The immediate focus of the fighting is the attempt by Georgia to militarilyseize control of the enclave of South Ossetia, which has existed as a defacto independent entity for the past 16 years, and Russia's armedintervention to counter this assault.

Underlying this military confrontation, however, are far broader conflicts.Feeding the bloody confrontation in South Ossetia is US imperialism's driveto establish hegemony over the vast energy resources of Central Asia and theCaucasus through the assertion of American military power in the region. TheRussian ruling elite, for its part, is seeking to reassert its grip over aregion that was ruled by Moscow for two centuries before the dissolution ofthe Soviet Union in 1991.

This bitter rivalry between Washington and Moscow—the world's two greatestnuclear powers—lends the fighting in the Caucasus a particularly explosiveand dangerous character. The tensions between the two countries have beenexacerbated in the recent period by the Bush administration's drive toincorporate Georgia into the NATO alliance, a move that Moscow sees as partof an attempt to establish a military encirclement of Russia.

The US-backed Georgian regime of President Mikheil Saakashvili sent massedmilitary units into South Ossetia on Thursday morning, after claiming thatSouth Ossetian military forces had shelled Georgian villages, supposedlyviolating a unilateral cease-fire declared by Tbilisi.

While the Georgian regime initially claimed it was carrying outa "proportionate response," it quickly became clear that it had launched anall-out military offensive aimed at conquering the region. Using artillery,tanks, truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers and war planes, the Georgianmilitary laid siege to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

Much of the city was reportedly in flames Friday. The regional parliamentbuilding had burned down, the university was on fire, and the town's mainhospital had been rendered inoperative by the bombardment. The InternationalRed Cross reported that ambulances were unable to reach the wounded.

"As a result of many hours of shelling from heavy guns, the town ispractically destroyed," Marat Kulakhmetov, the commander of Russianpeacekeepers in the territory, told the Russian news service Interfax.

Eduard Kokoity, the South Ossetian leader, estimated late Friday that morethan 1,400 civilians had been killed in the Georgian military assault.

"I saw bodies lying on the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars,"Lyudmila Ostayeva, 50, told the Associated Press after fleeing the city withher family to a village near the Russian border. "It's impossible to countthem now. There is hardly a single building left undamaged."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged Georgia with utilizingmassive violence with the aim of forcing the Ossetian population to flee."We are receiving reports that a policy of ethnic cleansing was beingconducted in villages in South Ossetia, the number of refugees is climbing,the panic is growing, people are trying to save their lives," said Lavrov.

According to Moscow, among the dead were ten Russian peacekeepers, while 30more were wounded in the shelling of their barracks by the Georgian forces.The peacekeepers were deployed in the area as part of an agreement reachedbetween Moscow, Tbilisi and South Ossetia to end the fighting that eruptedfollowing the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the subsequent bid by thepeoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to separate from Georgia. Theinhabitants in both regions feared the newly independent Georgian regimewould abolish their autonomous status.

Since then, however, Tbilisi has charged that the Russian troops are backingthe South Ossetian forces.

Russia seized upon the deaths of its troops and the civilian casualties asjustification for sending a tank column and infantry into South Ossetia,where they have become engaged in fierce combat with Georgian units forcontrol of Tskhinvali.

"In accordance with the constitution and federal law, I, as president ofRussia, am obliged to protect lives and dignity of Russian citizens whereverthey are located," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a meeting of hissecurity council at the Kremlin. "We won't allow the death of ourcompatriots to go unpunished."

Meanwhile, Georgian authorities charged that Russian warplanes had struckthe country's military bases, airfields and the main Black Sea port of Potilate Friday and early Saturday, killing some civilians. Bombs reportedlyfell on Tbilisi and on the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

"All day today, they've been bombing Georgia from numerous warplanes andspecifically targeting (the) civilian population, and we have scores ofwounded and dead among (the) civilian population all around the country,"Saakashvili told the US news network, CNN.

Saakashvili announced that he had called up the country's reserves, whilesources in Georgia said he was expected to announce the imposition ofmartial law.

The timing of the Georgian incursion, on a day when world attention wasfocused on the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, where both Russian PrimeMinister Vladimir Putin and US President George Bush are present, hardlyseemed fortuitous.

Saakashvili, however, suggested that it was Russia that had chosen the date,calling it a "brilliant moment to attack a small country" and charging thatthe quick response by the Russian military demonstrated Moscow'spreparations for an intervention.

