‘Enormous Error’ of President Bush’s ‘Georgian Protege’: From Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza

Now that war has broken out in the Caucuses between Russia and America’s staunch ally, Georgia, what do those other staunch U.S. allies, the East Europeans, have to say?

In our first East European translation of the consequences of the conflict, Waclaw Radzinowicz writes for Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza:

“In deciding to ‘liberate’ South Ossetia, or as he called it yesterday morning, ‘restoring the constitutional order,’ Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has committed an enormous error. … Perhaps the Georgian president had craftily bargained that on Friday, the day that the Olympic Games began – the Russians would remain neutral. If so, he was being naive, since Moscow would never let such an opportunity pass it by.”

Warning of what is likely to follow, Radzinowicz writes:

“The conflict in Ossetia is not a local brawl in some obscure corner of Europe. It’s an explosion of one of several time-delayed mines that remain since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are quite a few places like South Ossetia, where most residents oppose their new governments … Politicians in both Moscow and the West like tinkering with these mines, using them against one another, and over recent years have done little to disarm them. The drama, which began yesterday in the Caucasus, shows how dangerous these games are – and that the time has come to stop them … This morally dubious game being played on both sides could inflame additional conflicts and end badly: For Russia – in the Caucasus; for the West – it may destabilize Ukraine, where Crimea [where Russia's Black Sea Fleet in located] is as hostile to their country’s government as the South Ossettians are to theirs.”

By Wac?aw Radzinowicz

Translated By Halszka Czarnocka

August 9, 2008

Poland – Gazeta Wyborcza – Original Article (Poland)

In deciding to “liberate” South Ossetia, or as he called it yesterday morning, “restoring the constitutional order,” Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has committed an enormous error.

Like Slobodan Milosevic years ago, he doesn’t understand that his country has a choice of either conducting a velvet divorce from the rebel provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia or facing chaos and dissolution of the country as a result of bloody conflicts. It’s been clear since the beginning of the 90s: residents of the two provinces, skillfully abetted by Moscow, are determined not to living under governments in Tbilisi.

Perhaps the Georgian president had craftily bargained that on Friday, the day that the Olympic Games began – the Russians would remain neutral. If so, he was being naive, since Moscow would never let such an opportunity pass it by.

Russia has long openly supported renegade Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s rebellion against Georgia, and long ago granted citizenship to the vast majority of inhabitants in these self-proclaimed republics. Now that it has sent its tanks, helicopters and jets into South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali, it can honestly argue that the weapons are there to protect its own citizens.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign and East European press coverage of the United States and war in the Caucuses.