Georgia-Russia Clash: American Culpability and the Kosovo Connection<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tLa parole \u00e0 Steve Clemons, qui nous donne une note d’analyse dont pourraient s’inspirer nombre de dirigeants europ\u00e9ens, pour \u00e9ventuellement tirer quelques conclusions sur la fa\u00e7on de traiter avec les Russes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00abMy own view is that the U.S. has displayed a reckless disregard for Russian interests for some time. I don’t like Russia’s swing to greater domestic authoritarianism and worry about its stiffened posture on a number of international fronts but Simes convinces me in his important Foreign Affairs essay, "Losing Russia," that much of what we are seeing unfold between Russia and Georgia involves a high quotient of American culpability.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbWhen Kosovo declared independence and the US and other European states recognized it thus sidestepping Russia’s veto in the United Nations Security Council many of us believed that the price for Russian cooperation in other major global problems just went much higher and that the chance of a clash over Georgia’s breakaway border provinces increased dramatically.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbBy pushing Kosovo the way the US did and aggravating nationalist sensitivities, Russia could in reaction be rationally expected to further integrate and cultivate South Ossetia and Abkhazia under de facto Russian control and pull these provinces that border Russia away from the state of Georgia.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAt the time, there was word from senior level sources that Russia had asked the US to stretch an independence process for Kosovo over a longer stretch of time — and tie to it some process of independence for the two autonomous Georgia provinces. In exchange, Russia would not veto the creation of a new state of Kosovo at the Security Council. The U.S. rejected Russia’s secret entreaties and instead rushed recognition of Kosovo and said damn the consequences.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbNow thousands are dead. The fact is that a combination of American recklessness, serious miscalculation and over-reach by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, as well as Russia’s forceful reassertion of its regional national interests and status as an oil and gas rich, tough international player means America and Europe have yet again helped generate a crisis that tests US global credibility.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbI think that Saakashvili who has been agitating for Georgia’s membership in NATO just lost his chance with his own reckless behavior. Saakashvili’s decision to send tanks into South Ossetia gave Russia the trigger that it may have wanted to send in more of its own troops and weapon systems. Russia was ready. Putin, now prime minister of Russia but still the center of power, was relaxing and chatting with George W. Bush in the bird’s nest Olympic stadium in Beijing looking quite in control and confident.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tOn aura lu tout cela avec \u00e0 l’esprit le fait, non pas la sp\u00e9culation, mais le fait av\u00e9r\u00e9, que nombre de dirigeants et hauts fonctionnaires europ\u00e9ens, lorsqu’ils soutinrent le processus menant \u00e0 l’ind\u00e9pendance du Kosovo, savaient parfaitement la finalit\u00e9 d\u00e9structurante de l’initiative, son ill\u00e9gitimit\u00e9 par rapport aux normes internationales, son profond d\u00e9s\u00e9quilibre par rapport aux int\u00e9r\u00eats russes, sa charge explosive pour les relations \u00e0 venir avec la Russie. Nous insistons sur ceci qu’il s’agit d’un fait av\u00e9r\u00e9. Le jugement \u00e9tait courant dans les milieux europ\u00e9ens, qu’on concluait, sur un ton d\u00e9sol\u00e9 : Mais nous ne pouvons pas faire autrement que de suivre les USA. (Pourquoi? Pas de r\u00e9ponse.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tLe drame de la servilit\u00e9 et de l’aveuglement de la diplomatie europ\u00e9ennes, notamment dans l’affaire du Kosovo qui conduit directement \u00e0 la crise g\u00e9orgienne mais aussi dans tout le reste depuis 17 ans, ce n’est pas le drame de l’inculture et de la sottise par autisme comme dans le cas de la diplomatie am\u00e9ricaniste, c’est le drame de la l\u00e2chet\u00e9 psychologique. La plupart d’entre eux savaient parfaitement o\u00f9 tout cela nous menait. Ils l’ont chuchot\u00e9 \u00e0 quelques confidents et ils ont suivi, la mort dans l’\u00e2me mais le verbe haut, pour que le public soit rassur\u00e9 et les Am\u00e9ricains contents.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 10 ao\u00fbt 2008 \u00e0 15H11<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
C’est \u00e9galement aux USA qu’on trouve, comme autant de traces pr\u00e9cieuses, les analyses les plus compl\u00e8tes et les plus rigoureuses de la culpabilit\u00e9 US dans l’actuelle crise g\u00e9orgienne. Culpabilit\u00e9 US, c’est le titre de l’analyse, excellente en tous points, que donne Steve Clemons le 9 ao\u00fbt sur son site The Washington Note. Il lie justement… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6179,3228,398,5519],"class_list":["post-70110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-clemons","tag-crise","tag-europe","tag-georgie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}