Mikhail Saakashvili was always going to be a risky friend to keep. But the combination of his delusions of grandeur with Bush's over-the-top support over the years has created a major liability for everyone.
First, for Georgians: if Saakashvili really thought he could prevail in a pre-emptive strike to reclaim territory occupied by people who don't want him he was sorely mistaken. Instead of a waffling Russian government divided between President and Prime Minister he got the worst possible combination: Medvedev with no military credentials and desperate to prove himself strong plus Putin -- architect of the demolition of Chechnya -- still smarting the loss of Kosovo and seething about NATO's gradual encroachment on Russia.
Second, for the US and Europe: it was only a matter of time before the impulsive, arrogant and provocative Saakashvili caused a major incident. By lavishing him with praise and turning a blind eye to his faults, Bush emboldened him to the point of delusion. Here is a description of Bush's 2005 visit to the country, when 150,000 turned out to see him speak:
President Bush, under the influence of Georgian food, music and high-concept schmoozing, stayed up celebrating hours past his bedtime. "I learned firsthand what it means to be fed by a Georgian," said Bush right before hitting the dance floor. Georgians were so impressed that they renamed the road to the airport George W. Bush Highway.
Iraq proved to be the tipping point in Georgia's commitment to the West. First, the US helped rewrite Georgian military doctrine and sent advisers to restructure its chain of command and train its officers. Then, Saakashvili eagerly sent a contingent of 2000 troops (the third-largest, after Britain) to Iraq. What better way to obtain live-field training for his forces, without the provocation of American-run military exercises on the Russian border? How stupid did he think the Russians were?
No one knows the byzantine politics of ethnicity and tribal conflict in the Caucasus better than Vladimir Putin, who personally engineered the first and second wars on neighboring Chechnya with a vengeance. As soon as that region returned to an uneasy, brutalised calm in recent years, Russian troops were being repositioned for action er... peacekeeping in Georgia's renegade provinces. At the same time Russia gave national passports to nearly all residents of Abkhazia, providing the requisite cover of 'protecting our citizens' if an excuse for intervention were ever needed.
Meanwhile, former New York lawyer Saakashvili showed the world that he is a Democrat (sort of), a free trader, that he wants to join NATO and the EU, that he is protecting an alternative oil pipeline to the West, and that he is willing to fight our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's easy to see why he thought the West owed him something. Easy, but delusional.
Georgia's move to reclaim the lost provinces was a gross miscalculation. No one will intervene on his behalf. In fact, even if Russia had decided to cross the Mtkvari River and occupy Tbilisi, no one would come to save him. The West has little political leverage, Russian coffers are bursting with hard currency reserves ($600bn and rising), Europe is divided, Bush is a lame-duck president, and the US is militarily and politically overextended in the world.
Luckily for ordinary Georgians Putin is too wily to get bogged down trying to occupy the fearsomely independent Georgians. He will settle for his pragmatic war aims: the effective annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the toppling of this man he despises: Saakashvili.
In doing so, he has accelerated the establishment of the New World Order According to Putin, and halted NATO's Eastern expansion in its tracks. This may seem aggressive, but it is consistent, predictable and -- from the Russian perspective -- eminently reasonable. For NATO, what remains is an opportunity to consolidate its gains in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, with the de facto acceptance that other ex-Soviet states will remain Russian zones of influence.
Russia has been making noises recently about re-establishing its 'special ties' with Cuba, suggesting it might establish a military base there. Provocative? You bet. Perhaps they were trying to highlight the parallels with Georgia. Fair enough. Sorry Georgia -- your aspirations are noble and admirable, but on that road to real independence your leaders drove too fast and recklessly crashed the car.
Just heard that Merkel placed her full support behind welcoming Georgia into NATO at a press conference this morning. Maybe we were wrong about Saakashvili, maybe he wasn't so naive afterall, maybe he wanted the Russians to respond this agressively and it was exactly what he needed to further expose Russia's agressive nature and help generate greater international public support and guarantee a more rapid NATO entry?
-girlwithoutawatch
Posted by: girlwithoutawatch | August 18, 2008 at 10:37 AM