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The U.S. green-light to Georgia?

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Looking at the war between Russia and Georgia, which reportedly is still ongoing, from a purely political perspective, John McCain is clearly looking to use the conflict to his advantage. He’s characterizing Obama’s position as “appeasement,” and using some strikingly caustic language towards Russia.

McCain is not, however, actually moving beyond bluster. The NYT noted this morning that McCain and Obama, verbal sparring notwithstanding, are largely “on the same page in dealing with the current crisis.” The Times reported, “Both said Russia had escalated the dispute beyond its catalyst, the conflict over South Ossetia; both said the United Nations Security Council should call for an end to the violence; both called for putting Georgia on a path toward membership in NATO; and both spoke of deploying an international peacekeeping force in the disputed areas that set off the fighting.”

With this in mind, there’s probably less of a story here about this war and the next U.S. president, but more of a story about this war and the current U.S. president.

The NYT ran a separate report on Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who many Georgians apparently consider “headstrong and reckless, endangering the country’s security by rashly ordering an attack on the Russian enclave of South Ossetia on the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and badly underestimating Russia’s determination to respond militarily.”

And why would Saakashvili “headstrong and reckless”? The WSJ noted this morning that President Bush “lionized Mr. Saakashvili as a model for democracy in the region to a point that the Georgian leader may have held unrealistic expectations about the amount of support he might receive from the U.S. and the West.”

That is, in all likelihood, understating the case by quite a bit.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan fleshed this point out very well.

Regardless of what happens next, it is worth asking what the Bush people were thinking when they egged on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s young, Western-educated president, to apply for NATO membership, send 2,000 of his troops to Iraq as a full-fledged U.S. ally, and receive tactical training and weapons from our military. Did they really think Putin would sit by and see another border state (and former province of the Russian empire) slip away to the West? If they thought that Putin might not, what did they plan to do about it, and how firmly did they warn Saakashvili not to get too brash or provoke an outburst?

It’s heartbreaking, but even more infuriating, to read so many Georgians quoted in the New York Times — officials, soldiers, and citizens — wondering when the United States is coming to their rescue. It’s infuriating because it’s clear that Bush did everything to encourage them to believe that he would. When Bush (properly) pushed for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, Putin warned that he would do the same for pro-Russian secessionists elsewhere, by which he could only have meant Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin had taken drastic steps in earlier disputes over those regions — for instance, embargoing all trade with Georgia — with an implicit threat that he could inflict far greater punishment. Yet Bush continued to entice Saakashvili with weapons, training, and talk of entry into NATO. Of course the Georgians believed that if they got into a firefight with Russia, the Americans would bail them out.

Hilzoy’s on the case as well.

Ask yourself this: would the Georgians not have given us any hint that they planned an assault on South Ossetia? I think that’s really unlikely. In any case, if they didn’t tip us off before getting into a shooting war with Russian troops (who were in South Ossetia as peacekeepers), that should, in my book, put paid to the idea of them as good potential allies.

If they did, what did we say in response? There are things we could have said that would have deterred any but the most completely suicidal Georgian leader. Saakashvili has been unbelievably reckless, but it would have been orders of magnitude more stupid to do what he did had we said, clearly and emphatically, not just that if he did this, he was on his own, but also that taking this step would seriously damage his relationship with us, and would put paid to his hopes of joining NATO in the foreseeable future.

Which is to say: we had a lot of leverage. It is hard to believe either that we didn’t know this was going to happen, or that we used our leverage to prevent it. And that is inexcusable. Thousands of people are dead, the freedom of action of Russia’s neighbors has been drastically reduced, and our own credibility, such as it was, has been badly damaged.

Again, just to preempt a predictable response: 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.

Like Digby, I think all of this sounds at least a little reminiscent of the Shia uprising against Saddam after the first Gulf War.

Comments

  • Lance

    says:

    I just want to beat my head on the keyboard.

    Didn’t Saddam start the Invasion of Kuwait because he thought we’d be okay about his annexing that country?

    Does anyone in the Bushite administration listen to the professionals at Foggy Bottom (that’s where the State Department is for those who have never lived near D.C.)?

    No, of course not. Neo-Cons know SO much better how to run a foreign policy.

