RUSSIA'S MOST EFFECTIVE WEAPON

Vladimir Putin was the first Russian leader to recognize that his country’s vast energy reserves could be used to restore its superpower status but his successor, Dimitry Medvedev also wants to use them to deliver a powerful diplomatic punch.
When Putin stepped down as president to become prime minister, there were murmurs of glee in many western capitals, especially in Washington, where it was felt he had been cynically exploiting the power of the Russian corporate gas giant, Gazprom, to divide Europe and the US. He had even negotiated the building of a pipeline from Libya to pump its gas and oil into Europe in order to make Europeans dependant on Russia. That same gas would also be shipped to the US. To Washington’s astonishment, he personally oversaw the initial negotiations with Libya that gave Gazprom exclusive rights to Libya’s massive liquefied gas and oil reserves, eliminating competition from US and European companies. He was also active in developing energy ties with Iran to ship its oil and gas to Europe and China.
His upstaging of the West in the energy stakes was an embarrassment for the US, France and Britain. They had established strong diplomatic ties with Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, choosing to overlook his past involvement with terrorism in the hope of getting access for western companies to his country's massive oil and gas reserves. Western leaders were therefore dumbfounded when he handed Gazprom the contract. That confirmed a US fear that Putin was determined to ensure Gazprom had a monopoly of gas supplies to European nations, thereby giving Russia a lot more political clout across the European continent.
The US retaliated by shutting Russia out of energy deals in Iraq and as a result a behind-the-scenes energy battle gained momentum. Putin’s was personally incensed by the US move because he had allowed himself to be persuaded by George Bush to write off Iraq’s billion dollars debt to Russia. Some observers reckon Putin did not write off the debt merely as a gesture to George Bush but also in the hope the Iraqi government would respond by giving Russia’s LUKoil access to Iraqi oil fields. It seemed Putin was oblivious to the fact that major decisions regarding energy contracts in Iraq were only made with Washington’s approval.
Putin responded by cozying up to Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was only too happy to propose a deal whereby Russia and Iran would supply all of Europe and China’s energy, beginning first with the construction of an oil-gas pipeline across the Mediterranean.
Putin’s successor, Dimitry Medvedev, the quiet, reserved lawyer, lost little time showing he had no intention of plotting a different energy course than the one his predecessor had formulated. In fact, it quickly became apparent that Medvedev, in his role as head of Gazprom from 2000 to 2008, had equipped himself with a hard headed grasp of energy issues. Contrary to a western perception of him being a patsy for Putin, he was a tough negotiator. His objective was to take Putin’s energy policy a stage further by developing energy as a diplomatic rather than just an economic weapon, having in mind a global stage. One of his first acts after his inauguration on May 7, 2008, was to issue a directive that ESPO - Eastern Siberian Oil Pipeline – had to be up and running by the end of next 2009, thereby permitting Russia to provide large supplies of oil to the Asia Pacific region. He followed that up by making a grand tour of the “STANS,” particularly oil and gas rich Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan with a fat check book in his hand. During diplomatic meetings in Azerbaijan he said Russia was prepared through Gazprom and LUKoil to purchase the country’s whole energy reserves.
He was demonstrating to the West, especially Washington, that he was no slouch when it came to doing business in the energy sector. He was particularly conscious that it had been vice-president, Dick Cheney’s strategy to wrap up deals with “STANS” nations and pump oil and gas from the Caspian basin, bypassing Russia. Medvedev was making sure that would never happen. As far back at the early 1990s Dick Cheney had advocated a policy to buy up as much of the Caspian reserves as possible, claiming it would end America’s dependency on oil from the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia.
The new Russian president has cleverly exploited Washington’s continued diplomatic battle with Iran. As a consequence, overtures from Moscow to Teheran Iran have tilted the energy balance in the Middle East and bolstered Medvedev’s strategy of placing Russia at the top of the global energy ladder. He has not only expands Russian economic influence but has increased the power of its diplomatic punch from Europe to the Middle East and from Africa to Asia.
Gazprom at his instigation now has plans to exploit energy reserves in Africa, with a tentative agreement to construct a gas pipeline between Nigeria and Algeria. In an interview with Forbes, he predicted Gazprom would be a trillion dollar company within a decade. Already it is the world’s largest energy conglomerate. His prediction about Gazprom is based on the fact that it is controlled from the Kremlin and is seen as an essential element in Russia’s global economic and diplomatic outreach. As such, it is entitled to a monopoly of all gas contracts.
NATO nations have been made aware by Washington that Russia intends to use energy as a diplomatic weapon by becoming the main supplier of gas and oil to the continent thereby controlling prices. In the event of a Cold War between the US and Russia it is not inconceivable that Russia will use energy to pressure Europeans to adopt an anti-American stance. Russia has already shown it is not adverse to using gas and oil as a weapon by cutting off or threatening to cut off supplies in disputes with Baltic States. That could happen on a larger scale over missile deployment or NATO expansion.
Unfortunately, US foreign policy under the Bush administration has been too narrowly focused on Iraq. As a result, Russia has exploited anti-Americanism in the Middle East and beyond. It has also devoted a lot of its diplomatic and commercial efforts into making new friends in the energy sector across the globe. The next US president is going to find that the Russian Bear is sitting on top of gas and oil networks that provide enough diplomatic heat to worry the US and its European allies.

