Mar 7, '14
THE ROVING EYE
C'mon baby, light my (Crimean) fire
By Pepe Escobar
March 16 is C Day. The Crimean parliament - by 78 votes with 8 abstentions - decided this is the day when Crimean voters will choose between joining the Russian Federation or to remain part of Ukraine as an autonomous region with very strong powers, according to the 1992 constitution.
Whatever "diplomatic" tantrums Washington and Brussels will keep pulling, and they will be incandescent, facts on the ground speak for themselves. The city council of Sevastopol - the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet - has already voted to join Russia. And next week the Duma in Moscow will study a bill to simplify the mechanism of adhesion.
Quick recap: this is a direct result of Washington spending US$5 billion - a Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland official figure - to promote regime change in Ukraine. On the horizon, Crimea may be incorporated into Russia for free, while the "West" absorbs that bankrupt back-of-beyond (Western Ukraine) that an Asia Times Online reader indelibly described as the "Khaganate of Nulands" (an amalgam of khanate, Victoria's notorious neo-con husband Robert Kagan, and no man's land).
What Moscow regards as an illegal, neo-nazi infiltrated government in Kiev, led by Prime Minister Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk - an Ukrainian Jewish banker playing the role of Western puppet - insists Crimea must remain part of Ukraine. And it's not only Moscow; half of Ukraine itself does not recognize the Yats gang as a legitimate government, now boasting a number of oligarchs imposed as provincial governors.
Yet this "government" - supported by the US and the European Union - has already declared the referendum illegal. Proving its impeccable "democratic" credentials, it has already moved to ban the official use of the Russian language in Ukraine; get rid of the communist party, which amassed 13% of the votes in the last election, more, incidentally, than the neo-nazi-infested Svoboda ("Freedom") party, now ensconced in key government security posts; and ban a Russian TV station, which happens to be the most popular on Ukrainian cable.
Amid all the hysteria from Washington and certain European capitals, what's not explained to puzzled public opinion is that these fascists/neo-nazis who got to power through a coup will never allow real elections to take place in Ukraine; after all they would most certainly be sent packing.
This implies that "Yats" and his gang - on top of it reveling at their red carpet welcome at a pompous yet innocuous EU summit in Brussels - won't budge. For instance, they used heavy muscle to send pro-Russian protesters in front of the Donetsk government building running. Heavily industrialized Donetsk is very much linked commercially to Russia.
Then there's an even more sinister possible scenario looming in the horizon; an instrumentalization of the lunatic jihadi fringe of the 10% of Tatars in Crimea, from false flags to suicide bombings. The House of Saud, according to a solid Saudi source, is immensely interested in Ukraine, and may be tempted to do a few favors for Western intelligence.
Will our love become a funeral pyre?
Arguably, for Moscow, keeping Crimea inside the Ukraine, with large autonomous powers plus the current signed agreement to keep the base in Sevastopol, is a much better deal than annexing it. It's as if Russia was annexing what for all practical purposes was already a Russian province.
Yet the Kremlin may always decide not to annex, and use the all but certain result of the referendum as a key pawn in a complex negotiation with, not the EU, but fundamentally Germany. The EU is a mess. The "government" in Kiev is a mess. What matters is what Vladimir Putin is discussing over the phone with Angela Merkel.
Much has to do with Pipelineistan - as in the 9 billion euro (US$12.4 billion) Nord Stream, the steel umbilical cord between Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea. Merkel, the then Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, and former German chancellor and now Nord Stream chairman Gerhard Schroeder were very close when the pipeline project carrying Russian gas to Germany went online in 2011. The project was initially proposed in 2005 when Schroeder was chancellor and Putin was Russia's president, first time round. Schroeder, earlier this week, said that NATO should shut up.
Moreover, two-way trade between Russia and the EU was around a whopping US$370 billion in 2012 (no 2013 data yet), with Russia exporting mostly oil, gas and cereals, and the EU exporting mostly cars, medicine, machine parts. Forget about sanctions, that sacrosanct Washington mantra; they are really bad for business.
Moscow, though, has a real, tangible and very serious red line. It does not even have to bother about Ukraine in the EU because the overwhelming majority of Europeans don't want it as part of their club. The red line is North Atlantic Treaty Organization bases in Ukraine. Moscow might even compromise on Ukraine remaining a sort of Finland between Russia and Europe. With Crimea still inside the Ukraine, a NATO base side by side with the Russian base in Sevastopol would be nothing short of psychedelic.
So a resolution in Crimea - whichever way it goes - does send a very clear message from Moscow to the "West". Watch our red line. And unlike others, we mean it, and we back it up with all we got.
No time to wallow in the mire
First US President Barack Obama solemnly declared that the referendum in Crimea would "violate international law" (Kosovo, though, could merrily secede from Serbia in 2008, to wild Washington fanfare.)
And this after he declared Crimea to be an "extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US". What next - Crimean nationalists invading Iowa? No, just a ploy for the White House to deploy the usual financial war.
All that when the brilliant "strategy" of Team Obama - keep demonizing Putin to Kingdom Come - was reaching its apex.
But then Obama - noticing Angela Merkel was stealing the spotlight - called Putin and stayed on the phone for nearly a full hour trying to "engage" him. Why the change of heart?
A possible response may be supplied by the inescapable Dr Zbigniew "The Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski, former national security advisor to that Hamlet hick Jimmy Carter; the man who gave the Soviets "their Vietnam"; the man who always dreamed that the US should rule over Eurasia; and Obama's "invisible" top foreign policy mentor.
As Dr Zbig told WorldPost's Nathan Gardels, "The strategy of the West at this moment should be to complicate Vladimir Putin's planning." Well, that didn't work so well, did it? Then Dr Zbig advances that "NATO should invite the Russians to participate in its ongoing discussions". It's not happening.
Dr Zbig is adamant "we have to formally recognize the new government in Ukraine, which I believe expresses the will of the people there". In fact, the will of perhaps half of the nation, at best. "Interference in Ukrainian affairs should be considered a hostile act by a foreign power." That was Obama's rationale until his phone call to Putin.
Dr Zbig got even more apocalyptic, stressing, "We should put NATO contingency plans into operation, deploying forces in Central Europe so we are in a position to respond if war should break out and spread." No wonder US corporate media went bananas.
But then Dr Zbig falls back into sanity; "The best solution for Ukraine would be to become as Finland has been to Russia." So in the end he may have suggested to Obama "a compromise solution that is acceptable for Russia as well as the West". And that will involve "serious economic aid and investment". And guess who should take the lead, as in footing the bill? "Germany, the most prosperous and strongest economy in the EU."
So in the end we fall back, once again, on what Angela and Vlad have been discussing. Is it Finlandization? Or is it about who's trying to set the night on fire?
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2014 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing)
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