  • Ernest Sedgwick

    says:

    Any one that belives the great bear has been declawed and rendered toothless lives in a fantasy world

  • Racer X

    says:

    I’m sure we’ll find out that Bush screwed yet another pooch, but we’ll only find out after a half a dozen years and then it’ll be “old news”.

    What I would like to see is a better picture of how American arms merchants have played into this fiasco.

  • OkieFromMuskogee

    says:

    Lance – good point. And after the first Gulf war, Bush I left the Kurdish uprising against Saddam to twist in the wind.

    If Georgia relied on winks and assurances from a Bush, they aren’t very observant.

    Where is the American Secretary of State?

  • Steve

    says:

    Well what did you expect? It is said that “The Apple never falls far from the Tree”—and I’m quite certain that I’m not the only one around to remember the US encouraging the Kurds to rise up against Saddam in ’91. Tell me again—who was president when that little FUBAR-infested mistake happened?

    Rule Number One—never truth “political shrubbery….”

  • ET

    says:

    Sadly the Georgia president and many Georgian’s actually believed Bush and Bush administration officials. What they failed to understand is that this administration likes to talk a good game, but they had serious lack of understanding of the region and its issues as well as basic unconcern (yeah and Condi with her Sovietology seems to be doing a bang up job directing US foreign policy in a part of the world she might actually understand a bit).

    Same song different note with this administration – when will people get it.

    If McCain wins this will happen over and over and over again like a record with a scratch on it where the same bit of a song repeats until someone stops it. (all you young one who don’t understand this because you don’t know what a record is will have to look it up and figure it out).

  • Greg Worley

    says:

    Hungary 1958, Vietnam 1969 – 1973, Lebanon 1980’s, Kuwait 1991, Al Qaeda, Iraq, Afghanistan. Will Obama use this mess in Georgia to establish once and for all that NO, the Republicans are not the party of national security? Especially not with the comic book superhero mentality that McCain exhibits.

  • True Dem

    says:

    Where is the American Secretary of State?
    ************************

    Who? KindaSleezy? Shoe shopping, no doubt.

    “In January 26, 2005…she stated at her confirmation hearing, “we must use American diplomacy to help create a balance of power in the world that favors freedom. And the time for diplomacy is now.”

    Yah, right! Black is white, up is down, war is peace, Healthy Forests means chopping down and killing more trees, Clear Skies means rolling back the provisions of the Clean Air Act. These guys are total f**kheads, to the Nth degree. Liars and cheaters. Greedy, oil-soaked, neo-pigs, every damn one of them! What a blessing to the world when they are thrown from office and tried for their abuses to humanity, the Constitution, and to common decency. What a disgrace to this wonderful country.

  • Ohioan

    says:

    “[McCain top National Security advisor] Randy Scheunemann is a registered representative of the Government of Georgia in the United States. Accordingly, Mr. Scheunemann has developed a very close relationship with President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili and many senior Georgian officials. The WSE team has also begun negotiating possible deals with the Georgian state-run oil company, National Oil Company of Georgia, to assist in the development of Georgia’s hydrocarbon industry.”

    – http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/07/mccains-senior.html

    Drill here, drill now!

  • Goldilocks

    says:

    Yes, I remember the infantile grinning jackass on his gleefully hectoring visit to Georgia not so long ago. Of course, it’s him stirring up trouble wherever he lands his big flat feet. Disgusting creep. Scourge of our world. He should be prosecuted.

  • JoeW

    says:

    What’s unbelievable to me is that while the situation was unraveling in Georgia, our little boy George saw no need to curtail his frolicking with the American Women’s Olympic volleyball team, and our Secretary of State saw no need to cut short her vacation. If they don’t like the work, why don’t they do the world a huge favor and step down now?

  • Opressmenot

    says:

    Goldilocks said: Of course, it’s him stirring up trouble wherever he lands his big flat feet. Disgusting creep. Scourge of our world. He should be prosecuted.
    *****************************

    For….?

  • JS

    says:

    I think the Bush/McCain fingers are in this pie, they egged the pres of Georgia on, they sent advisers or troops, they promised support, then they were beaten by Putin & his successor, who were never going to let this go without a big show of force, I think the people there are now suffering as a result of our bungling – McCain and his lobbyists are in the thick of this!