GEORGIA: A SOMBER LESSON FOR NATO

Had Georgia been a NATO member as planned there could well have been a major stand-off between NATO and Russian armies in the Georgian province of South Ossetia on August 8.
NATO would have had no choice but to place the western alliance on full alert and the world would have been braced for the kind of clash of armies once envisaged during the Cold War.
Some observers now suspect that the Georgian leader, Harvard educated, Mikhail Saakashvilli, sent his army into the pro-Moscow separatist province of South Ossetia, believing Russia would not react because it would conclude he had US and NATO backing. There are conflicting reports about whether he consulted NATO or merely acted on instinct, convinced Washington would back him no matter what he did. He had previously made it clear to western leaders that he wanted to unite South Ossetia with Georgia following its breakaway with Russian support in the 1990s. Whether he had US backing for such a move is doubtful.
NATO must now sit back and contemplate what might have been had it gone ahead quickly by making Georgia and Ukraine NATO members in a region that is volatile and which Russia regards as its “near border.” At a NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, NATO leaders assured Georgia it would be granted membership but first it had to go through an investigative process, requiring it to comply with plans for ongoing reforms. Russia responded that it would be dangerous move to allow Georgia or Ukraine to join the NATO alliance.
Russia has worried for some time about Georgia’s plan to join NATO a plan that evolved in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Relations between Georgia and NATO deepened in the mid-1990s, especially after the “Rose Revolution” in 2003 when Georgia became a symbol for Washington of growing democracy within the former Soviet Bloc. In 2005, NATO and Georgia signed an agreement allowing the Alliance to use Georgia as a transit point for supplies sent to Coalition troops in Afghanistan.
The US was also heartened by Georgia’s commitment to the war in Iraq and the fact that it committed 2,000 to that conflict. In return, the US and Israel trained Georgia’s Special Forces and Washington contributed weapons and military know-how to the country’s army and air force. All the time, Russia was watching with alarm the pro-western stance of Georgia and the fact that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil-gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea ran through Georgia, by-passing Russia on its way to the Mediterranean. The Kremlin was also angry that Georgia was a likely site for elements of the US missile defense program.
Considering the significance of Georgia to the West and NATO it is hardly surprising the country’s president may have felt he had enough clout to impose his will on South Ossetia without having to worry about Russia. If that was his gamble, he made it without anticipating the fact that Russia was waiting for an opportunity to teach Georgia a lesson that would serve as a warning to the West not to expand NATO influence too close to its borders.
All of this raises serious questions about NATO and its leadership in Europe and Washington. Surely, NATO bosses warned the Georgian president not to invade South Ossetia and risk a major confrontation with the Russian Bear. If they did not issue such a warning they were caught napping and that implies deeps flaws within the transatlantic alliance.
It should have been obvious to NATO’s intelligence chiefs that Russia was hoping for a chance to flex its military muscles. Saakashvilli provided it. The Kremlin obviously calculated it was best to strike before Georgia became a NATO member. In the past 18 months, Moscow has been using its influence in South Ossetia to bait the Georgian leader. The Kremlin’s calculation was that Washington’s focus on Iraq and Afghanistan blinded it to issues in the Caucuses. Certainly, this episode took President Bush by surprise and the very fact he needs Russia’s influence to curb Iran leaves him with little clout when it comes to putting pressure on the Russians.
One of the major questions that must now be asked of NATO is why it not see this coming and why it did not take steps to show Georgia there was a better way to deal with the South Ossetia than provoking a Russian military response at this time. A seminal issue that faces Washington and Brussels is whether, given what has transpired, it is wise to go ahead with transitioning Georgia to a full NATO membership. As for the Ukraine it must be thinking that its chances of joining NATO have just been placed in cold storage by the leaders of the alliance.
As for NATO, after its promise to make Georgia a member it must find a way to assert its authority again if it is to have any credibility in that region. It will have to make it clear to Russia that aggression doesn’t pay and the West will not be intimidated just because Russia feels insecure. If the present leaders of the Alliance are unsure what to do next they should take lessons from the playbook of the late President Ronald Reagan and his closest ally, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. They were firm in their dealings with the Kremlin and were also skilled at isolating it internationally when it stepped out of line. In his last months in office it is doubtful George Bush has those abilities and the same applies to his British counterpart, Gordon Brown. The Kremlin may well recognize that to be the case and exploit NATO weaknesses until new leaders are elected in America and Britain.
In the final analysis this is an issue NATO will have to study carefully because next time it may find itself in deeper waters as Russia continues to yearn for its past glory.

