From the Washington Post, "A Path to Peace in the Caucasus" by Mikhail Gorbachev
Even Gorbachev, a.k.a. Russia's Jimmy Carter, is flush with militaristic pride based on Putin's Georgia adventure.
What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenseless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.
Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a "blitzkrieg" in South Ossetia…
By declaring the Caucasus, a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent, a sphere of its "national interest," the United States made a serious blunder. Of course, peace in the Caucasus is in everyone's interest. But it is simply common sense to recognize that Russia is rooted there by common geography and centuries of history. Russia is not seeking territorial expansion, but it has legitimate interests in this region.
"Legitimate interests?" There's a wonderfully squishy term for an expansionist wannabe hegemon to toss about. Speaking of Gorbachev's terms of art, what of his reference to a Georgian "blitzkrieg?" My goodness, illusions die hard. One would have figured the olive branch extending Gorbachev to be the last guy to play the Hitler card. The fact that the Georgians are the ones doing the goose-stepping in Gorby's fanciful scenario wonderfully illustrates how we'll have to agree to disagree with the Bear on this one.
Speaking of illusions dying hard, was it only a few short weeks ago when Barack Obama spoke in Germany and soothed the planet with a lullaby about the world coming together as one? Most of us dismissed the speech as a particularly banal collection of tediously utopian clichés. Some of us (okay - me) also pointed out Obama's factitious rendering of history, especially his childlike retooling of the Berlin Airlift as a stirring example of the good that can be accomplished when the world unites. The lesson of the Berlin Airlift was of course no such thing. The lesson was that American resolve and military wherewithal could counter the Soviet lust for conquest.
Throughout this campaign, Obama has shown a desperate desire to believe that as president he'll be able to solve virtually any crisis by whispering sweet nothings into our malefactors' ears. His euphemism for this approach has been "tough, principled diplomacy." Tough, principled diplomacy is indeed a swell thing, but the first part of the equation - the "tough" part" - is impossible unless it's supported by the credible prospect of force. In the real world as opposed to Obama's fantasy world, blood and iron sadly matter a lot more than soft power and rhetoric.
Besides, one has to wonder whether the concept of "tough, principled diplomacy" is about to join Jeremiah Wright under the Obama campaign bus. Obama'a most recent statement on the crisis included the plea "for Georgia and Russia to show restraint." Such "evenhandedness" in the face of unilateral atrocities sounds neither tough nor principled.
