Mayoral Election Helps Georgian President - NYTimes.com

Mayoral Election Helps Georgian President - NYTimes.com: "With 95 percent of precincts tallied on Monday evening, Tbilisi’s incumbent mayor, Gigi Ugulava, a close ally of the president’s, had won about 55 percent of the vote. One of Mr. Saakashvili’s prominent critics, Irakli Alasania, trailed with around 20 percent, according to the Central Election Commission."

Krugman -- What's the Matter With Georgia?

(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel

I always get tricked with a headline mentioning "Georgia." Ever since we visited Genny in Tbilisi.

Click on title above.

Tbilisi!

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/travel/10next.html?pagewanted=1&hpw

Comments on Kristof Article

Thursday, November 20, 2008
readers' comments
Obama, Misha and the BearBack to Article »
President-elect Barack Obama needs a new approach to Russia if we want to avoid a new cold war, and we also need to get over our crush on Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
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1.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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Kristof, thanks for telling the truth. The last thing NATO needs is Georgia, and both campaigns (especially McCain's) hid the truth behind simplistic anti-Russian rhetoric.
— Jeff, Oakland, CA
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2.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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If the US abandons Georgia everybody, friend and foe alike, will know that the US is a treacherous ally and a harmless enemy. The US should not cow in the face of Russian aggression, but contain it and wait till the bluff becomes apparent. That's what Reagan did with the IRBM saga and that's how the US won the Cold War. Then and now Russia's strategic goal is to peel off countries from the Atlantic alliance. If the US validates Russia's bullying they will achieve them.
— keyah, Madrid, Spain
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3.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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I agree that the US shouldn't allow Georgia in NATO. We have to deal with the realities as they are, thanks to Pres. Bush.Because of the invasion of Iraq, Putin feels emboldened to invade any country where he considers he is justified, whether it's Chechnya or Georgia. And he doesn't fear us.Secondly, the price of oil has soared in the last six years in part because of the invasion upset the balance of power in the region and caused so much instability. This has strengthened Putin's hand tremendously (to say nothing of Chavez and Ahmadinejad, the other winners of the Iraq War)So, what should Obama do? Tread lightly and speak clearly, but with authority. Yet, it's no time for America to flex its muscles. We need to rebuild our credibility, repair our relationships, and choose our battles wisely. It's going to take a while.
— Adam Hohenberg, Memphis, TN
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4.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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I think it should also be pointed out again, that while John McCain was fulminating about going to war to defend Georgia ("We're all Georgians")Condoleesa Rice engaged in some "shuttle diplomacy" to try to resolve the crisis. She talked to NATO, she talked to Georgia, she visited everyone involved EXCEPT RUSSIA! This kind of arrogance and cold-war thinking in US foreign policy is a large part of the reason Russia feels angry and threatened. Hopefully the new administration will negotiate with Russians in an atmosphere of mutual respect and desire to preserve the peace. Saakashvili is a self-serving little dictator attempting to protect himself with American and NATO power.
— Jim Doyle, Honolulu
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5.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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Thank you, Mr. Kristof, for your cautionary observations. As tempting as it is to make the August war an example of Russia bullying a weaker neighbor, the real situation seems to make candidate Obama's initial comment, that there was blame on both sides, all the more rational.
— Lee Dittmann, Kingman, AZ
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6.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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What is certain is that Misha played Putin's hand. The Russians started concentrate troops and hardware, in Abkhasia, at least in two months before the war. Russian media reported about heavy military traffic on the highway between Sochi and Sukhumi.Even if Misha didn't lost the nerve the Russians would have moved. Seventy years ago a man of mine acquintance, one Mr. Ivanov, commanded Fire to his battery, firing onto the Soviet territory; thus began the Soviet-Finland war, in 1939. Does anyone believe that there is an unlimited stock of honor in Mr. Putin and his gang? As to NATO for the Georgians now it will be one more invitation to Mr. Putin to swallow Georgia, with impunity. It's enough to look at NATO, minus the US, perfomance in the Balkans and Afganistan, to understand that NATO cannot and will not save the Georgians. So for the time being Misha better sits tight.
— Felix, Mountain View
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7.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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Well, Saakashvili is certainly a genius and a democrat- attacking a civilian enclave with the certainty of Russian response- and presumably the prayer of American intervention? You know, since our army isn't too busy lately. Has anyone looked into the obvious question of US assurances/ prodding with hopes of influencing an upcoming election? I mean, we keep being told what great friends McCain and his people were with Saakashvili...
— Sev, Pomona, NY
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8.
November 20, 2008 6:16 am
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A flat tax, which is a tax that falls most heavily on those least able to pay, is, in fact, morally corrupt in itself.Any country that uses such a tax is unworthy of any kind of suppot from the United States.
— marik7, wailiku, hi
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1 - 8 of 8

Kristof -- Obama and Georgia

Although this piece does not discuss this, appointing Hillary Secretary of State raises the possibility that we will still pursue the disasterous policy of trying to get Georgia into NATO.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/opinion/20kristof.html?_r=1

Georgia

Haven't had Georgia On My Mind for awhile.


Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question

new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html

By C. J. CHIVERS and ELLEN BARRY
Published: November 6, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
Blog: Analysis of the Regional Tensions
More Topics: South Ossetia Abkhazia
Related
Georgia Fired More Cluster Bombs Than Thought, Killing Civilians, Report Finds (November 6, 2008)
Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.
The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has characterized the attack as a precise and defensive act. But according to observations of the monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.
Senior Georgian officials contest these accounts, and have urged Western governments to discount them. “That information, I don’t know what it is and how it is confirmed,” said Giga Bokeria, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister. “There is such an amount of evidence of continuous attacks on Georgian-controlled villages and so much evidence of Russian military buildup, it doesn’t change in any case the general picture of events.”
He added: “Who was counting those explosions? It sounds a bit peculiar.”
The Kremlin has embraced the monitors’ observations, which, according to a written statement from Grigory Karasin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, reflect “the actual course of events prior to Georgia’s aggression.” He added that the accounts “refute” allegations by Tbilisi of bombardments that he called mythical.
The monitors were members of an international team working under the mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or O.S.C.E. A multilateral organization with 56 member states, the group has monitored the conflict since a previous cease-fire agreement in the 1990s.
The observations by the monitors, including a Finnish major, a Belorussian airborne captain and a Polish civilian, have been the subject of two confidential briefings to diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, one in August and the other in October. Summaries were shared with The New York Times by people in attendance at both.
Details were then confirmed by three Western diplomats and a Russian, and were not disputed by the O.S.C.E.’s mission in Tbilisi, which was provided with a written summary of the observations.
Mr. Saakashvili, who has compared Russia’s incursion into Georgia to the Nazi annexations in Europe in 1938 and the Soviet suppression of Prague in 1968, faces domestic unease with his leadership and skepticism about his judgment from Western governments.
The brief war was a disaster for Georgia. The attack backfired. Georgia’s army was humiliated as Russian forces overwhelmed its brigades, seized and looted their bases, captured their equipment and roamed the country’s roads at will. Villages that Georgia vowed to save were ransacked and cleared of their populations by irregular Ossetian, Chechen and Cossack forces, and several were burned to the ground.
Massing of Weapons
According to the monitors, an O.S.C.E. patrol at 3 p.m. on Aug. 7 saw large numbers of Georgian artillery and grad rocket launchers massing on roads north of Gori, just south of the enclave.
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C.J. Chivers reported from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Olesya Vartanyan contributed reporting from Tbilisi, and Matt Siegel from Tskhinvali, Georgia.

