Tag: Georgia (Country)

Ross on Georgia:

There are also places where American policymakers have to choose: They can try to forge major-power cooperation against the threat of terrorism joined to WMD, or they can try to unite a democratic bloc to oppose the interests of the Chinese and the Russians. And to my mind, the Russian Near Abroad, whether in the Caucuses or Central Asia, is a place where conservatives would be better served making the War on Terror our lodestar; the alternative has the potential to leave America’s national interest hostage to the territorial ambitions of the government in Tbilisi, which is not a position in which a superpower ought to lightly place itself.

A key point: Russia is not exporting a totalitarian ideology; it is flexing its military power in its backyard, as it has always done and always will. Since Cheney has exactly the same view about the use of American military power as Putin does about Russian power, I’m not sure what grounds he has to complain. Maybe we should start complaining when as many Georgians have perished as Iraqis – and when Putin throws thousands of innocent Georgians into torture chambers.

A great piece by Fred Kaplan in Slate recalls of all the reckless assurances that Bush had already given the Georgians, as if saying something makes it true:

If the Europeans had let Bush have his way, we would now be obligated by treaty to send troops in Georgia’s defense. That is to say, we would now be in a shooting war with the Russians. Those who might oppose entering such a war would be accused of "weakening our credibility" and "destroying the unity of the Western alliance."

And the over-reach is still going on:

The sad truth is that—in part because the Cold War is over, in part because skyrocketing oil prices have engorged the Russians’ coffers—we have very little leverage over what the Russians do, at least in what they see as their own security sphere. And our top officials only announce this fact loud and clear when they issue ultimatums that go ignored without consequences.

My only fear at this point is that by pointing this out, we may goad the Bushies and neocons into finding some kind of military escalation that would bring in the US. The US has no rational basis to be as committed to Georgia as Russia is; and has very little moral standing to protest an invasion of a sovereign country.

Scott Horton saw it coming.

Dick Morris agrees with Kristol about aiding Georgia in its war with Russia. Does anyone miss the Soviet Union like neocons?

Hilzoy fumes over the Bush administration reportedly giving "tacit support for a Georgian assault":

I am not saying it’s all our fault. Russia and Georgia are independent actors, and their leaders are responsible for their decisions. But we are also responsible for ours, and if we knowingly encouraged, or even green-lighted, Saakashvili’s actions, that is, to my mind, a piece of idiocy on a par with encouraging the Iraqi Shi’a to revolt after the Gulf War. We should not create expectations we are not prepared to meet.

On foreign policy, you get statements like this from spokesman Tucker Bounds:

The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn’t merely raise questions about Senator Obama’s judgment–it answers them.

Do we really want another president who reduces complex foreign affairs to this kind of schoolyard rhetoric? How’s this for an almost comic summation of all that was wrong with Bush’s foreign policy – and that McCain pledges to put on steroids:

It’s this campaign’s position that every American has a "vested interest" in the welfare of the Republic of Georgia, a key regional ally and a member of our Coalition in Iraq.

No sense of proportion, just knee-jerk confrontation from a position of powerlessness. Then the obligatory McCarthyite swerve:

Shouldn’t it be of far greater concern to Americans that the Obama campaign is pushing an attack that is "mirrored" by PR firms flaking for Putin’s Kremlin?

Re-elect Cheney. Vote McCain.

Ah, yes, Kristol and Kagan just haul out ancient columns from the 1970s that merely need the actual names of actual countries plugged in. But what are we to do now that Russia has stomped on uppity Georgia? Hewitt threatens "blunt condemnation of the Russians". Washington Times: "maximum pressure." Bob Kagan: nada, so far as I can tell in his WaPo piece. Kristol:

Is it not true today, as it was in the 1920s and ’30s, that delay and irresolution on the part of the democracies simply invite future threats and graver dangers?

What are we delaying exactly? A war against Russia? An invasion of Georgia? Nah:

Shouldn’t we therefore now insist that normal relations with Russia are impossible as long as the aggression continues, strongly reiterate our commitment to the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine, and offer emergency military aid to Georgia?

Emergency military aid to Georgia? You mean actually arming one side of another war? Then this:

The United States, of course, is not without resources and allies to deal with these problems and threats.

Still true, even after the wreckage of the last seven years. But not for much longer if we keep following the neocon advice.