In Georgia Clash, a Lesson on U.S. Need for Russia

[Solly Mack]

In Georgia Clash, a Lesson on U.S. Need for Russia

"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.

“What the Russians just did is, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have taken a decisive military action and imposed a military reality,” said George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis and intelligence company. “They’ve done it unilaterally, and all of the countries that have been looking to the West to intimidate the Russians are now forced into a position to consider what just happened.”


For the Bush administration, the choice now becomes whether backing Georgia — which, more than any other former Soviet republic has allied with the United States — on the South Ossetia issue is worth alienating Russia at a time when getting Russia’s help to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions is at the top of the United States’ foreign policy agenda.

One United Nations diplomat joked on Saturday that “if someone went to the Russians and said, ‘OK, Kosovo for Iran,’ we’d have a deal.”




Read the whole article if you haven't already.

[Muttocracy]

1. thanks, we really have no power and neither side

looks good here. Georgia/western influence vs. Russia. Civilians in both areas trampled in the middle :(

[Solly Mack]

2. You're welcome. Yep...people caught in the middle...dying. :(

I have an article, Analysis: BTC pipeline explosion, to post...do you know if it's been covered yet? I've been looking but I could have missed it.

This is an excerpt:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Following the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new "Great Game" began, this time between Russia and the United States, which replaced Britain in a protracted, covert struggle for the Caucasus and Central Asia, the ultimate prize being the region's vast energy reserves, particularly those of the Caspian. A decade ago Vice President Dick Cheney, then Halliburton CEO, remarked, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."

[Muttocracy]

3. I haven't seen that one, no complaints from me if you post it. Cheney angle

especially, and the historical context. This is reminding me of made-up boundaries in Iraq after WWII, Yugoslavia after WWII, I guess Georgia after cold war...

[malaise]

4. Thanks

Interesting read.

[bemildred]

5. It's a bit late to worry about "alienatiing" Russia.

They figured out that we are not their friends some time ago. (Which does not mean they are willing to be our evil overlord enemies either ...)

[Solly Mack]

6. It's amazing...and not in a good way...the things that are said

by those in power at a time like this...