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Tbilisi and Gori and Dzhugashvili, Errr...Stalin

A good article, bringing Georgia and Stalin and Gori into focus.

Even After a War With Russia, Many Georgians Revere Stalin

Justyna Mielnikiewicz for The New York Times
Jamil Ziyadaliev, a Stalin impersonator in Georgia, with his wife, Fakizar. He says his resemblance to the most famous Georgian gets him many free meals.
writePost();
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/europe/01stalin.html

By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: September 30, 2008
GORI, Georgia — With his signature mustache, medal-encrusted Soviet marshal’s uniform and determination to be addressed as “Comrade,” the Stalin impersonator Jamil Ziyadaliev should perhaps be out of work in Georgia, a country still reeling from a war with Russia.
Justyna Mielnikiewicz for The New York Times
But Mr. Ziyadaliev, 64, an avuncular father of two who dresses as Stalin even on days off, insists that business has seldom been better. He is a frequent hired guest at weddings, where he dances to Soviet Katyusha music from World War II.
The benefits of looking eerily like the former dictator, he boasts, include free meals, free car repairs — and free passage through Russian checkpoints.
“Looking like Stalin is like having a visa in Georgia,” said Mr. Ziyadaliev, a Muslim originally from Azerbaijan, who drove a taxi, peddled vegetables and worked as an accountant before deciding on a career as a modern incarnation of the brutal, diabolically brilliant Soviet tyrant.
“All Georgians respect Stalin, because he was a great leader who created a great empire — and of course, he was the most famous Georgian who ever lived,” Mr. Ziyadaliev said.
Not everyone agrees. Nika Jabanashvili, a Georgian construction worker whose grandparents were deported by Stalin from Tbilisi to Central Asia as part of his repression of ethnic minorities, views Stalin as little more than a murderer.
“Stalin was a Satan,” he said. “He killed more people than Pharaoh. I don’t care if he was Georgian. He was a bad man.”
Whatever the range of opinions, an enduring cult of Stalin persists in this small but proud nation of 4.6 million, where the Georgian-cobbler’s-son-turned-20th-century-titan remains a towering if contentious figure. A recent survey on Tbilisi Forum, a popular political Web site, asked whether people were proud that Stalin was Georgian; a vocal minority of 37 percent of the several hundred respondents said yes, while 52 percent said no and 11 percent said they did not care.
Vakhtang Guruli, a historian of Georgia who works in the K.G.B. archives in Tbilisi, said that most Georgians regarded Stalin as “higher than man, more than human and less than God.”
He said contemporary Georgian history books still lauded Stalin for vanquishing Hitler’s fascism and transforming the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower, even as they criticized him for engineering the Red Army invasion that ended Georgia’s short-lived independence in 1921.
Stalin’s lust for power, Mr. Guruli added, was a decidedly Georgian characteristic, the outgrowth of having an outsize ego in a tiny, macho country long consumed by banditry.
“Russians tend to forget that Stalin had a Georgian last name, Dzhugashvili, which was overshadowed when he adopted the nom de guerre of Stalin, meaning man of steel, when he was in his 30s,” Mr. Guruli said. “But every Georgian knows Stalin came from here. He may have given his execution orders in Russian, but he did so with a heavy Georgian accent” — a lineage, Mr. Guruli said, that Khrushchev seized on after he denounced Stalin’s rule in 1956, mocking him and his henchmen as uncouth Georgian peasants.
Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of “Young Stalin,” which chronicles Stalin’s violent upbringing as an aspiring priest who became a Marxist revolutionary in Tbilisi, said that even when Stalin became the supreme Soviet leader, he retained a deep attachment to Georgia.
He wrote frequently to his mother here, vacationed in Abkhazian sea resorts and retained an abiding love of Georgian wine, food, poetry and folk music.
“There are two Stalins: the Russian Stalin and the Georgian Stalin,” Mr. Sebag Montefiore said. “In the Georgian version, Stalin is still the street Marxist, the Georgian boy from Gori. In the Russian version, Stalin is the most important leader of the 20th century and his Georgian identity has been laundered and Russified.”
Liana Imanidze, 71, whose grand home in Tbilisi has a sculpture of Stalin in the backyard and is decorated inside with a replica of his death mask perched on a pedestal, lamented that younger Georgians were ignorant about Stalin, including her own grandchildren, who she complained were more interested in Paris Hilton than in World War II.
She regretted that her Stalin-worshiping husband was “more in love with Stalin than with me,” but she nevertheless lauded Stalin as a flawed genius.
Sociologists here said the residual appeal resulted from the lack of historical reckoning about Stalin’s darker deeds after Georgia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
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Hat Trick for NYT Today -- The Third Goal Being Roger Cohen on Georgia-Russia