ISRAELI PHYSICIANS DEMAND END TO TORTURE

Israel’s Physicians for Human Rights, a group funded by the European Union, has demanded that Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service, stop coercing sick Palestinians to become informers in return for medical treatment.
The group also claims that in recent years there has been evidence of the use of torture in Israel’s detention system despite a 1999 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting it. In particular, two leading members of PHR –Physicians for Human Rights – allege that medical personnel have been “shamefully involved” in the use of torture.
The most recent confrontation between PHR and the Israeli authorities came in the form of a statement carried in Haaretz, one of the country’s leading newspapers. The statement was specifically aimed at Shin Bet, alleging it was exploiting sick Palestinians by detaining them at crossing points between Israel and Gaza and interrogating them for hours, demanding that if they became informers against Hamas they could enter Israel for medical treatment. In one case, a man suffering from cancer was told if he did not agree to work for Shin Bet he would be sent home and the cancer would spread to his brain and kill him.
A journalist from Gaza was detained for hours after he went to a crossing seeking permission to enter Israel to have medical work done to save his eye sight. When he refused to become an informer he was denied entry and has since lost sight in one eye. He fears he will end up totally blind.
Shin Bet argues that it has a legal right to detain and question people and claims that in the past three years three people claiming to need medical treatment turned out to be suicide bombers. According to PHR, this is the “ticking time bomb” justification, which does not fit the reality.
The most damning criticism has been directed at chief medical officers and physicians whom PHR claims are acting as “collaborators” in the use of torture. Hadas Ziv, who is executive director of PHR-Israel and Dr. Ze’ev Weiner, a psychiatrist and member of the group’ Ethics committee, have laid out a case that the “ticking time bomb” argument used by medical professionals to justify their role in the use of coercive and degrading treatment in Israel’s detention should not be allowed to stand. They say medical personnel should be prohibited by their professional bodies from participating in any way in the use of torture. According to Ziv and Weiner, physicians are turning a blind eye to torture or enabling it by monitoring the health of a prisoner during an interrogation. They offer the following solution to end torture:
“Some will ask why we focus on medical personnel; shouldn’t torture itself be the focal point of the struggle? The answer is: Of course it should. However, we should not downplay the importance of removing physicians from the system as the most effective step towards eradicating torture entirely. Medical personnel are a central tool or a kind of fig leaf that enables others within the system to carry out this kind of activity under a veil. Try to imagine an execution taking place in the United States without an anesthesiologist to enable the execution to be conducted without pain. Or try to imagine the Shin Bet designing methods of torture without seeking medical consultation, or an interrogator working without a medical safety net to treat those who are injured. In addition, the mere existence of torture harms the whole of society and the involvement of physicians in torture destroys the ethical cornerstone of the medical profession. Its ramifications extend in general beyond the walls of the prison and interrogation facilities……“If organizations such as Shin Bet and the Ministry of Defense lack ethical codes then the involvement of physicians in torture, in knowing, in acting, in failing to report or issue warnings is prohibited under every ethical code.”
Ziv and Weiner also allege that detainees who have been seriously tortured have often come into direct contact with medical teams in the emergency rooms of general and psychiatric hospitals and it is up to those teams, who are not under the prison regime, to “resolutely protect” tortured detainees.
“We have been disappointed here too,” say Ziv and Weiner. “It is enough to mention that several detainees who arrived at hospital with signs of torture on their body or mind who were returned immediately or several days later to the interrogation facilities, to their torturers. We should take into account here the fact that there exists a comprehensive system in Israel that dehumanizes the victim and places security considerations over the interests of the detainee-patient.”
The two PGR executives quote the renowned academic, Prof. Daniel Statman, who said the fact torture is reserved for Palestinians and not Jews confirms that it is used to gain control over the Palestinians and to intimidate and restrain them – not to obtain information about a “ticking time bomb.”
So far, it has been difficult for the Israeli authorities to attack PHR reports given the organization’s international standing as an NGO and the fact that it is not only funded by the European Union but also by the Finnish Embassy in Tel Aviv, the New Israel Fund and the Global Health Council. Nevertheless, attacks on it have been by organizations that include the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. It has argued that PHR is misguided its funders should take note. In other words its funders should stop supplying money. It seems, however, the funders have taken note and have continued with their support of PHR.

