RUSSIA: If you are going to attack terrorist bases, now is the time to announce it, Chris Stephen reports from Moscow
In politics, they say, timing is everything, and the timing of the threat by Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Georgia could hardly be better.
The reason for the threatened invasion is Georgia's refusal to close down bases on its soil used by Chechen rebels and their al-Qaeda allies. But if you are going to attack al-Qaeda, now is the time to announce it - with the world's attention focused on the the Iraq issue and the World Trade Centre bombing anniversary.
In an angry televised speech last week, Mr Putin announced he had run out of patience. He demanded that Georgia deal with "hundreds of terrorists" based in the northern Pankisi Gorge, or else Russian forces would do the job themselves. No timetable has been set for invasion, but security chiefs have been summoned to an emergency session with Mr Putin in the southern city of Sochi. Troops have been put on standby and the population prepared for war. State TV is saturated with footage of combat aircraft, tanks and soldiers jumping out of helicopters.
Mr Putin's timing is good for a second reason: an envoy of President Bush, Mr John Bolton, is in Moscow, hoping to win Russia's support for a UN resolution authorising an attack against Iraq.Though nothing is spelled out, the price for Russian support for Washington is clear - Washington must in return give Russia a free hand in Georgia. Pressure to invade has been building all summer. Russia has long complained that it is fighting the Chechen rebels with one hand tied behind its back, because they are free to come and go across the Georgian border.
In August, 13 rebels were chased into Georgia and arrested by border guards. President Putin demanded they be handed over. Georgia, fearing it would trigger a war with its own ethnic Chechens, refused. Then came a cruel reminder of how deadly the war in Chechnya remains, with the shooting down of a giant helicopter near the Chechen capital, Grozny, with the loss of 116 lives.
The US this year moved soldiers to Georgia to train local commandos to take on the rebels. But that training has failed - the badly paid commandos are simply unwilling to die fighting someone with whom they have no quarrel.
Finally, this month, under Russian pressure, Georgia moved 1,000 troops into the gorge - but only after giving the rebels time to run to the hills.
Now, Mr Putin says, Russia has had enough. He told the Russian public that military action would follow "if the Georgian leadership fails to create a security zone in the area of the Russian-Georgian border, fails to prevent outrages and incursions". And just in case Georgia missed the point, he linked the campaign to the US war against terrorism, claiming the right to attack under UN Security Resolution 1373.
Georgia's President, Mr Eduard Shevardnadze, meeting in emergency session with his government, continues to play dumb, reciting official policy that no such bases exist. "What should I check? Check for what?" he asked. "I told you that the truth is on our side, we are absolutely honest." He cannot have been checking very hard. This correspondent is among many to have seen Chechen forces and their Middle-Eastern volunteers in Pankisi Gorge.
The fundamentalists are known as Wahhabists, who arrived, mostly from Saudi Arabia, at the start of the Chechen war, hoping to spread radical Islam throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Ironically, there are tensions between them and the hard-living, hard-drinking Chechen rebels, but the two continue to fight side by side, the Wahhabists commanded by a young Saudi, Khattab, known for his trademark long dark hair.
A Russian invasion could be days away. First, paratroopers will be helicoptered over the mountainous border to strategic points at both ends of the gorge. Then an armoured column will drive in along the single good road from Russia, cutting deep into Georgia before wheeling upwards to clear the gorge.
The US is expected to offer only mild complaints, and Mr Shevardnadze, after his own protests, will probably pull his ramshackle army south out of harm's way.
But for Moscow, the real problems will come afterwards: Georgia's push into the Pankisi two weeks ago has ensured that the rebels have dispersed. If Russian troops arrive now they will be stuck with a familiar problem - how to track down guerrillas adept at hiding in the countryside.
Cynics in Moscow think Mr Putin is well aware of this, and is less interested in invasion than in pinning his continuing problems in Chechnya on someone else - in this case, the Georgians.
It is all a question of timing. All this talk of invasion is a handy distraction from an unpleasant anniversary - the third year since Mr Putin first sent Russian troops into Chechnya in what was promised to be a short, successful operation.