Posted on 02/20/2006 9:59:05 AM PST by freedom44
American officials have been quietly probing whether Georgia, situated just northwest of Iran, will be willing to allow Washington to use its military bases and airfields in the event of a military conflict with Teheran, The Jerusalem Post has been told.
The Americans have been putting out feelers, a high-ranking Georgian government foreign affairs official told the Post, in advance of a possible military strike to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.
American reports in recent months, speculating about the possibility of a campaign against Iran because of the failure of diplomatic efforts to thwart a potential nuclear weapons program, have suggested that sustained military action, rather than a single strike, may be required given the number of Iranian nuclear facilities, their divergent locations and Iranian defenses.
Georgian government officials said that Tbilisi fears harsh Iranian military retaliation against the Georgian republic if US forces were to use its territory as a base for strikes against Iran, but nonetheless may feel obligated to accede to such a request, given the country's heavy reliance on US aid and support. The US maintains its own military bases in Georgia.
While the Americans have been testing the waters lately in this direction, the source indicated, no official request of this kind has yet been made.
Georgia is also worried about the possibility of civil unrest, citing the strong opposition by its Muslim minority to the country's participation in the war in Iraq, where there is a limited Georgian military contingent.
Military collaboration with the US would also have "a most negative effect" on relations between Moscow and Tbilisi, which remains strained since the election of Georgia's US-educated president, Mikhail Saakashvili, in 2004.
Saakashvili is considered one of the most consistent US supporters in the post-Soviet bloc and enjoys solid American backing. Indeed, Saakashvili is often accused by Moscow of maintaining an "American outpost in the region."
Anyway, already posted here with plenty of commentary from me....
As usual you are right on target. They just got heat from Iran and don't need more kidnappings at the borders by muslim fanatics.
And since I correspond with several good friends in Tbilisi by email quite often, let me tell you, that heat was extremely welcome!
A. POLE: What about the "negative effect on relations between" Teheran and Tbilisi?!
While air strikes are not officially considered at this time, it's clear they are unofficially being considered by many governments. Therefore, it wouldn't be wise for Tbilisi to say anything official on the subject. As for relations with Tehran, it looks like Tehran has isolated itself so well that foreign relations between Tehran and its neighbors have degraded into "get gas and oil from the mullahs while it can be got". Regime change may come in the near term and it is understood by Georgia, Turkey, Japan and China that pipelines have temporary masters. Georgian gas deals like this one illustrate that the Iranian government is not much more than a whore that stays in power only through manipulating its customers. This whoring behavior is not diplomacy and only vaguely approaches international relations. It goes without saying that in its current incarnation Tehran has political AIDS and its carriers are its most ardent allies.
I’d be interested to see a list of positive effects on relations between Tehran and any other government, besides the ardent enemies of the United States, which of course would be a list of negatives anyway. Thanks for the ping and playing the devil’s advocate A-Pole.
BTW, do you know which countries made easy and quick overthrow of Taleban possible? Do you know how were the sponsors of Northern Alliance?
Yes, and I know where you are going with this. There were irregular Iranian forces in Afghanistan in the campaign against the Taliban and American Special Operations Forces have made it clear, to those paying attention, that while Iranian forces were fighting the Taliban in theater, they were not operating in a way that assisted Americans or Afghanis. Organizing tribes to cut the throats of rival tribes does not lead to political stability, only increased mayhem. The situation there is indicative of a larger Afghan-Iran relationship. The Iranians have never been on good terms with their Afghani neighbors. Afghanis in Iran are treated like second class citizens and the Iranian government was all too happy to deport Afghani refugees after the Taliban fell. Not surprisingly, Afghan refugees were all too happy to leave.
To those familiar with his political and military megalomania, Ahmadinejad wishes his Afghani neighbors were wiped of the map almost as much as his public enemy number one, Israel. Obviously, saying so publicly would not foster the kind of Muslim solidarity he and the Valeyat need to dominate the region.
The French and Germans didn't like the way we dealt with Iraq, so we let them try their method with Iran. Now they have egg all over the face.
How do you know?
They have been tough ? I didn't notice.
...they could pressure the Turks with EU membership.And maybe the Turks would actually fall for it again. ;') I'd be surprised if that same offer was used (quietly, through diplomatic contacts) to convince the Turks to back out of support for the liberation of Iraq.
Wholeheartedly agree. Iranian mullahcracy is the next domino. Once it's gone, there will be only Pakistan's border area to support Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Pakistani and Indian relations have been improving, as have India's relations with the US (and for that matter, with Israel). The removal of Islamic influence is a long way off, and the middle term goal is to redirect momentum (point the Moslems the same direction the US is going) and to build US influence in Central Asia, basically to balance both the Russians and the Chinese.
I wonder about Azerbaijan... the Iranian gov't was posturing a couple years ago regarding an oil field, threatening to take control of it and the whole neighboring country; sez on the World Factbook that the country's corrupt (and predominantly Moslem, what a huge coincidence), has almost 600K refugees from a dispute it had with Armenia, and if memory serves, relations with Turkey broke down a while back because of Azerbaijan's failure to back some Turkish position on Cyprus.
The question is will the Iranian government implode if the US attacks the hundreds of nuclear sites around the country. Where will the so called Iranian moderates fall out. Will they radicalize in hating the West or will they see this as an opportunity to escape the Mullocracy.
And Grzegorz, you overestimate the rebuilding speed.
Technically almost all the countries surrounding Iran are on our side: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. So is Turkey, but I'm not going to count on the Turks, after what happened with Iraq. Turkmenistan is neutral, having proclaimed itself the Switzerland of Asia. Russia is sympathetic to the Iranians, but if the Russians can't subjugate Chechnya, I doubt if they'll be able to do much here. The only country likely to help Iran in the event of an attack is Syria.
Even so, from what I know about the Iranians, they're going to have to do most of the work of toppling the theocracy. The good news is that I think they're willing to do it, once we give them a push. A military occupation of a country this big, like we did in Iraq, probably would not be feasible here.
I agree. What we'll need to do is to really pick a fight with 'em, insult the so called Revolutionary Guard and the Guardian Council, and get them into formations -- then literally annihilate the formations, and track down and literally kill literally every member of the GC. Then it will be a matter of setting up fast reaction teams, and online and tollfree methods for the Iranians to narc out the miserable murdering a-holes who enter the country on the dime of the Saudi royals.
We'll also need training camps to create a large, secular armed forces.
We'll also need to ignore the demands of the Shiite-heads, in Iran and elsewhere.
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