In her “A Turning Point in the Georgia Conflict? (A News & TMV Blog Post Round-Up),” Damozel gives a great summary of the Russia-Georgia conflict and lists several other good posts at TMV reporting, commenting on, and analyzing the issue.
There have been several other articles on the roots, history, and possible ramifications of the conflict.
Let us set aside for the moment who may be to blame for the current conflict in the Caucasus: Georgia for sending troops into the pro-Russian enclave of South Ossetia, or Russia for deploying full military power into sovereign and democratic Georgia.
Let us also not dwell on how and why this political conflict that has been simmering for years finally erupted into an all-out military conflict.
Also, let us give credit to the Bush administration for starting “vigorous” humanitarian missions to help the displaced and affected people in Georgia. Finally, let’s also give Mr. Bush some credit for demanding that Russia abide by the fragile cease-fire, withdraw its forces or risk consequences with regard to “the diplomatic, political, economic and security structures of the 21st century.”
These are good efforts. However, it would take an obstinate, heads-in-the-sand attitude not to wonder how much more powerful and effective our words and actions could be, were it not for Iraq, and other international policy follies.
In a recent post, “America the Impotent,” Elrod discusses how the Bush administration has painted itself in a corner because of past and recent actions in the Middle East and elsewhere.
For example, Elrod writes how
…the Bush Administration has been kneecapped by a conflict having little to do with the War on Terror. The West – and America in particular – has been rendered impotent in this crisis. We can only hope that Russia does not occupy all of Georgia, depose Saakashvili and take over or destroy the BTC pipeline. And what message does this send to pro-Western forces elsewhere in the region?
Aside from the obvious debilitating effects our own invasion and occupation of another nation have had on our moral authority, it is interesting to ponder how extremely careful Bush administration officials and diplomats have to be in selecting, i.e. parsing, their words in statements condemning Russia for its actions in Georgia.
For example, there is the now famous statement by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, during an exchange with Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin on whether the Russians had “regime change” in mind for Georgia: “The days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe — those days are gone.”
Note the conveniently inserted words, “in Europe.” Apparently, Khalilzad would like “those days” to be thought of as being pre-2001.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to fix any ambiguity in Khalilzad’s claim by time-stamping “those days” when she recently said:
This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it…things have changed.
But, in spite of the most rigorous coaching, some of our politicians still cannot get their lines straight. Condemning Russia yesterday, John McCain claimed that: “In the 21st century nations don’t invade other nations.” I guess McCain’s 21st century started sometime after March 20, 2003.
This is what Sam Stein had to say about that in the Huffington Post:
It was the type of foreign policy rhetorical blunder that has regularly plagued the McCain campaign and could have diplomatic ripples as well. Certainly the comment was meant in innocence. But for those predisposed to the notion that the U.S. is an increasingly arrogant international actor, the suggestion by a presidential candidate that, in this day and age, countries don’t invade one another — when the U.S. is occupying two foreign nations — does little to alleviate that negative perception.
Bush’s “21st century” apparently also starts after March 20, 2003, because he recently said:
“It now appears that an effort may be under way to depose [Georgia’s] duly elected government. Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.”
In addition to redefining the 21st century, Bush’s parsers did an excellent job by adding the bit of “a democratic government elected by its people.” This, of course, fully exonerates our overthrow of regimes that are not democratically elected by its people.
Even sadder, while our politicians are haunted by the specter of Iraq, our adversaries find in it a gold mine of “material” to counter the U.S. condemnations of Russia’s actions as hypocritical and self-serving. For example, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin:
Regime change is purely an American invention, purely an American invention; we never apply this terminology in our political thinking and certainly we are all for democracy in Georgia, and it’s interesting that our American colleagues chose to bring up publicly this idea of President Saakashvili stepping down.
And then there was Putin himself, sarcastically comparing his actions in Georgia to Bush’s actions in Iraq:
They [the Americans] of course had to hang Saddam Hussein for destroying several Shia villages. But the current Georgian rulers who in one hour simply wiped 10 Ossetian villages from the face of the earth, the Georgian rulers which used tanks to run over children and the elderly, which threw civilians into cellars and burnt them – they [Georgian leaders] are players that have to be protected
Finally, while it is not clear how the Russia-Georgia conflict will end, what is perfectly clear is how our nation’s authority and respect in the world, and our ability to act as an honest broker in conflicts such as the one in the Caucasus have been deeply eroded by the Bush administration’s actions over the past seven years–years clearly in the 21st century.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.