Military Battles Continue on Both Fronts in Georgia

This is the end of Georgian Milosevichesque adventures :)

WASHINGTON — The image of President Bush smiling and chatting with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from the stands of the Beijing Olympics even as Russian aircraft were shelling Georgia outlines the reality of America’s Russia policy. While America considers Georgia its strongest ally in the bloc of former Soviet countries, Washington needs Russia too much on big issues like Iran to risk it all to defend Georgia. And State Department officials made it clear on Saturday that there was no chance the United States would intervene militarily....

The Bush administration’s strong support for Georgia — including the training of Georgia’s military and arms support — came, in part, as a reward for its support of the United States in Iraq. The United States has held Georgia up as a beacon of democracy in the former Soviet Union; it was supposed to be an example to other former Soviet republics of the benefits of tilting to the West.

But that, along with America and Europe’s actions on Kosovo, left Russia feeling threatened, encircled and more convinced that it had to take aggressive measures to restore its power, dignity and influence in a region it considers its strategic back yard, foreign policy experts said.

Russia’s emerging aggressiveness is now also timed with America’s preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan, and the looming confrontation with Iran. These counterbalancing considerations mean that Moscow is in the driver’s seat, administration officials acknowledged.

“We’ve placed ourselves in a position that globally we don’t have the wherewithal to do anything,” Mr. Friedman of Stratfor said. “One would think under those circumstances, we’d shut up.”

One senior administration official, when told of that quote, laughed. “Well, maybe we’re learning to shut up now,” he said. He asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/world/europe/10diplo.html?ref=europe

See also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/world/europe/10georgia.html?th&emc=th

Anastasia:

I fail to see how two heads of state chatting at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games could be blown into an international incident. Many attend these ceremonies.

What the journalists wrote can even be true, but that's irrelevant at the Olympics.

With all its faults--and it loses more dignity every year--the Olympic Games are still the best event of international cooperation currently in existence.

After the example of Kosovo both Ossetia and Abkhasia will have to be given full independence.

Anastasia:

Maybe Bush could have sucker punched Putin while the cameras were filming elsewhere ;)

Hehehe good luck, Putin has black belt in Judo does he not?^^