  • www.buzzflash.net

    says:

    The U.S. green-light to Georgia?…

    It’s heartbreaking, but even more infuriating, to read so many Georgians quoted in the New York Times — officials, soldiers, and citizens — wondering when the United States is coming to their rescue. It’s infuriating because it’s clear that B…

  • Frak

    says:

    Re: #13.
    Let’s start with deliberately lying the country into war (i.e. treason). We have plenty of time to get to incompetence and other more debateable issues.

  • Patrick

    says:

    It seems like a McCain lobbiest has ties to everything that has been going on in the world lately. How about a new list detailing which McCain lobbiest has ties to which national or international scandal.

    Randy Scheuneman – Georgian-Russian War
    Rick Davis – The DHL plant closing in Ohio, costing 8,000 American jobs
    Randy Scheuneman – Representing Myanmar junta, who wouldn’t allow help for cyclone victims
    Feel free to add to the list.

    Don’t forget that Scheuneman was a founding director of the Project For A New American Century.

  • Lance

    says:

    Goldilocks said: “Yes, I remember the infantile grinning jackass on his gleefully hectoring visit to Georgia not so long ago. Of course, it’s him stirring up trouble wherever he lands his big flat feet. Disgusting creep. Scourge of our world. He should be prosecuted.”

    Before January you’d better impeach Cheney first.

    After January, I say we just demand the Bushite war criminals all surrender their passports because America doesn’t want to get into an international incident with another country that arrests them (BGII, Cheney, Rice, Yoo, Gonzoles, etc.) travelling overseas. Boy George II may be planning on spending his time at Crawford between lucrative speaking engagements, but I’ll bet you taking his passport away will irk the pathetic frat boy.

    And how can he complain? After all, he didn’t want to join the International Criminal Court and the Rethug Congress passed a law saying we’d attack our NATO allies if they prosecuted an American Serviceman at Den Hage.

  • Alex Kazarez

    says:

    Georgian government’s appeals are not to be trusted.
    Media coverage of this situation is not to be trusted.
    White House adresses on the subject are not to be trusted.
    Keep a cool head over their rhetoric, study the facts,
    learn the proper chronology, filter out inconsistencies,
    weed out the outright demagogy and propaganda,
    listen to the reports from eyewitnesses, watch the actual footage of the Georgian attack on Tskhinval
    that left thousands of innocent civilians dead, and their town and villages leveled,
    find out what the officials are not saying.
    I did just that and now support Russia as the only party
    in the region truly interested in delivering security and peace to the South Ossetians.

  • doubtful

    says:

    The fact that Randy Scheuneman, a lobbiest for Georgia, is one of McCain’s top advisers makes this whole situation smell like a setup. If McCain and Bush thought this war would benefit the Republicans and McCain especially, I’m sure they pushed all the right buttons to get it started.

  • Tom Cleaver

    says:

    Unfortunately, this is not just a Republican problem. I’ll remind everyone that it was JFK who got us into the swamp in Vietnam due to lack of underswtanding of what was really going on. (Yes, Eisenhower had us standing on the edge of the swamp, but that’s not the same thing and I doubt he would have proceeded further, even if he had kept the insane John foster Dulles as Sec State), and Johnson who made it worse. The idiot who messed us up in Iran was Carter (inthe end, after 40 years of moron stupidity from failing to understand anything about that country), and the fool who mucked around and screwed up royally in the Balkans (due to lack of knowledge of what was really what) was Clinton.

    The fact is, Americans – even in the upper ranks – know very little about the rest of the world (80% of us never visit another country and 50% never get out of the state they were born in). Due to our history as a nation of immigrants who wanted to forget the history they were running away from, we are very ahistorical. Couple that with the national fascination with anti-intellectualism (both parties), and we tend (as you can see in comments here) to think the rest of the world are just folks who want to be like us, or would if they knew better.