Op-Ed Columnist
NATO’s Disastrous Georgian Fudge
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/opinion/01cohen.html
By ROGER COHEN
Published: September 1, 2008
DENVER
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Roger Cohen
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In retrospect the NATO summit declaration of April 3 about Georgia and Ukraine seems almost criminal in its irresponsibility: “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”
That lofty commitment emerged from a Bucharest meeting so split over the two countries’ aspirations to enter the Atlantic alliance that it could not even agree to offer the first step toward joining, the Membership Action Plan that prepares nations for NATO.
It is unconscionable to declare objectives for which the means do not exist, and to paper over European-American division through statements of ringing but empty principle. The history of the so-called “safe areas” in Bosnia, Srebrenica among them, is sufficient testimony to the bloodshed lurking in loose commitments.
The great Bucharest fudge succeeded only in infuriating the Russians without providing the deterrence value of concrete steps for Georgia and Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, then Russian president and now prime minister, made Moscow’s fury plain to President Bush afterward in Sochi, but Bush, no surprise, was asleep at the wheel.
Blood has since been shed, Georgia’s borders trampled, and its breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia recognized by Russia resurgent.
That’s a cautionary tale for Monday’s European Union summit on the Georgian crisis: no empty commitments, please, and no feel-good doling-out of threats or sanctions against Russia for which the will and means are lacking. Grandstanding has had its day.
I’m appalled by what Russia has wrought in Georgia. The gulag and the enslavement of wide swaths of Europe by the Soviet empire burden Moscow with a historical responsibility for the freedom of its neighbors. Viktor Yuschenko, the Ukrainian president, put these neighbors’ fears bluntly: “What has happened is a threat to everyone.”
It is, but Putin, or at least Putin II, the angry man of the second half of his rule, thinks all that’s bunk.
In 2005, the ex-K.G.B. man, his veneer of St. Petersburg liberalism already buried, called the demise of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. So perhaps we should not be surprised by the Georgian grab. Yet shock is palpable in Europe and the United States.
At the Democratic national convention here, a Georgian delegation wandered around garnering sympathy. Public relations are a weak state’s best 21st-century weapon.
David Bakradze, the chairman of the Georgian Parliament, told me: “Russia’s aim is to weaken Georgia to the point that NATO allies are scared, instability brings regime change, and the map of Europe is changed by military force.”
I can’t argue with that and I don’t like it any more than Bakradze. But before we get to what to do about it, a few points of history bear examination.
No, the West was not wrong to extend NATO to the former vassal states of the Soviet empire in central Europe and the Baltic. The debt incurred at Yalta and the indivisibility of a free Europe demanded no less.
Could more have been done to bring Russia into this new European “architecture?” I think not. Ron Asmus, who dealt with these questions as a senior Clinton administration State Department official, told me “It’s become a Weimar-like legend that we humiliated them.”
Hundreds of man hours and countless trips went into nudging the Russians westward. The NATO-Russia Council was established; cooperation on nuclear weapons disarmament and non-proliferation was put in place. Boris Yeltsin tried to break Russia’s imperial tradition; Putin did not immediately reverse that course.
The full story of what turned Putin cannot yet be written. Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” of 2003 and Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” of 2004 were critical. Iraq played a part. I’m sure the huge amounts of money accruing to the managers, Putin chief among them, of a controlled one-pipeline Russian state did, too. And here we are.
Russia will pay a price for what it’s done. It’s angered China, opened a Pandora’s box for a state with its own breakaway candidates, and lost its international law card.
Rather than a new cold war, we’re in a new broad war with several players, headed by China, and Putin’s Russia has placed short-term gain before long-term interests.
So the West should not overplay its hand. Breaking off arms reduction and missile defense talks with Russia is in nobody’s interest. Nor are cheap shots like throwing Russia out of an (ever less relevant) G-8.
But nor can the West be cowed. It must shore up the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, with financial and other support. It must keep the trans-Caspian, Russia-circumventing energy corridor open. It must bolster Ukraine’s independence. And, at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in December, it should replace Bucharest blather with basics: a Membership Action Plan for Georgia and Ukraine.
Resolve tempered by engagement won the cold war. It can help in the broad war.

Kids Trapped in Georgia

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 21, 2008
Filed at 5:11 a.m. ET
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A New Jersey congressman met with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in hopes of arranging safe passage for two young girls stuck there, even as the girls' family worried over Russian troops only miles away.
Reached on the phone in Georgia, Rep. Chris Smith said Wednesday he was meeting with anyone he could -- Georgian officials, U.S. officials, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and contacts in the Russian parliament he knows through his work on refugee issues.
''This could break open any second,'' Smith said. ''We're trying every tool. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with diplomats and others. I keep stressing to the Russians that there are American children who are trapped.''
Smith has been trying to get the Russians to open up a humanitarian corridor that would allow 7-year-old Ashley and 3-year-old Sophia Evans to leave western Georgia, as well as others stuck in the region.
The Evans girls were visiting their maternal grandparents when Russian troops invaded Georgia two weeks ago. Russian checkpoints have blocked their paths to escape.
Their parents -- Joseph Evans, of Howell, and his Georgian-born wife, Tea-h -- have been trying to get their daughters out of the country. Joseph Evans was on a plane to Georgia on Wednesday, a Smith spokeswoman said.
Tea-h Evans' brother, Beso Tsutskiridze, flew to Armenia from New Jersey last week, crossed the border and made his way on foot around Russian troop positions to get to his parents' farm in the western village of Chiatura.
Reached on his parents' cell phone Wednesday, Tsutskiridze said he -- like other men in the area -- was staying awake through the night so he could rush his parents and nieces into nearby woods if Russian troops arrived.
The Russians, he said, have been getting closer each day.
''They are really close to us,'' he said. ''Yesterday, it was like 20 to 25 miles from us. Now it's 10 miles -- 10 to 15 miles.''
The U.S. State Department is monitoring about 30 U.S. citizens under 18 who are in Georgia without their parents. Meanwhile, Smith said he has been working on the cases of about a dozen other children stuck in the country.

