Author: Maghakian Mike

Coda Media
Pompeo to arrive in troubled Caucasus region with diminished stature,
credibility
The U.S. Secretary of State takes a trip to the other Georgia
By Natalia Antelava
13 November, 2020
After America’s top diplomat Mike Pompeo promised a smooth transition
to a “second Trump administration,” he booked himself on a foreign
trip, presumably, to get away from the toxic atmosphere of Washington
D.C. Next week, he will be swinging through France, Turkey, Israel,
the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Georgia, the
country, not the state, where he will spend two days.
When he arrives in the capital Tbilisi, Pompeo will find a situation
eerily similar to the one he may be trying to escape: rising Covid-19
numbers and big street protests over a bitter, disinformation-mired
election dispute. And while Pompeo is a lame duck diplomat in much of
the world, his visit to the small South Caucasus nation could alter
history.
On October 31, Georgians voted in a highly contested parliamentary
election. After eight years on the political sidelines, the opposition
thought it stood a chance of at least diluting the power of the ruling
Georgian Dream party.
But according to the opposition, the game was rigged from the start.
The election was marred by disinformation and allegations of vote
buying. And once the ballots were cast, evidence of fraud began to
emerge. In over a hundred polling stations, for example, no one voted
for the opposition  — a statistical impossibility in a politically
divided Georgia. In some areas, the vote totals cast for the ruling
party were greater than the number of people who actually voted.
The ruling party is run by the Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s
richest man, an oligarch with ties to Russia who, over the years, has
successfully managed to keep the opposition weak and fragmented.
The international community — the usual arbiter between the Georgian
government and the opposition — has been distracted by the pandemic
and the turmoil in the U.S. While there has been some criticism of the
government, overall the response has been muted and government-backed
media channels cite Pompeo’s upcoming visit as a validation of the
election’s outcome.
For years Georgia, an ally of the U.S., has been held up as a model
for the region. This election further erodes the country democratic
stature and is likely to come at a geopolitical cost for the West.
The “Ivanishvili government has hired lobbying firms in Washington
while embracing Russian disinformation narratives and Russian tactics
at home,” says Giorgi Kandelaki, an opposition politician. “Retreat of
democracy here harms the United States interests and works to Putin’s
benefit”
As America’s top diplomat, Pompeo often urges free and fair elections
and peaceful transitions of power. But his two-day visit to Georgia
does not include a meeting with the country’s opposition, and his
apparent refusal to accept election results in his own country makes
him a deeply compromised interlocutor.
Upping the stakes is a massive geopolitical tremor in the region. The
South Caucasus — which includes Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan — is a
key global transit route and a strategic gem that Washington and
Moscow have been at loggerheads over for years. This week, its map was
redrawn, literally, when Azerbaijan scored a military victory over
Armenia in a war over the long-disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
It was a conflict much of the world didn’t even notice, but regional
powers Turkey and Russia filled the vacuum created by a distracted
America. Over the past six weeks, Ankara provided key military support
to Azerbaijan, while Moscow stood back, allowing Azerbaijan to crush
Armenia, Russia’s most loyal ally. This week, after Azerbaijan took
key territories, the Kremlin stepped in, negotiated a truce and was
invited by Azerbaijan to maintain stability. Moscow is sending troops
to act as peacekeepers.
Who the ultimate geopolitical winner of this situation is in dispute.
Azerbaijan is the obvious one. But Russia now has boots on the ground
and new leverage over both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Turkey, too, has
come out ahead.
Losers are much easier to identify. Armenia: a devastated nation now
sinking into a political crisis that will take years to overcome. And
the United States: for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet
Union, Washington is suddenly not even a player in a Great Game that
it only recently led.
As Mike Pompeo leaves the election chaos at home to embark on his
foreign tour, the Caucasus provides a striking destination to showcase
America’s diminished role on the global stage.