The skill to safely navigate the hazards of power and the powerful

2 0 0 0  T i m e s . c o m

The Washington School for Blunders

WIKIPEDIA

 As you can see, Azerbaijan lies between Georgia and the Caspian Sea.  The Caspian Sea is sitting on vast amounts of oil; and, much of it is being drilled around the port of Baku.

The problem here is geographical access.  How do you move this oil out to ocean ports where it can be shipped to hungry customers?  Years ago, a BP (British Petroleum) led group spent a billion laying down an oil line between Azerbaijan and the Georgian port of Supsa. BP also put in a gas line to Turkey along this same geography. Get the picture yet?

BP had their reasons for not putting these pipe lines through Albania, just to the south of Georgia. My guess is that the Albanians could not be trusted to secure these lines from terrorists and/or the self interests of their ethnic brothers in the Middle East. The pro-western government of Georgia was an obvious alternative.

Whatever the reasons, the oil lines were thought to be more secure going through the Georgian countryside, buried well below the farms of the rural landscape. Here, the Georgian military has the job of assuring the security of this rich source of national revenue, since the BP led group is providing substantial leasing revenue to see that this is the case.

President Mikheil Saakashvilli

Whatever prompted President Saakashvilli to make a run on South Ossetia seemed like madness to this author. If he thought that the Russian PM, Putin, would stay in Beijing to watch the Olympic games, he was surely proven wrong.

Saakashvilli must have been either drunk or misled by Bush advisors. What were his expectations? Georgia is virtually landlocked; the Black Sea is home to the Russian fleet; and, an all weather tunnel links South Ossetia to its Russian half.

Perhaps Saakashvilli meant to impress Bush43 by demonstrating his ability to blunder in matters military, as Bush so publicly did by invading Iraq. Saakashvilli is well qualified to blunder, being schooled in the U.S. via a State Department fellowship. Prior to that schooling, Saakashvili graduated from the School of International Law of the Kiev State University (Ukraine) in 1992. He briefly worked as a human rights officer for the interim State Council of Georgia following the overthrow of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

I am inclined to consider that Saakashvilli is smarter than events would lead us to believe. The timing of his military move into South Ossetia during the Beijing Olympics smacks of something that the White House would dream up as a result of Bush "looking into Putin's eyes"; and, seeing the inner soul of this man.  Can you imagine the laughter around that late evening bottle of Vodka at the Kremlin Foreign Office followng Bush's confession of confidence in Putin? 

The Russians have a lot to gain by the events in Georgia.  Traders estimate that markets are losing up to 1 million barrels of oil per day in supplies because of the shutdown of the oil flow.  That has to make the price for Russian oil moving upwards again.  The Russians are not amateurs in this game of chess.  Then again, checkers is Bush's game.