BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly March 3 to approve a proposal to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by taking into membership three former Soviet bloc countries. The vote on the measure, which now goes to the U.S. Senate for ratification, has renewed debate in ruling-class circles over how best to weaken and eventually overturn the workers state in Russia and reestablish capitalism there and in the rest of the region.

This debate highlights the fact that Moscow is the real target of Washington's war moves against Iraq. By bringing the regimes in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary into NATO, the U.S.-dominated military alliance would stretch to the Polish border with Russia, as well as the former republics of Ukraine and Belarus.

"The U.S. should heed the Russian bear's ever-louder growls," warned an item in the March 9 issue of the National Review magazine. The right-wing weekly said that a "series of apparently unrelated events in the former Soviet Union suggests the emergence of a newly aggressive Russian policy." It pointed to "reports in the Washington Post that Russia made a deal to sell technology capable of producing biological weapons to Iraq."

The article claimed Moscow was behind the ouster of Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrossian in February and an assassination attempt on Georgian president Eduard Shevardnaze, "who has resisted efforts by Russia to dominate his small country."

"There is the growing danger posed by rogue states with dangerous weapons. There are still questions about the future of Russia," declared U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright in her remarks at a February 24 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She was listing her reasons for maintaining the NATO military structure while testifying in favor of its expansion.

"Our disagreements with Russia, especially about the Middle East and Gulf, have come about because of the manner in which Russia is defining its national interests in that part of the world," she added. "We need to remain vigilant and strong, militarily and economically."

Could unleash uncontrolled forces
A significant minority, of the U.S. ruling class is nervous about the political forces the Clinton administration's course may unleash. "With NATO forces likely to move hundreds of miles closer to its border, Russia has already placed greater reliance on its nuclear weapons as a first line of defense," stated a New York Times editorial March 1. "NATO expansion would bring no discernible gain," because of the risk of Moscow failing to complete "its transition to . a market economy," the big-business daily warned.

Other capitalist spokespersons also voiced their disagreements. "We harbor grave reservations about the pending expansion and the direction it points," wrote former Democratic Senator Samuel Nunn and Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser in the Ford and Bush administrations, in an op-ed piece in early February. "A military alliance is not a club," they chided, adding that "the Administration's rhetoric and policy risk converting NATO into an organization in which obligations are diluted and action is enfeebled."

Despite these hesitations from bourgeois figures, Jesse Helms, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an "overwhelmingly positive" vote in the Senate to expand the imperialist military alliance to include the regimes of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.

The foreign ministers from the aspiring NATO member states visited several senators February 10 to push for ratification of the expansion plan. The next day U.S. president William Clinton formally asked the Senate to approve the plan adding the three countries to the NATO war machine in 1999.

Washington is using its war moves in the Persian Gulf to prepare these regimes for future military action, including against the workers and peasants in Russia. "When I met with the foreign ministers of our three prospective allies two weeks ago, I asked them to stand by our side" in the Mideast, Albright said at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "If we have to take military action they will be with us. The bottom line is Poland, Hungary, and the Czech republic are already behaving as loyal allies."

All three governments participated in Washington's 1991 assault against the Iraqi people and Poland's deputy foreign minister Radek Sikorski recently declared his government was prepared to send 216 troops to the Persian Gulf.

NATO was founded in 1949 with the aim of assembling a military force that could be used against the struggles of workers and farmers around the globe and for containing and eventually overthrowing the workers states in the Soviet Union and elsewhere if the opportunity arose. Washington led the imperialist alliance, codifying its immense economic and military superiority in Europe in the aftermath of World War II.

Half a century later and more than six years since the breakup of the USSR, the U.S. rulers and their imperialist allies in Europe have still been unable to reestablish capitalism anywhere in Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union.

"Who lost Russia?" was the headline of Patrick Buchanan's February 18 column. "Seven years ago, the romance of the age was between America and a Russia newly liberated from Leninism. Today, Boris Yeltsin blusters that U.S. strikes on Iraq could ignite a `world war,' as Russia ships missile technology to Tehran and establishes a `strategic partnership' with China," the ultrarightist politician wrote.