David Remnick Today in New Yorker -- Russia and Georgia

Editor's Selection -- On Gorbachev's View of Russian-Georgian War

All Comments - Editors' Selections
NYTimes.com editors aim to highlight the most interesting and thoughtful comments that represent a range of views.
1 - 13 of 13Show:
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1.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 7:34 am
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This crisis reminds me of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We have taken the role that had been held by the Soviets, the intruders trying to establish bases inside the bounds of the sphere of influence of the other. We even have the aspect of the insertion of missiles into a border country.As I recall, in spite of the saber rattling on a superficial level, that crisis was resolved behind the scenes by an agreement that the Soviets would do what we wanted in terms of removing missiles from Cuba, but we agreed to remove our missiles from bases in Turkey.Perhaps a similar agreement can be negotiated in this instance, with the United States agreeing not to install missiles in Poland (perhaps even reinstating the anti missile treaty which we breeched) and the Russians agreeing to withdraw from the non-separatist areas of Georgia. Unfortunately, it looks like the Bush team is still playing the "my way or the highway" approach. It is a strategy which has not served America well in recent years.
— Steve, Japan
Recommend Recommended by 219 Readers
18.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 7:41 am
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Gorbachev is right; it's important to remember that this did not appear out of some vacuum or random Russian aggression, but from a pattern of slights by the West and American in particular. NATO into Eastern Europe, Kosovo, NATO suggestions for Ukraine, missile defense in Poland - all of these led to what Gorbachev described as questioning as to whether Russians even care if they are a part of these organizations.Now it has come back with a vengeance, because when pressed on this, NATO and the US folded like a cheap paper plate, trying pathetically to cry "This had better stop, Russia, I'm warning you!" while also saying "Well, if push comes to shove, we'll stay out of the way militarily".The result now is that everyone is going to be hurt by this. The Russians are going to suffer a blow in reputation that is not entirely fair (and possibly lose membership in some organizations), Europe is going to re-affirm that they are dependent on Russian petrol and unwilling to act in concert with the US, Georgia gets a good lesson on what happens when you idiotically provoke a strong next door neighbor - and the US ends up with egg on its face for 20 years of poor post-Cold War decision-making and for foolishly promoting a false unity and solidarity with a country in public.
— Brett, The United States of America
Recommend Recommended by 149 Readers
22.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 7:41 am
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As an American living and working in Moscow, I am not alone in having witnessed a noticeable discrepancy between western and Russian coverage of the conflict in S. Ossetia. The balanced view of the conflict lies somewhere between the two sides as both sides seem to be aggressively serving self-interests in their own coverage.But in general, the American press with the right of being "free" unlike its Russian counterpart, must do more to fact check these politicians Gorbachev mentions who make absurd statements, so that our nation does not end up in another unnecessary battle. The US press has long been denying its readers of a fair and balanced portrait of the state of affairs in the world, and the coverage of the S. Ossetian conflict has brought this issue into the forefront. As much as this conflict was a war between Georgia and S. Ossetia, it has been a war between each PR machines under the guise of media coverage.Thank you to the NYTimes for bringing this opinion piece into the mix, Gorbachev's views are a breath of fresh air in the confused and conflicting coverage of the issue.
— Mandi, Moscow
Recommend Recommended by 202 Readers
26.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 7:41 am
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I wish Americans would adopt a more nuanced view of the rest of world. This article is wonderful in that it shows us that the situation is not as simple as we are led to believe. McCain was applauded for being decisive by condemning Russia. Obama was criticized for taking a more nuanced position. We need more of Obama's judgment, not McCain's.
— Girish, Brookfield, WI
Recommend Recommended by 96 Readers
83.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 8:02 am
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"Russia did not want this crisis." As usual with wars, there is much blame to be shared, but surely Mr. Gorbachev isn't serious when he fails to mention that Georgia's actions are precisely the pretext that Moscow was looking for to play out its "near-abroad" strategy. Nor does he mention Ossetian military provocations under the nose of Russian "peacekeepers." Georgia was hardly clever in dealing with these, but Russia's military and rhetorical responses suggest precisely what Mr. Gorbachev aims to deny.
— GKJames, Washington
Recommend Recommended by 27 Readers
118.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 8:20 am
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While Mr. Gorbachev is right that any hope of an effective resolution of this conflict must address the initial unjustified use of force by the Georgians, it is unclear how his call for a legally binding agreement rejecting the use of force makes any sense when Russian tanks are roaming the Georgian countryside. Mr. Gorbachev's call for a legally binding agreement, absent any mention of a body within which such an agreement could be formulated, is disappointingly empty. Instead of joining in the blame game, what is needed of leaders of Mr. Gorbachev's stature is a vision for how conflicts like this might be resolved. Why does Mr. Gorbachev make no mention of the United Nations? Surely the UN is precisely the sort of global body within which legally binding agreements regarding the use of force could be formulated.There is obviously a great deal of mistrust between the leaders of Russia and Georgia. Mr. Gorbachev is correct in his call for a legal process to resolve the conflict since only a process that would be accepted by both parties as balanced would provide an outcome that both sides could accept as fair. Assuming that Mr. Gorbachev is sincere in his desire for a peaceful resolution of this conflict, then his focus on the activities of the United States is distinctly unhelpful. Even if the U.S. had not defended Georgia without qualification, a single country, even the world's sole superpower, could not provide the means for a legal binding agreement.Mr. Gorbachev's response to this crisis has largely focused on the faults of the Georgians and U.S., apparently in response to a perceived bias against Russia. While a more balanced reporting could improve understanding of the sources of the conflict, it cannot provide a solution. I would like to call on Mr. Gorbachev to move beyond the rhetoric of blame and lay out a vision of how Russia and Georgia could enter into a legal process that would lead to legally binding agreements both sides could accept as fair and balanced. Could Mr. Gorbachev articulate a specific role the UN might play in such a legal process, perhaps involving the ICJ as well as the Security Council on a dual track? Or is Mr. Gorbachev aware of other global bodies that might be more effective in providing the context for such legally binding agreements?It seems to me that while many people are claiming that Russia is returning to 19th century politics, there is still hope that a more recent vision of resolving political conflict through the rule of law is viable. I would like to encourage world leaders like Mr. Gorbachev to use their stature and influence to move the various involved parties beyond accusations of blame and towards legally binding agreements that would leave Russia and Georgia with an outcome that both could accept as fair.
— Phil Enns, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers
123.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 8:20 am
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It's indeed refreshing to read about Russia's point of view of this conflict. If America wants to put the cold war behind it, it should also put the cold-war mentality behind it. Some American politicians. like John McCain, rushed to place all the blame on Russia and ascribe sinister intentions to it.Given the impending change in the American administration, it is an opportunity for the American voter to get rid of the cold-war mentality too. Mr. Obama's initial reaction was the correct one when he said that we must look at both sides of the issue before rushing to judgement.Russia is no fool to fall for the West's "sweet talk" on partnership when the actions of the West (such as expanded NATO membership) speak louder than words. If Russia is to be really integrated with the West, the West must be an impartial negotiator. That means giving serious consideration to Russia's point of view.It is really important for Americans to understand the psyche of a country that is severely dismembered. Like an earthquake that triggers a tsunami, the Soviet Union's dismemberment was like a political earthquake, and there are forces building in Russia hoping to reclaim lost glory, like a tsunami wave. If the West taunts Russia in unacceptable ways, it will provoke a severe reaction. Fortunately, we are only dealing with people and not mother Nature, and thus the crisis can be defused with the the foresight of statesmen and the genius of diplomacy. Given the nature of the cold-war, it will take at least two generations to really bury the cold war. In the meantime, it is the responsibility of the voters in the West to elect leaders who will vigorously continue to restrain the cold-war genie in its bottle, and not rake it up for short-term political gain.Can the real statesmen please step forward? Now is a good time.
— Kiran Achyutuni, Bangalore, India
Recommend Recommended by 22 Readers
149.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 10:49 am
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But the Russians also have wanted to be rid of Saakashvili for a long time. So I have to disagree: the Russians *did* want a war, to get rid of him if possible and scare the hell out of him if not.I agree that the West's attitude toward post-Cold War Russia has been too antagonistic. I also agree that Georgians started a fight they couldn't finish. But it is also the case that Putin is a despot, who uses belligerent rhetoric to bolster his popularity at home, nearly completely controls the Russian media and brooks almost zero political dissent. The blame for his rise cannot be laid at the feet of the West.I wish that Russia could become a free and democratic nation and join the European Community, which is where it belongs. It would only increase everyone's wealth, power and prestige.
— David Mebane, Stuttgart
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers
216.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 11:36 am
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On the 40th anniversary of the Soviet invasion (August 20-21, 1968), I never thought I would be writing the New York Times to say, Yes! Mr. Gorbachev is right!!There is more truth and quiet reasoning in what he writes than in the 2 weeks of screaming in the Western media.My own gut level feeling is that this was engineered by the Bush administration to aid Mr. McCain and to pressure the Poles into signing the missile treaty. Other fallout was welcome, too, and the media have fallen in step. We are SO-O-O tired of this.Thank you, Mr. Gorbachev, and thank you NYTimes.
— P. Hedgie, Prague, Czech Republic
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers
220.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 11:40 am
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Sounds to me like McCain knew all along what was coming and is attempting to use Georgia to get elected:FROM WORDPRESS:PETE YOST August 13, 2008 04:14 PM EST WASHINGTON -- John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser and his business partner lobbied the senator or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3 1/2-year span while being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the government of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.The payments raise ethical questions about the intersection of Randy Scheunemann's personal financial interests and his advice to the Republican presidential candidate who is seizing on Russian aggression in Georgia as a campaign issue.McCain warned Russian leaders Tuesday that their assault in Georgia risks "the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world."On April 17, a month and a half after Scheunemann stopped working for Georgia, his partner signed a $200,000 agreement with the Georgian government. The deal added to an arrangement that brought in more than $800,000 to the two-man firm from 2004 to mid-2007. For the duration of the campaign, Scheunemann is taking a leave of absence from the firm."People die so McCain can realize his political ambitions.
— Jane Smiley, California
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303.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 1:38 pm
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I fully agree with President Gorbachev. The proximate cause of all of this was U.S. adventurism in Georgia. It was foolish to try to establish a client state there, foolish to try to extend NATO there, and most foolish of all to give our support to a hothead ultranationalist like Saakashvili.
— Mark Morss, Columbus, Ohio
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305.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 1:52 pm
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I am originally from Krasnodar, South of Russia, and have lived in the states for almost 8 years and thought there could be a better news coverage. Oh well, it turns out that the US media is just as simply ignorant as any media that is controlled by the figures like Cheney.I am thankful that NYTimes listens to Mikhail Gorbachev and shows its respect to someone who is trustworthy in the US.It is disgusting that everyone on every corner shouts that Russia being a big bad guy who crushed the small shivering neighbor but no one claims any deaths of Ossetians, almost 2000 people in the first day of Georgia's invasion! And no reaction from the acclaimed and "unbiased" UN, not a soul from the American administration either. How can you forget about Ossetians dying? And sure I don't want to ignore Georgians being killed in this strife but who started it? How come nobody wants to hold Saakashvili responsible for striking up this bloody revenge-driven conflict?Indeed, Caucasus is a very complex territory and Americans along with the West and so-called democratic new growing country like Georgia cannot give honest opinion about the conflict.It is all about who gets what. What did Georgia get out of it? Even more anger coming from Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Russians toward Georgia and its common people, instead of having a well-thought compromised conversation with Russians for a better future.
— Natalia Novikova, New York City
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364.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
August 20th, 2008 3:32 pm
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Let's not forget that the author has his own axe to grind. This is not an unbiased opinion. This is a spin job by a skilled politician and diplomat. So skilled in fact, that he has managed to make his version of events sound more plausible than those presented by our own government.Maybe Gorbachev is right, but more likely his version is no more realistic than the Georgian version of events. To claim that Russia did not want this crisis belies the facts on the ground. Russian troop build ups in the area prior to this action were not accidental or coincidental.But in truth, the spin of events by both sides pales in importance to the real message behind Mikhail Gorbachev message.The Russian bear has once again decided to take it's place at the world table.We have choices; we can engage them and work together for our mutual benefit, we can engage them and work to exploit them for our exclusive benefit. We can ignore them and hope for the best. In a 21st Century plagued by conflict and the heightened possibilities of mass destruction, working towards our mutual benefit seems the most prudent course of action.Let's hope that our system of checks and balances can produce prudent decisions.
— Owat Agoosiam, NY
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Gorbachev -- Awesome (i.e.I Totally Agree)

