"We Are All Georgians Now": Not So Much

TW: John McCain came out breathing fire when Russia engaged Georgia in a brief war last August. His remark that "we are all Georgians" was regarded as strident at the time and has not aged well. While Putin led Russia has been a source of irritation and has not supported world stability, it appears the Georgians under Shakashvilli at a minimum acted irrationally to prod the Russians.

What is most disturbing was the lockstep march of a certain group of mainly but solely Republican pundits and politicians to jump on the August war as a casus belli to re-ignite old Cold War tensions. No responsible person suggests cowing to the Russians but bellicosity has never been a particularly effective form of policy. We would do well to pick our fights more carefully where one we are right on the facts and two we are able to actually achieve our desired outcome. Supporting a weak government in the Bear's backyard means we better have very compelling facts and strategy. Otherwise we are risking much more when we are already risking too much.

From the Dallas Blog:
"The Republican leaning punditocracy in Washington D.C. backed McCain to a fault. Frank Gaffney, President of the hawkish Center for Security Policy, called for Americans to boycott Russian products, and to dump companies like Russia’s Gazprom from their stock portfolios. Max Boot, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, compared the Russian incursion into Georgia to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Boot called for America to supply advanced weapons to Georgia so the Georgians could kill more Russians...

In recent weeks, Saakashvili’s case for NATO membership and U.S. support has been devastated. The International Herald Tribune reported the findings of a leaked Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) independent observer report which claimed that Georgian forces attacked South Ossetian towns with infantry and artillery before the Russian army entered the Roki Tunnel between Russia and South Ossetia on the night of August 7, 2008. This confirms what Orange County California-based Republican Congressman Dana Rohrbacher, who has access to House Intelligence Committee reports, told the UK Telegraph newspaper in September, that “Georgia started the war and Russia finished it.” Rohrabacher’s statement was basically ignored by the right-leaning media...

With all of these revelations, which have led even the previously pro-Georgian Washington Post and New York Times to distance themselves from Saakashvili’s government, will any so-called conservatives in Washington admit that they made a mistake in backing Georgia unconditionally? Will there be any reconsideration of their blind support for installing a missile defense system on Russia’s border in Poland, or bringing Ukraine into NATO over the objections of a majority of Ukrainians? Will there be any apology to the people of South Ossetia for feeding Saakashvili’s delusions of grandeur? Don’t hold your breath. The Cold War Lobby continues to exert its dead hand over the Republican Party, pointlessly antagonizing Russia and continuing to write checks the American people are unwilling to cash."
http://www.dallasblog.com/200812201004135/guest-viewpoint/georgia-war-exposed-gop-cold-war-lobby.html