POLITICAL FALLOUT:THE KREMLIN'S decision to halt its five-day assault on Georgia leaves Russia calling the shots in the energy-rich Black Sea littoral and Caspian basin. The quick and easy victory exposes the West's lack of leverage over Russia, despite years of American political investment in Georgia.
In the tussle for supremacy in a vital strategic region, the balance has tilted. Russia has deployed its fire-power in another country with impunity for the first time since communism's collapse.
The impact of Mikheil Saakashvili's rash gamble in storming South Ossetia last week, and of Vladimir Putin's comprehensive rout of the Georgians, will ripple in many directions. Vladimir Putin has redrawn the geopolitical map of the contested region between Russia, Turkey and Iran.
"We don't look very good," said a former Pentagon official long involved in Georgia. "We've been working on [Georgia] for four years and we've failed . . . the consequences are all negative."
While Russia walks tall, Saakashvili will struggle to survive. The Europeans are already divided; Nato splits over Georgia and Ukraine will widen; American policies in the region have been severely set back. Western energy policy is looking flaky.
"This was a proxy war . . . about Moscow drawing a red line for the West," said Alexander Rahr, Russia expert at Germany's council on foreign relations. "They marched into Georgia to challenge the West and [it] was powerless."
Following president Dmitri Medvedev's call for a halt yesterday, the first priority is a proper ceasefire. That has to be agreed, then implemented, then monitored, all very tricky with ample scope for further bloodshed.
Moscow is dictating the terms. According to European officials briefed on yesterday's talks in Moscow with president Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the Russians are insisting on an end to 15 years of Georgian troops being part of the peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, and are demanding that Saakashvili sign a legally binding pledge abjuring the use of all armed force in relation to the two pro-Russian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In recent months, Saakashvili has repeatedly refused to sign such a commitment. "Russia seems to have all the cards," said another European official. "Russian soldiers have been in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for 15 years. The outcome of the negotiations will probably be the entrenchment of the Russian presence in both of the enclaves."
Such an outcome leaves the Georgian president politically wounded, perhaps fatally. Moscow has launched a propaganda offensive which paints the Georgian leader as a war criminal.
The Russians will control South Ossetia and send in military prosecutors to find evidence of atrocities. Character assassination and secret service shenanigans will increase doubts about Saakashvili at home and abroad in the Russian hope that Saakashvili's own electorate will turn against him. - ( Guardian service)