new in place," said Martirosyan, whose Cambridge, Massachusetts, based group was involved in mediation in contacts between Georgia and Abkhazia. "Here, Georgians have to rely heavily on the input from Europeans and Americans who, as they believe, will contain Russia."

He said Georgia would not have attempted to adjust the format and sideline Russia "without consultations, if not direct guidance," from the United States but noted that not even Washington would be able to impel South Ossetia and Abkhazia to accept a new peacekeeping and mediation approach as long as the breakaway republics enjoy Russia's support. "The status quo will painfully linger on unless [Russia] blinks," he said.

Martirosyan said rejection of the new format by Sukhumi, the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and Moscow could "push the envelope to the moment of truth."

"Will the United States try enforcement or encourage Georgia to try military options?" he said. "Without these two policy options -- enforcement and military operations -- the process will reach an impasse that is not in Georgia's interests."

Alexei Malashenko, senior expert with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Russia could agree to a change in the current arrangements and the eventual resolution of the conflicts if Georgia abandons its aspirations to join NATO.

But whether South Ossetia and Abkhazia would go along remains a question. One possible scenario involves one or both of the separatist provinces trying to exploit what they see as Georgia's brinkmanship to compel Western powers to intervene. This would involve escalating the current hostilities into an all-out war, which they would hope to win with Russia's support, and end Georgia's efforts to draw them back under Tbilisi's control, Martirosyan said.

Georgia has denied it is trying to stir up tensions with the separatist provinces, something that Malashenko said might actually run counter to its interests if it is serious about its proposal, made last month, to divide Abkhazia into zones controlled by Russia and Georgia. The Russian government reportedly examined this proposal with interest, given the level of Russian investment in Abkhazia and the desire to tap the region's resources in construction for the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. "The doves are not interested in any tensions that may disrupt the negotiations over the proposal," Malashenko said in an interview Thursday.

"The recent violence demonstrates that there are, indeed, forces interested in fomenting tensions -- the hawks -- who realize that their role would be decreased and their influence wane if the conflicts are resolved," he said.