Russia Never Wanted a War
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20gorbachev.html
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By MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
Published: August 19, 2008
Moscow
Times Topics: South Ossetia
Times Topics: Georgia
Times Topics: Russia
Times Topics: Mikhail S. Gorbachev
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"The proximate cause of all of this was U.S. adventurism in Georgia."Mark Morss, Columbus, Ohio
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THE acute phase of the crisis provoked by the Georgian forces’ assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, is now behind us. But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?
Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.
The decision by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, to now cease hostilities was the right move by a responsible leader. The Russian president acted calmly, confidently and firmly. Anyone who expected confusion in Moscow was disappointed.
The planners of this campaign clearly wanted


THE acute phase of the crisis provoked by the Georgian forces’ assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, is now behind us. But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?
Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.
The decision by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, to now cease hostilities was the right move by a responsible leader. The Russian president acted calmly, confidently and firmly. Anyone who expected confusion in Moscow was disappointed.
The planners of this campaign clearly wanted to make sure that, whatever the outcome, Russia would be blamed for worsening the situation. The West then mounted a propaganda attack against Russia, with the American news media leading the way.
The news coverage has been far from fair and balanced, especially during the first days of the crisis. Tskhinvali was in smoking ruins and thousands of people were fleeing — before any Russian troops arrived. Yet Russia was already being accused of aggression; news reports were often an embarrassing recitation of the Georgian leader’s deceptive statements.
It is still not quite clear whether the West was aware of Mr. Saakashvili’s plans to invade South Ossetia, and this is a serious matter. What is clear is that Western assistance in training Georgian troops and shipping large supplies of arms had been pushing the region toward war rather than peace.
If this military misadventure was a surprise for the Georgian leader’s foreign patrons, so much the worse. It looks like a classic wag-the-dog story.
Mr. Saakashvili had been lavished with praise for being a staunch American ally and a real democrat — and for helping out in Iraq. Now America’s friend has wrought disorder, and all of us — the Europeans and, most important, the region’s innocent civilians — must pick up the pieces.
Those who rush to judgment on what’s happening in the Caucasus, or those who seek influence there, should first have at least some idea of this region’s complexities. The Ossetians live both in Georgia and in Russia. The region is a patchwork of ethnic groups living in close proximity. Therefore, all talk of “this is our land,” “we are liberating our land,” is meaningless. We must think about the people who live on the land.
The problems of the Caucasus region cannot be solved by force. That has been tried more than once in the past two decades, and it has always boomeranged.
What is needed is a legally binding agreement not to use force. Mr. Saakashvili has repeatedly refused to sign such an agreement, for reasons that have now become abundantly clear.
The West would be wise to help achieve such an agreement now. If, instead, it chooses to blame Russia and re-arm Georgia, as American officials are suggesting, a new crisis will be inevitable. In that case, expect the worst.
In recent days, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush have been promising to isolate Russia. Some American politicians have threatened to expel it from the Group of 8 industrialized nations, to abolish the NATO-Russia Council and to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organization.
These are empty threats. For some time now, Russians have been wondering: If our opinion counts for nothing in those institutions, do we really need them? Just to sit at the nicely set dinner table and listen to lectures?
Indeed, Russia has long been told to simply accept the facts. Here’s the independence of Kosovo for you. Here’s the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and the American decision to place missile defenses in neighboring countries. Here’s the unending expansion of NATO. All of these moves have been set against the backdrop of sweet talk about partnership. Why would anyone put up with such a charade?
There is much talk now in the United States about rethinking relations with Russia. One thing that should definitely be rethought: the habit of talking to Russia in a condescending way, without regard for its positions and interests.
Our two countries could develop a serious agenda for genuine, rather than token, cooperation. Many Americans, as well as Russians, understand the need for this. But is the same true of the political leaders?
A bipartisan commission led by Senator Chuck Hagel and former Senator Gary Hart has recently been established at Harvard to report on American-Russian relations to Congress and the next president. It includes serious people, and, judging by the commission’s early statements, its members understand the importance of Russia and the importance of constructive bilateral relations.
But the members of this commission should be careful. Their mandate is to present “policy recommendations for a new administration to advance America’s national interests in relations with Russia.” If that alone is the goal, then I doubt that much good will come out of it. If, however, the commission is ready to also consider the interests of the other side and of common security, it may actually help rebuild trust between Russia and the United States and allow them to start doing useful work together.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the former president of the Soviet Union. This article was translated by Pavel Palazhchenko from the Russian.