The Georgian president declared that his country was "looking with hope" tothe US. The armed confrontation with Russia, he claimed, "is not aboutGeorgia anymore. It's about America, its values... America stands up forthose freedom-loving nations and supports them. That's what America is allabout."

Under the Bush administration, Washington has attempted to forge close tieswith Georgia, particularly since the US-backed "Rose Revolution" that pavedthe way for Saakashvili's rise to power.

US imperialism's main interest in Georgia is as an American bridgehead intothe oil and gas-rich Caspian Basin and as a strategic transit route forfunneling energy supplies out of the region, while bypassing Russia.

To cement its ties with the Georgian regime, Washington has providedhundreds millions of dollars in military aid, while sending in large numbersof US military trainers for the country's growing armed forces.

Georgian troops, meanwhile, account for the third largest contingentparticipating in the US occupation of Iraq, numbering some 2,000. Tbilisiindicated Friday that it would seek US help in bringing at least 1,000 ofthese soldiers back to participate in the fighting in South Ossetia.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov alluded to the US military support forGeorgia, declaring, "Now we see Georgia has found a use for these weaponsand for the special forces that were trained with the help of internationalinstructors." He added, "I think our European and American colleagues...should understand what is happening. And I hope very much that they willreach the right conclusions."

Last month, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a provocative visitto Tbilisi, denouncing Russia and reiterating US backing for Georgian NATOmembership. Washington's NATO allies in Western Europe, however, havegreeted the proposal coolly, seeing it as an unnecessary provocation againstRussia, upon which they depend for energy supplies.

Whether Rice during her visit gave an explicit green light for theintervention in South Ossetia, or whether the Georgian regime felt thedemonstration of US support gave it the assurance of Washington's backingfor such a military action, is not known.

In the wake of Friday's assault, Washington has stopped short of providingexplicit support for the Georgian action, but has made it clear that itbacks the position of its client state in the Caucasus.

The United Nations Security Council failed to support a Russian-backedresolution calling for an end to the fighting because of Washington'sopposition to a clause calling on all sides to "renounce the use of force."The clear implication is that the US is backing Georgia's right to takemilitary action.

Secretary of State Rice, meanwhile, issued a statement condemningRussia, while providing tacit justification for Georgia's intervention. "Wecall on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respectGeorgia's territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces fromGeorgian soil," she said. "We underscore the international community'ssupport for Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity within itsinternationally recognized borders."

The eruption of war in the Caucasus is the end product of the increasinglyaggressive policy pursued by US imperialism in the wake of the dissolutionof the USSR nearly 17 years ago. Washington has systematicallymanipulated national conflicts in the region to further its own aim ofmilitary and economic hegemony. This began with the bloody wars inthe former Yugoslavia.

All of the arguments used by Washington to justify its support for Bosniaand Kosovo and its military assault on Serbia during the Balkan wars of the1990s could be employed just as effectively to condemn Georgia'sintervention and defend South Ossetia, as well as Russia's militaryintervention on its behalf.

In this case, however, Washington has elevated Georgia's "territorialintegrity" as the paramount principle in the conflict, effectivelyjustifying Georgia's military intervention and an assault on the province'sRussian population that Moscow has branded as "ethnic cleansing."

The apparent contradiction between these two policies only underscoresthe fact that US imperialism's supposed aversion to ethnic cleansing andthe suppression of ethnic enclaves is entirely dependent upon who is doingit and whether or not it serves US strategic interests.

There is a direct link between this latest war and those waged by the US inthe Balkans. In February, the US and the West recognizedKosovo's "independence" based on its unilateral secession from Serbia, indirect violation of various UN resolutions. The aim in backing thissecession —as in its support for the suppression of similar secessionistentities in Georgia—was to further US military plans for the encirclementof Russia and the securing of access routes to the Caspian Basin.

In the run-up to Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, Moscow hadrepeatedly warned that it would set a precedent for similar actions by otherterritories in the former USSR—Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in particular. Inits aftermath, the Russian regime stepped up its support for bothterritories.

Now, the eruption of war in South Ossetia poses the threat of a regionalconflagration that can bring the world's two biggest nuclear-armed powers,the US and Russia, into direct military confrontation, with the immensedangers that such a conflict poses to humanity.

[ www.wsws.org/articles/2008/aug2008/ruge-a09.shtml ]