INDIA NEW FRONT FOR TERRORISTS?

Behind India’s strategic alliance with the United States and its potential to be an emerging superpower lurks an ever present threat of terrorism that could destabilize the country.
With so much focus on the Middle East and Afghanistan there has been little emphasis on the fact that in India in 2006/07 almost twice as many people died in terrorism related incidents as perished in the 9/11 attacks. Recent terror bombings by a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen have exposed the fact that India lacks a sophisticated anti-terrorism task force and the hi-tech means of tracking small terror cells. The country’s Central Intelligence Bureau has even admitted there may be several thousand tiny terror “sleeper cells” hiding within the nation’s population of 1.1 billion.
According to the US State Department, India is at the apex of countries facing serious terror threats. In 2007, 10% of worldwide terror attacks happened throughout India. The range of terrorists groupings involved in the violence covered a wide panoply of players including Maoist rebels, who may number in the thousands. They are known as Naxalites and they exploit anger and disenchantment within the teeming masses of the poor in a country that displays startling extremes of wealth and poverty. Other terrorists come from within the Sikh and Hindu communities who have a history of internecine rivalry. But for US intelligence agencies advising the Indian government on how to deal with terror, the emerging threat that needs to be addressed urgently comes from Islamic organizations like Lashkar e Toiba, the Indian Mujahideen and the Students Islamic Movement, also known as SIMI. Some counter terrorism experts suspect that the Indian Mujahideen, a relatively new player on the terror watch list, is a convenient umbrella label used by different terror groupings to claim responsibility for atrocities.
While India in its post-British colonial past has suffered recurring violence as a result of tribal and religious problems within its boundaries, the Islamic terror threat is more worrying because it is believed to have backers in neighboring countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Islamic militants in India are also known to have ties to terrorists within the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan.
India and Pakistan have a troubled history and the fact that both countries have nuclear weapons aimed at each other has frequently made the rest of the world nervous. The US has tried to dampen down the enmity between them because it sees advantages in having alliances with both nations at a time when their neighbor China is flexing its economic muscles and increasing the size of its military. After 9/11 the US drew closer to Pakistan because it needed that country’s help in the war on terror but the moment China exhibited a growing desire to dominate south-east Asia Washington recognized the importance of a strategic alliance with India, a nation with the same growth potential as China. For Pentagon planners India now represents a bulwark against China’s expansionist policies.
In the past year, the US has consistently warned the Indian government that it faces a terror threat as much from without as from within its borders. The overall threat, however, may well have its roots in the belief of Indian Muslim that their government failed to bring to justice Hindu leaders involved in the slaughter of Muslims in the state of Gujarat between March and June 2002. During that period, Muslim women were raped by mobs and their children butchered in front of them. Unofficial estimates put the Muslim death toll at close to 2,000. The attacks on Muslims began after a train bombing in which 59 Hindus, many of them women and children, died. Muslims were blamed for the bombing and lies were deliberately spread among the majority Hindus throughout the state that Muslim fanatics were holding captive three young Hindu girls. Evidence now shows the massacre of Muslims was a planned atrocity, which had the approval of the Hindu authorities in Gujarat state. Police in the region were complicit in what occurred. Over one hundred and fifty Hindus also died in subsequent communal strife.
The fact that the Indian government failed to act quickly stop the massacre of Muslims alienated Muslim communities throughout the country and made them bitter. As a consequence, terror groupings, some from neighboring nations, have preyed on angry young Indian Muslims and sucked them into their ranks. It was no coincidence that the recent terror bombings that killed scores of people happened in the western state of Gujarat, raising the specter of another massacre on the horizon. That would suit the terrorists who see communal violence as a means to destabilize India. The Indian authorities believe terrorists in Kashmir and Pakistan are determined to set Hindus and Muslims at each others’ throats.
The US is now as concerned about Islamic terrorism in India as it is about Pakistan’s failure to eradicate the Taliban and Al Qaeda threat within its borders. For Indians who watched the recent bombings there was a common tendency to see a Pakistan hand in them. In the past, Indian intelligence experts were not shy about pointing an accusing finger at ISI, the Pakistan intelligence service, in the same way the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, accused the spy agency of masterminding Taliban operations against his government. For diplomatic reasons, Washington is reluctant to blame Pakistan’s powerful intelligence body but it is nevertheless aware that terrorists based in Pakistan may be seeking to fuel an insurgency in India. Such an eventuality could undermine a secular nation that tries to keep its volatile tribal and religious divisions from tearing the country apart.