GEORGIA

Globeandmail: Politics, pipelines converge in Georgia

The downfall of Shevardnadze had its roots in the rivalry between the United States and Russia, writes MARK MacKINNON

TBILISI -- It looked like a popular, bloodless revolution on the streets. Behind the scenes, it smells more like another victory for the United States over Russia in the post-Cold War international chess game.

Once, the game was played out on a truly global scale, in places such as Angola and Afghanistan, and was cloaked as a fight between capitalism and communism. These days, as Russian power and influence have shrunk, so has the playing field. The fight for influence goes on, but the battlefields have edged much closer to Moscow -- former colonies such as Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, and Azerbaijan and Georgia in the Caucasus.

Eduard Shevardnadze used to be one of the chess masters. Yesterday, he was knocked aside like just another pawn.

The roots of Mr. Shevardnadze's downfall go much further back than Georgia's disputed parliamentary election, held on Nov. 2, which even his chief-of-staff has now acknowledged were rigged. They lie to the east, in the oil under the Caspian Sea, one of the world's few great remaining, relatively unexploited, sources of oil.