There has been a lot of virtual ink spilled on the subject of the recent Russian incursion in Georgia, and the domestic political ramifications of same, but rarely so succinctly as this:
For years, the Bush foreign policy team has tilted heavily toward Georgia in its ongoing disputes with Russia, clearly leaving the impression (at least in the minds of Georgians) that the U.S. would come to Georgia's aid if the two nations clashed militarily. Bush told Georgia, during a 2005 visit, that "the path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone." Bush has sent American military advisors to build up the Georgian troops - who reportedly staged a joint exercise last month with 1,000 American soldiers. Bush has also urged bringing Georgia into NATO, a move long supported by McCain. The president has not been successful in fast-tracking membership, but here's the thing: Under the NATO treaty, members are required to defend other members. All for one and one for all. Which means that if Georgia was currently a member of NATO, we'd be warring militarily with Russia.It gets more complicated. Georgia has long been in conflict with two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia - both of which want independence, both of which are supported by Russia. Georgia has sought to quell the separatist movements in those regions, and apparently assumed that the U.S. would come to its aid in any showdown with Russia. McCain has also fed that impression; last April, he got on the phone with the president of Georgia and expressed his solidarity - after a briefing with top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, a neoconservative whose private lobbying firm signed a contract this spring to provide Georgia with strategic advice.
Obama, it must be noted, has also supported NATO membership for Georgia; however, in July he publicly urged Georgia not to launch any military attacks in the breakaway regions. But Georgia, apparently fortified with what it viewed to be sufficient American solidarity, overreached late last week and launched a military attack in South Ossetia. Which in turn triggered the massive Russian response. Which in turn triggered McCain's outrage about "Russian aggression," and his warning of "negative consequences" for Russia (all of which was echoed by Dick Cheney, who warned darkly, "Russian aggression must not go unanswered"). Then, on the radio yesterday, McCain took his statements up a notch, declaring: "I think it's very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old Russian empire." Then, at a fundraising lunch today, McCain (who now says he speaks daily with Georgia's president) warned again that the Russians are thirsting for empire, and said that he is dispatching two of his top campaign surrogates, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, off to Georgia.
Rhetorically, at the very least, a certain somebody needs to take a chill pill.
Dick Polman - Toughness and bellicosity Philidelphia Inquirer 13 Aug 08
I'll say. And those inclined toward a shallow 1938 Munich Agreement 'appeasement' analogy will gladly look no further than the relationship between politically Russian Ossetia and the ethnically German Sudetenland in the Czechoslavokia of 1938, framing Russia as the oppressor and hegemon. The Western 'allies,' incidentally, were in no position, in 1938, to make any belligerent opposition stick at the time, and their leaders knew it. A familiar situation perhaps to our current predicament as a consequence of our 'nation building' and alliance damaging exercises already under way. And the analogists would be wrong as well, Ossetians, a distinct ethnic and linguistic minority, are only slightly less dubious of Russian political suzerainty than Georgian. It's all about leverage.
The curious thing is that Ossetia is ethnically more Iranian than it is 'Russian,' Ossetia:
...is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians, Iranian people who speak the Ossetian language (an Eastern Iranian language, Indo-European group of languages). The Ossetian-speaking area south to the main Caucasus ridge is within the de jure borders of Georgia but is largely under the control of the Russian-backed de facto government of the unrecognized Republic of South Ossetia. The northern portion of the region consists of the republic of North Ossetia-Alania within the Russian Federation.Ossetia Wikipedia
Food for thought there, eh? And not least for the Russians, too. Sure, it may be condoned by their newly minted economic collaboration with Iran but it cuts both ways if things go pear-shaped with their Caspian relationships. Russia has meddled with Iran in the past at least as frequently as the British and their aspirations have changed less. We Americans have a disastrous tendency, as Polman notes, to see our foreign affairs in simplistic terms. We could cut the whole thing short with some creative diplomacy, as significantly in Tehran as Moscow and Tbilsi. The Republicans exacerbated the situation in Georgia vis a vis Russia and are now using it as leverage in their predictable, and clumsy, domestic political machinations. The reality is far more complex and requires a more nuanced response. Georgia has plenty to answer for here, notwithstanding the blatant power-play from Putin, and the South Ossetians have clearly made their own case for federation with Russia, if not yet for the autonomy they would obviously prefer. Putin may be a player but this is a move for which we have no immediate and obvious riposte. If the Republicans had not been such ideologues and broken our sword so precipitously perhaps we would be better placed to respond appropriately and effectively.
Personally I hope this belligerent Republican rhetoric scares American voters a little, more overtly promoted now by the McCain campaign than even the Bush administration was ever prepared to advance. It really should.
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