    The fact is, we have a bipartisan history of screwing up due to lack of understanding of what is really going on

    Thus, we listen to a guy like Saakashvili, without any knowledge of where he comes from before he got his American education and ability to speak English without a heavy accent, and the result is this cock-up. The history of that part of the world – a history that is as alive to the people who live there as is the history of who won and who lost a battle in Iraq 1,000 years ago among the Sunni and Shia, as is the history of who fought a 1,000 year war against China was and is in Vietnam – is incredibly complicated. The Abkhazians and Ossetians have good reason to dislike the Georgians going back more than 1,000 years. Americans have no clue how you deal with things like that, as we have shown in nearly every foreign problem we have made worse for our involvement in the past 60 years..

    Unfortunately, when one looks at who’s in charge of Obama’s “Gang of 300,” there’s a real likelihood of Obama being another JFK on foreign policy, which is not necessarily a Good Thing. His desire to run us into the swamp of Afghanistan – which has defeated everyone from Alexander the Great on – is a perfect example of how “American exceptionalism” (the rules don’t apply to us) is a disease that is not limited to Republicans or neocons.

    His talk yesterday of “fast tracking” Georgia’s entry into NATO is completely idiotic and the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a fire – and evidence of the influence of the 300 professional fools as well as his own lack of understanding of foreign affairs. In fact, this is the part of his campaign that worries me the most about his presidency. McCain will leap without looking, and Obama might just trip after looking – with both ending up in the same damn place.

    This business in Georgia might be a good place for us to contemplate that Pogo was right when he said “We have met the enemy and they are us.”

  • doubtful

    says:

    Oh, and again, I’m disappointed with Obama. On this issue it looks like he’s still afraid of being called soft. He should be calling Georgia to the mat for their reckless acts and McCain for his obviously bias approach.

    But instead he bunts.

  • Lance

    says:

    Alex Kazarez said: “I did just that and now support Russia as the only party
    in the region truly interested in delivering security and peace to the South Ossetians.”

    Wow, a KGB troll.

    The only problem with this ‘timeline’ is you only go back to the Georgian attempt to reassert control of territory in their own country. You kind of ignore the fact that the Kremlin has been promoting seperatist movements all along their borders while at the same time committing war crimes against populations in republics and regionis with seperatist movements within the Russian Federation.

    If you are going to decide to ignore internationally recognized borders and start to support self-determination, you are going to lose as much as you gain.

    And has anyone asked the North Ossetians if they’d like to be independent? Maybe Russia should move out of all it’s peripheral territories for ten years and then let them plebisite to see if they want back in.

  • sniflheim

    says:

    both called for putting Georgia on a path toward membership in NATO

    … and as some sane people have pointed out this is nuts, nuts, nuts.

    Do you think this current situation should have meant us at war with Russia? If not, then please STFU. Obama may just be taking the establishment line, as BooMan suggested, but it’s a collision course and he must just not care as long as he gets to drive. That or he’s deeply dishonest. I have to hope he is.

  • Chad

    says:

    I found this on Neil Boortz’s site this morning and thought it was interestingly true.:

    Russia is invading Georgia. Some think that what we’re seeing is Vladimir Putin’s move to make Russia the dominant world power … militarily, if need be. Who do you want running the show in Washington? Do you want a man who’s previous experience is generally limited to being a community “activist” in Chicago and 143 actual days of work in the U.S. Senate … or a man with the experience and determination of one John McCain. An appeaser wannabe or a proven fighter?

    Use wisely your power of choice.

    This is one of the many reasons not to vote for Obama. We live in a powder-keg world now and no amount of talking without preconditions is going to change rivalries that have been waged since before we were even a country.

  • Always hopeful

    says:

    I think I would rather have an “inexperienced” yet intelligent (and calm), man in office than a neocon imperialist with experience when the world is this volatile.

  • Megalomania

    says:

    The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the World Bank provided credit guarantees for the building of the BTC pipeline. So, here America not only gives the these departments that our politicians control we give BP money too.

    In both cases your tax money and mine are building the Pipeline in Georgia the Russians are bombing it. Sheesh.

    Not cool huh…so here the Russians are choking our economy but if one looks at the propose pipeline it also chokes a mainline to middle Europe. not cool again.

    Talk about about a screwed up situtation, also there are two operational pipelines that appear to be running through Georgia. So, you think something might be happening with that??

