Georgia--Not Going as Planned? [Rich Lowry]

[darrels joy]

Georgia--Not Going as Planned? [Rich Lowry]


I just talked to a friend who is very plugged into this and is as shrewd and informed an observer on the European scene as you can find. He thinks it's going badly for the Russians and is not 1968 redux as they had hoped. The presidents of the Baltic states and Poland have flown to Tbilisi, providing a moral backstop for the Georgian government. And now the Bush administration is stepping up, with Bush's stern words today, with humanitarian aid going to Georgia that the Russians can't possibly oppose, and with Sec. Rice headed to Tbilisi. All this is serving to frustrate the ultimate Russian war aim of toppling Saakashvili, who is addressing enthusiastic crowds on the streets and taking the Russians to the Hague. He thinks the fact that it hasn't turned out the way the Russians expected accounts for the constant back-and-forth about whether they are stopping or not.

Also, my friend is not big on the Kosovo analogy, pointing out that Russia was meddling in South Ossetia long before Kosovor independence (the John O'Sullivan point that was discussed in here the other day); that the Russians have actively been stoking the conflict in South Ossetia in a way we weren't in Kosovo (prior to the Kosovo war, we wanted to smooth the dispute over, but failed); that we weren't particularly enthusiastic about independence for Kosovo, but accepted it as a fait accompli, because a people who are 90-something percent Kosovar Albanian and had been the victims of horrific acts of ethnic cleansing weren't as a practical matter going to go back to the status quo. Fwiw...
http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...WM2MjY1NDA4N2Y

[82Rigger]

All this is serving to frustrate the ultimate Russian war aim of toppling Saakashvili, who is addressing enthusiastic crowds on the streets and taking the Russians to the Hague. He thinks the fact that it hasn't turned out the way the Russians expected accounts for the constant back-and-forth about whether they are stopping or not.

Vladimir Putin is not Nikita Khrushchev.

From his history and past behavior, I do not believe for an instant that Vladimir Putin
is a man to be pushed, nor a man to be toyed with. His limits are very difficult to determine. A frustrated Vladimir Putin is NOT a positive circumstance, in my opinion.

As this crisis winds down, I sincerely hope that Western leaders will weigh their steps and their actions very carefully.

Definitely NOT the time for "left-brain" thinking.