This Article Makes Me Realize That "Vili" Means Came From West Georgia,

Djugashvile, apparantly, was "Stalin" before he changed his name to "Stalin."

"Djugashvili’s adoption of the more Russian-sounding name of Stalin (“man of steel”) around the year 1910 intrigued Tucker. One explanation given by the author, that “Stalin” was similar to “Lenin,” is quite plausible, considering the high esteem in which Djugashvili held Lenin. The author, however, gave an additional rationalization that Djugashvili was somehow expressing his disgust for all things Georgian, since the kingdom was “weak because of its smallness” and “a perennial victim in the centuries-old contest among the powers of the area.” This is perhaps the most overstated argument in the book, and one for which Tucker had little documentation to support. Furthermore, the author did not consider the idea that Djugashvili might simply have seen a name change as a pragmatic way to better blend in with the Russian Marxists. Also, given his numerous arrests, prison terms, and periods of exile, a name change might have been Stalin’s method of achieving some distance between past and present. At any rate, the “man of steel” felt a deep internal drive toward self-perfection; Tucker called this an “intolerance of anything short of perfection in himself,” which not only spurred him forward but also made him blind to his own blemishes."

Friedman Today -- Absolutely Right on Every Point

new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20friedman.html

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: August 19, 2008

If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the bronze medal for rank short-sightedness would go to the Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams.
Let’s start with us. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was among the group — led by George Kennan, the father of “containment” theory, Senator Sam Nunn and the foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum — that argued against expanding NATO, at that time.
It seemed to us that since we had finally brought down Soviet communism and seen the birth of democracy in Russia the most important thing to do was to help Russian democracy take root and integrate Russia into Europe. Wasn’t that why we fought the cold war — to give young Russians the same chance at freedom and integration with the West as young Czechs, Georgians and Poles? Wasn’t consolidating a democratic Russia more important than bringing the Czech Navy into NATO?
All of this was especially true because, we argued, there was no big problem on the world stage that we could effectively address without Russia — particularly Iran or Iraq. Russia wasn’t about to reinvade Europe. And the Eastern Europeans would be integrated into the West via membership in the European Union.
No, said the Clinton foreign policy team, we’re going to cram NATO expansion down the Russians’ throats, because Moscow is weak and, by the way, they’ll get used to it. Message to Russians: We expect you to behave like Western democrats, but we’re going to treat you like you’re still the Soviet Union. The cold war is over for you, but not for us.
“The Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams acted on the basis of two false premises,” said Mandelbaum. “One was that Russia is innately aggressive and that the end of the cold war could not possibly change this, so we had to expand our military alliance up to its borders. Despite all the pious blather about using NATO to promote democracy, the belief in Russia’s eternal aggressiveness is the only basis on which NATO expansion ever made sense — especially when you consider that the Russians were told they could not join. The other premise was that Russia would always be too weak to endanger any new NATO members, so we would never have to commit troops to defend them. It would cost us nothing. They were wrong on both counts.”
The humiliation that NATO expansion bred in Russia was critical in fueling Putin’s rise after Boris Yeltsin moved on. And America’s addiction to oil helped push up energy prices to a level that gave Putin the power to act on that humiliation. This is crucial backdrop.
Nevertheless, today we must support all diplomatic efforts to roll back the Russian invasion of Georgia. Georgia is a nascent free-market democracy, and we can’t just watch it get crushed. But we also can’t refrain from noting that Saakashvili’s decision to push his troops into Tskhinvali, the heart of Georgia’s semiautonomous pro-Russian enclave of South Ossetia, gave Putin an easy excuse to exercise his iron fist.
As The Washington Post’s longtime Russia watcher Michael Dobbs noted: “On the night of Aug. 7 ..., Saakashvili ordered an artillery barrage against Tskhinvali and sent an armored column to occupy the town. He apparently hoped that Western support would protect Georgia from major Russian retaliation, even though Russian ‘peacekeepers’ were almost certainly killed or wounded in the Georgian assault. It was a huge miscalculation.”
And as The Economist magazine also wrote, “Saakashvili is an impetuous nationalist.” His thrust into South Ossetia “was foolish and possibly criminal. But unlike Putin, he has led his country in a broadly democratic direction, curbed corruption and presided over rapid economic growth that has not relied, as Russia’s mostly does, on high oil and gas prices.”
That is why the gold medal for brutishness goes to Putin. Yes, NATO expansion was foolish. Putin exploited it to choke Russian democracy. But now, petro-power-grabbing has gone to his head — whether it's invading Georgia, bullying Western financiers and oil companies working in Russia, or using Russia’s gas supplies to intimidate its neighbors.
If it persists, this behavior will push every Russian neighbor to seek protection from Moscow and will push the Europeans to redouble their efforts to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas. This won’t happen overnight, but in time it will stretch Russia’s defenses and lead it to become more isolated, more insecure and less wealthy.
For all these reasons, Russia would be wise to reconsider Putin’s Georgia gambit. If it does, we would be wise to reconsider where our NATO/Russia policy is taking us — and whether we really want to spend the 21st century containing Russia the same way we spent much of the 20th containing the Soviet Union.