    Actuall, for me, thinking about any or all treaties that have been made with the Democracy of Georgia which Americans may not know about, this action of Russia is or could be considered an act of wide open war.

    Could be we have been caught with our shorts down ass blowing in the wind in Iraq and all the the complicit media is keeping McCain and Bush under the radar for not commiting to negotions in a flate out open world wide war. Dump this whole thing on the Democrats and Obama.

    Yikes, Nostrovya”. “Thank you. Cheers.”

  • JWK

    says:

    I can’t wrap my brain around how impossibly senseless this all is. If Bush and Co. were encouraging confrontation, then it is the height of stupidity. Not only for those of us who prefer diplomacy, but for the hawkish military types as well. Does Bush think that people of Poland and the Czech Republic will now be MORE inclined to allow missile defense systems in their country? How about Bush’s agenda to bring Ukraine into NATO? I for one favor Ukraine joining the EU, but that seems really unlikely now in the short term.

  • 2Manchu

    says:

    “An appeaser wannabe or a proven fighter? ”

    So what exactly would a “fighter” do in this situation?

  • Rob

    says:

    Always Hopeful, you say Obama is calm….but do you really “know” that?? I dont think any American not knowing Obama personaly can say who he is. But, I know the man was raised Muslim and all Muslims are calm, even when they are acting in terroristic ways…..This scares the crap out of me to know we (a country founded on christianity with the right to practice ur on religion) would allow a man that was raised under the one religion that is know to participate in terroristic activities. I for one will certainly not support this man, alkaeda said they will tear America apart from the inside….my fellow Americans, please stop and really think before you put that man in office. Remember that alkaeda plans these things years and years in advance.

  • Chad

    says:

    2Mnachu, you ask what exactly a ‘fighter’ would do? Let me answer that with another question: What exactly would a junior senator with 143 days working on the floor of the senate do?

  • Lance

    says:

    Rob said: “But, I know the man was raised Muslim.”

    Actually, you know nothing of the sort, because that is simply not true. He was raised as a Christian by his mother and his maternal grandparents. He formally joined a Christian church as an adult. Believing lies doesn’t make them true.

    And for God’s sake, learn to spell (“our own religion”).

    And it is spelled ‘al Qaeda’ and the organization has existed for less time then Obama has been an active Christian, so I hardly think he’s a mole for them.

    Now John Sidney being a Manchurian Candidate, that is possible.

  • Lance

    says:

    Chad said: “What exactly would a junior senator with 143 days working on the floor of the senate do?”

    Probably exactly what he can do, talk.

    We have a President right now. Dealing with Russia is Boy George II’s job. Once we elect Obama, then it will be his.

  • Crissa

    says:

    The North Ossetians [i]are[/i] independent; except in the military sense. No tanks have ever rolled in to stop their voting. They have their own government and laws locally.

    The South Ossetian majority seemed to want the same.

    And so it has been for 16 years. How’s that for ‘reasserting control’?

  • Maria

    says:

    I think we should not underestimate the implicit, if not the direct , influence of McCain and Randy Scheunemann in Georgia’s rash decision to enter South Ossetia. Any views?

  • Oppressmenot

    says:

    I think I would rather have an “inexperienced” yet intelligent (and calm), man in office than a neocon imperialist with experience when the world is this volatile.
    *************************

    AMEN Brother, (or Sister). Let’s not forget also that John McCentury in Iraq is a neocon imperialist who doesn’t know the difference b/t Sunni and Shia (unless Joe Traitorman is whispering sweet nothings into his ear), doesn’t know the Czechoslovakia has been non-existent for for 15 years, thinks that Al-qaeda and Iran are great friends, can’t make up his mind on ANY issue, votes against his own legislation (
    “…his own immigration plan, the Law of the Sea convention he championed, the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school, In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he now opposes the measure he’d backed. McCain used to support major campaign-finance reform measures that bore his name. In June 2007 2006, McCain announced his opposition to a major McCain-Feingold provision…”

    He is a senile, “wrinkly old guy” who still has the psychological maturity of a high school bully. Punch them in the face first, ask questions later. Just what we DO NOT need anymore in a president.

    I’ll take a mature, intelligent, clear-thinking, diplomatic, charismatic, well-adjusted leader like Obama any day of the week.