Buchanan placed most of the blame for a "rise of anti- Americanism in Russia" that "is a strategic disaster" on the policies of the Clinton administration. NATO enlargement will guarantee "a series of crises in the next century that will mean either war or humiliation for the United States," he added.

Powder keg in Caspian basin
The Caspian Sea region, considered one of the world's richest sources of oil and gas, is another powder keg. Russian officials "are especially displeased to see Western oil companies, mainly American, moving in on the prize by making deals with little nations that not long ago were Moscow's pawns," noted the editors of the Wall Street Journal February 19. Accusing the Kremlin of "dirty work in the Caucasus," the financial daily asserted, "We haven't heard the last of troubles in this onetime hunting preserve of Soviet thugs."

According to London's Financial Times, Russian groups are accused of masterminding a February 9 assassination attempt on Georgian president Eduard Shevardnaze, supposedly to thwart the laying of a pipeline across the country. Shevardnaze's motorcade was hit by rocket grenades and automatic weapons fire as it traveled through the capital city of Tbilisi. Moscow has denied any involvement in the assault.

In Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrossian resigned as president February 3 under a storm of protests over his endorsement of a U.S.-backed plan to end a territorial dispute over Nagorno- Karabakh, an Armenian enclave inside neighboring Azerbaijan. The proposal would require Armenian Karabakh forces to cede six regions of Azerbaijan they captured while fighting for independence from that country. Imperialist "peacekeeping" troops would then move into the region and the status of Nagorno-Karabakh would be decided later.

Washington pushes pipeline deals
The Clinton administration is pressing to advance U.S. oil giants' investments in Caspian Sea region and deepen Washington's military presence there. The Chevron Corp. and Mobil Corp., members of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, have frozen funds for a 900-mile pipeline that would transport some 1.4 million barrels of oil a day from the Tengiz oil field in Kazakstan through Russia to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, Russia. The oil consortium includes the governments of Russia and Kazakstan.

Seeking an alternative route that would bypass Russia and go instead to Turkey, a member of NATO, Chevron, and the British-based Caspian Transco signed a contract with the Georgian government March 2 to construct a pipeline to transport crude oil from Kazakstan through Azerbaijan and Georgia. The president of Azerbaijan has signed several oil contracts with foreign investors, while establishing links with the International Monetary Fund.

U.S. embassies in the region laid the groundwork to press for the Caspian oil deals. The government of strategically located Georgia received $113 million in U.S. aid last year. "When the Russians say, `the U.S. is trying to kick us out of the Caucasus,' we say `The U.S. plays the role of regional power that supports freedom and independence,' " declared Archil Gegeshidze, foreign policy adviser to Georgian president Shevardnaze. Russian soldiers are still stationed in Georgia and Armenia. Last September 500 U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division participated in a week-long joint exercise in Kazakstan.

One of the Clinton administration's justifications for its military buildup in the Persian gulf is the claim that Baghdad has stocks of biological weapons. The U.S. media recently floated the story that Moscow conducted a deal to deliver biological agents to Iraq.

The ABC News program "Prime Time Live" aired an interview February 25 with a Russian defector who claimed Moscow is operating a program to study "offensive biological weapons agents" under the pretext of conducting defensive research. In addition, the New York Times published an article February 14 alleging that Russian scientists "have genetically engineered a new form of anthrax" that could be used as a weapon against U.S. troops.

Meanwhile, Clinton signed a "charter of partnership" with the governments of the three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - on January 16. The document pledges Washington's support for their application to join NATO. "America is determined to create the conditions under which Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia can walk through that door," the U.S. president stated.

Last July the pro-imperialist regime in Estonia hosted the largest military exercise led by NATO in the Baltic countries so far. Some 2,600 soldiers participated in "Baltic Challenge 97." Most of the troops were from the United States. At a NATO meeting in Madrid, Estonian president Lennart Meri was asked why it was necessary to expand the imperialist alliance. He replied, "It is said that communism is dead but no one has yet seen the corpse."  
 
 
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