Worth Looking at For the Excellent Maps Torward the End

Rather mundane pictures of Russian soldiers in the war in Georgia.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2063131/posts

Oh That's What Happened! You Must Read This

U.S. Watched as a Squabble Turned Into a Showdown
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/washington/18diplo.html

By HELENE COOPER, C.J. CHIVERS and CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: August 17, 2008
This article was reported by Helene Cooper, C. J. Chivers and Clifford J. Levy and written by Ms. Cooper.
WASHINGTON — Five months ago, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, long a darling of this city’s diplomatic dinner party circuit, came to town to push for America to muscle his tiny country of four million into NATO.
On Capitol Hill, at the State Department and at the Pentagon, Mr. Saakashvili, brash and hyperkinetic, urged the West not to appease Russia by rejecting his country’s NATO ambitions.
At the White House, President Bush bantered with the Georgian president about his prowess as a dancer. Laura Bush, the first lady, took Mr. Saakashvili’s wife to lunch. Mr. Bush promised him to push hard for Georgia’s acceptance into NATO. After the meeting, Mr. Saakashvili pronounced his visit “one of the most successful visits during my presidency,” and said he did not know of any other leader of a small country with the access to the administration that he had.
Three weeks later, Mr. Bush went to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, at the invitation of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. There, he received a message from the Russian: the push to offer Ukraine and Georgia NATO membership was crossing Russia’s “red lines,” according to an administration official close to the talks.
Afterward, Mr. Bush said of Mr. Putin, “He’s been very truthful and to me, that’s the only way you can find common ground.” It was one of many moments when the United States seemed to have missed — or gambled it could manage — the depth of Russia’s anger and the resolve of the Georgian president to provoke the Russians.
The story of how a 16-year, low-grade conflict over who should rule two small, mountainous regions in the Caucasus erupted into the most serious post-cold-war showdown between the United States and Russia is one of miscalculation, missed signals and overreaching, according to interviews with diplomats and senior officials in the United States, the European Union, Russia and Georgia. In many cases, the officials would speak only on the condition of anonymity.
It is also the story of how both Democrats and Republicans have misread Russia’s determination to dominate its traditional sphere of influence.
As with many foreign policy issues, this one highlighted a continuing fight within the administration. Vice President Dick Cheney and his aides and allies, who saw Georgia as a role model for their democracy promotion campaign, pushed to sell Georgia more arms, including Stinger antiaircraft missiles, so that it could defend itself against possible Russian aggression.
On the other side, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and William J. Burns, the new under secretary of state for political affairs, argued that such a sale would provoke Russia, which would see it as arrogant meddling in its turf, the officials and diplomats said.
They describe three leaders on a collision course. Mr. Bush, rewarding Georgia for its robust troop contribution to Iraq — at 2,000, the third highest, behind the United States and Britain — promised NATO membership and its accompanying umbrella of American military support. Mr. Putin, angry at what he saw as American infringement right in his backyard, decided that Georgia was the line in the sand that the West would not be allowed to cross. And Mr. Saakashvili, unabashedly pro-American, was determined to show, once and for all, that Georgia was no longer a vassal of Russia.
With a vastly more confident Russia, flush with oil money, a booming economy and a rebuilt military no longer bogged down in Chechnya, the stars were aligned for a confrontation in which Russia could, with a quick show of force, teach a lesson to the United States, Georgia and all of the former Soviet satellites and republics seeking closer ties with the West.
“We have probably failed to understand that the Russians are really quite serious when they say, ‘We have interests and we’re going to defend them,’ ” said James Collins, United States ambassador to Russia from 1997 to 2001. “Russia does have interests, and at some point they’re going to stand up and draw lines that are not simply to be ignored.”
Georgia Makes Its Moves
The stage for the confrontation was set in January 2004, when Mr. Saakashvili handily won the presidency after leading protests against a rigged election the previous year. He made the return of separatist areas to Georgian control a central plank of his platform.
It was a potent theme. Georgia had lost the wars against separatists in the 1990s, and Russia’s involvement stung Georgians. Mr. Saakashvili saw international law on his side. His young government, a small circle of men in their 30s with virtually no military experience, openly endorsed this thinking.
Georgia increased its troop contribution to Iraq, and in return the United States provided more military training. The Georgians clearly saw this as a step toward building up a military that could be used to settle problems with the separatists at home.
Whether they intended to build a military for fighting or deterrence is unclear. American officials said they repeatedly and bluntly told their Georgian counterparts that the Iraq mission should not be taken as a sign of American support, or as a prelude, for operations against the separatists. And it was obvious that Russia’s army, which at roughly 641,000 troops is 25 times the size of Georgia’s, could easily overwhelm the Georgian forces.
Nevertheless, the career foreign policy establishment worried that the wrong signals were being sent. “We were training Saakashvili’s army, and he was getting at least a corps of highly trained individuals, which he could use for adventures,” said one former senior intelligence analyst, who covered Georgia and Russia at the time. “The feeling in the intelligence community was that this was a very high-risk endeavor.”
Mr. Saakashvili proceeded against other separatist enclaves — retaking one, Ajaria, in 2004, and advancing high into the mountains of the upper Kodori Gorge in Abhkazia in 2006 to sweep away bands of criminals who had long controlled the place.
Georgia labeled it a police operation, but it was a military one: Mark Lenzi, then the country director for the nonprofit International Republican Institute, visited the region and says he saw that military markings on a helicopter had been freshly painted over with the word “police.”
Mr. Lenzi, who worked with Mr. Saakashvili’s young government, says that in retrospect, there were risks that were not adequately assessed. “It was a combustible,” he said. “But it was a little bit of the price we were willing to pay for the military cooperation in Iraq.”
He added: “I go back to the democracy thing. I’m not saying I gave them a big pass here. But looking back I should have pressed harder.”
By last November, Mr. Saakashvili’s democratic credentials were becoming checkered. Accused by the opposition of corruption, arrogance and centralization, he struck back against demonstrators and declared a state of emergency. After he won a snap election this year on a vote that the opposition said was subtly rigged, Mr. Saakashvili turned his attention back to the enclaves.
Georgia had new military equipment and the experience of Iraq. Russia had engaged in several brief air attacks and had shot down a pilotless reconnaissance plane over Georgian soil.
Inside the Saakashvili government, officials were seething. Batu Kutelia, a first deputy minister of defense, framed the presence of Russia in the enclaves with intensity. “Tell me,” he asked a reporter over dinner this spring, “would you share your wife?”
Several Georgian officials said that night that seizing South Ossetia would be militarily easy. But there was a difference between any operation in the remaining enclaves and the successful reclamation of Ajaria and the Kodori Gorge: the remaining enclaves had large numbers of Russian troops.
Russian Anger
Russia, too, was laying down its markers, strenuously protesting the West’s intention to recognize the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, set on independence after the long Balkans wars of the 1990s. The Russians insisted that independence for Kosovo would be a serious affront. Last February, the United States and the European Union, over Russia’s vehement objections, recognized an independent Kosovo.
