The South Ossetia Anschluss and an American Suez

News about Ossetia is greatly complicated at the moment. A very well funded public relations campaign is in full swing on the part of the Georgian government, which yesterday, for instance, took out full page advertisements in the Financial Times and other newspapers. Others seem to be spinning sources. For example, a statement by the South Ossetian 'parliamentary speaker' becomes a 'prediction by a senior official' whom some reports imply is a Russian official.

The summary of what seems to be being mooted this morning, however, is that South Ossetia will be joined at some point to north ossetia and that it will become 'Alania'. The Alans, of course, were last heard of this side of Europe when they menaced the Romans at the fall of the West. 'Alania' will then be absorbed as some sort of oblast or Krais or autonomous republic in Russia.

Ripples from the Russian action keep spreading; just have a look at the Interfax news agency to see that.

The Nabucco gas pipeline--Europe's non Russia alternative--is in intensive care. It was very troubled to start with. If it were not for the Chinese, whose main principle seems to be restraint and balance in international affairs (at the minute), Russia would have overawed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation the other day. This would have secured the gas and oil of central Asia. Russia has not, therefore, achieved total success; but it has something near that.

I wrote at the time that what has just gone on was an oil and gas anschluss with territory attached. This morning, that seems to be happening. The West and its front states seem to have responded by purporting to be able to tell the Russian Navy what to do in the Black Sea.

They have some legal basis, since the existence of a Russian port in the Ukraine is a matter of treaty. this has been true since Khruschev got a bit drunk or enthusiastic and redrew borders on the Black sea. He knew a lot about the Ukraine, having murdered many there for Stalin, and I suppose it was his way of pretending the USSR was a collection of free states who could resolve their differences peacefully. It was in fact of course some sort of combination of Upper Voltan prison, charnel house and asylum with rockets.

This blog, amongst others, has been going on about the UN convention on the law of the sea for a long time. Russia has been relatively 'very quiet' about this demand to limit its naval deployment. Why? The last time it went quieter than anyone expected was Kosovo.

If the road to Ossetia was traced through Kosovo, why will a Black Sea confrontation not lead to an Iranian order to American ships in the Straits of Hormuz? A credible scenario, given America's fiscal weakness and overstretch at the moment, is emerging that could give rise to an American 'Suez'.

We are not on it, but there is a cliff edge approaching.