Mr. Putin and other Russian officials drew a parallel with Kosovo: If the West could redraw boundaries against the wishes of Russia and its ally Serbia, then Russia could redraw boundaries in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
By April, before the Russians had a chance to grow accustomed to an independent Kosovo, they were being confronted with what they saw as more meddling in their backyard. On April 3, the night before the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, Mr. Bush attended a dinner with European leaders and annoyed the Germans and French by lobbying long and hard for Ukraine and Georgia to be welcomed into a Membership Action Plan that prepares nations for NATO membership.
Mr. Bush lost that battle, but won two others the next day that would anger Russia: NATO leaders agreed to endorse a United States missile defense system based in Eastern Europe, and the Europeans said invitations to the membership plan for Georgia and Ukraine might come in a year, at the next summit.
NATO leaders had invited Mr. Putin to Bucharest to speak, seeking to offset the impression that the alliance was hostile to Russia. He was cordial but clear, saying that Russia viewed “the appearance of a powerful military bloc” on its borders “as a direct threat” to its security. “The claim that this process is not directed against Russia will not suffice,” Mr. Putin said. “National security is not based on promises.”
The next day, Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin went to Sochi. “It definitely wasn’t what I would call a ‘look-into-your-eyes-and-see-your-soul’ meeting,” said a Bush administration official, referring to Mr. Bush’s famous line after he first met Mr. Putin. Mr. Bush had dinner with Mr. Putin and his protégé and successor, Dmitri A. Medvedev, at the Russian resort, which is near Georgia. The official said the discussion centered on Ukraine and Georgia, and Mr. Putin warned, again, against the NATO push.
Asked how Mr. Bush reacted to the warning, the official said: “It wasn’t anything we hadn’t heard before.”
It appeared that the Bush administration misread the depth of Russia’s fury. A Bush administration official said the Americans understood that Russia was angry, but believed that they could forestall a worsening of the relationship by looking for other possibilities for cooperation.
Ms. Rice offered up an 11-page “strategic framework declaration” examining areas where the two nations could work together, which was hammered out with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that night in Sochi. The statement included language describing how they would in the future address the issue of missile defenses the United States had proposed basing in Eastern Europe. The United States promised to work toward “assuaging” Russian concerns.
Washington Weighs In
Nine days later, on April 16, Mr. Putin took action. In one of his last formal acts as president, he issued an order that Russia was broadly expanding support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia and would establish legal connections with the regions’ separatist governments.
Washington was quick to rally around Mr. Saakashvili. Senator John McCain, whose campaign foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, had represented Georgia as a lobbyist, was the first to blast Russia. Mr. McCain, who already was the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, telephoned Mr. Saakashvili to offer support, and then told reporters on April 17 that “we must not allow Russia to believe it has a free hand to engage in policies that undermine Georgian sovereignty.” On April 21 came a statement from a “deeply troubled” Senator Barack Obama, the leading Democratic candidate.
“There’s no doubt that the Georgians have carefully cultivated a broad base of support in Washington,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign who has hosted dinner parties for Mr. Saakashvili in Washington.
Within the Bush administration, “the fight between the hawks and the doves” erupted anew, said one administration official. In this case, the people he called the “hawks” —Mr. Cheney and the assistant secretary of state for Europe, Daniel Fried — argued for more American military aid for Georgia; the “doves” — Ms. Rice, Mr. Hadley, Mr. Burns — urged restraint.
The United States was already providing Georgia with military aid, equipment and training, and Ms. Rice, for the time being, won the fight against adding American-provided Stinger missiles to Georgia’s arsenal.
On April 21, Georgia accused Russia of shooting down the pilotless Georgian plane over Abkhazia and released what it said was a video of the encounter. Mr. Putin responded that he had expressed “bewilderment” to Mr. Saakashvili at Georgia’s sending reconnaissance planes over Abkhazia.
A senior adviser to Mr. Saakashvili said Mr. Cheney’s office was more openly critical of the Russians after the episode than was the State Department, which struck a more balanced tone, asking Russia to explain their actions.
Bush administration officials have been adamant that they told Mr. Saakashvili that the United States would not back Georgia militarily in a fight with Russia, but a senior administration official acknowledged that “it’s possible that Georgians may have confused the cheerleading from Washington with something else.”
In May and June, Russia increased the number of troops in South Ossetia and sent troops into Abkhazia, who Moscow said were going for humanitarian purposes, Georgian and American officials said.
Ms. Rice traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia, in July, where, aides said, she privately told Mr. Saakashvili not to let Russia provoke him into a fight he could not win. But her public comments, delivered while standing next to Mr. Saakashvili during a news conference, were far stronger and more supportive.
And when she brought up NATO membership, mentioning that the Bush administration had pushed for it in Bucharest, Mr. Saakashvili jumped on the opportunity to get a public commitment that the administration would bring the matter up again with NATO before leaving office.
“So are you going — I understood you are going to give a tough fight for us in December,” he said.
Ms. Rice: “Always, Mr. President. We always fight for our friends.”
The Buildup
The Russians and the Georgians give different accounts of who provoked whom in the weeks before Aug. 7. Each side accuses the other of premeditated attack. While the public line from the Bush administration has been that Russia and Mr. Putin are largely to blame, some administration officials said the Georgian military had drawn up a “concept of operations” for crisis in South Ossetia that called for its army units to sweep across the region and rapidly establish such firm control that a Russian response could be pre-empted.
They note that in January, the Georgian Ministry of Defense released a “strategic defense review” that laid out its broad military planning for the breakaway regions. As described by David J. Smith of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, the document sets out goals for the Georgian armed forces and refers specifically to the threat of conflict in the separatist regions.
American officials said that they had clearly told their Georgian counterparts that the plan had little chance of success, given Kremlin statements promising to protect the local population from Georgian “aggression” — and the fact of overwhelming Russian military force along the border.
The shelling from South Ossetia to Georgia proper increased significantly in August. On the morning of Aug. 1, five Georgian police officers were wounded by two remotely detonated explosions on a bypass road in South Ossetia, Georgian officials said. Troops from Georgia battled separatist fighters, killing at least six people; the Georgians accused the South Ossetian separatists of firing at Georgian towns behind the shelter of Russian peacekeepers.
On Aug. 6, the separatists fired on several Georgian villages, Georgian officials said. The Russian Defense Ministry and South Ossetian officials say that Georgians provoked the escalation by shelling Russian peacekeeping positions in the region’s capital of Tskhinvali, along with civilian areas.
The Georgians said the separatists stepped up their shelling. Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili of Georgia called Mr. Fried and told him that her country was under attack, and that Georgia had to protect its people. Mr. Fried, according to a senior administration official, told the Georgian not to go into South Ossetia. The Georgians moved in on Aug. 7.
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, C. J. Chivers from Georgia and Clifford J. Levy from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard and Ellen Barry from Moscow; Andrew E. Kramer from Tbilisi, Georgia; Sabrina Tavernise and Matt Siegel from Tskhinvali, Georgia; and Thom Shanker from Washington.