Don’t reward Georgia

Robert Legge
Published: August 27, 2008

Thankfully, most Russian troops have pulled out of Georgia.

But as the dust settles, determining who the bad guys are (there’s plenty), how this war came about and most importantly how the U.S. should react need to be examined.
Georgia (300 miles north of Iraq) broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1993, its provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away and have remained semi-autonomous.

On Aug. 8, under cover of darkness, the Georgian army attacked Ossetia, shelling civilian neighborhoods, killing or wounding hundreds. The Russian army entered (not soon enough, some Ossetians said) and drove the Georgians out. They then invaded Georgia proper, destroying military installations and other infrastructure. Civilians also died in this largely unnecessary show of force.

The war quickly became a presidential election issue. John McCain jumped all over it, trying to portray himself as the “3 a.m.” candidate who could best handle international crises. His chief foreign policy adviser, a longtime lobbyist for the government of Georgia, convinced McCain in 2005 to nominate the Georgian president for the Nobel Peace Prize. His two-man firm signed a $200,000 lobbying contract extension a few weeks later.

This April, the same lobbyist was simultaneously working for Georgia and the McCain cam-paign. The same day that McCain issued a strong statement of support for Georgia, the lobbyist’s firm signed another contract extension with Georgia for $200,000 more. Both coincidences, I’m sure.

McCain has called for Russia’s removal from the G8, exclusion from the WTO, and bringing Georgia into NATO.

Barack Obama has mostly echoed McCain. His chief Russia adviser recently wrote in the N.Y. Times that Russia is trying to “disrupt the international order.” Both insist on tough-guy policies of confrontation and that the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia return to Georgian control.

Georgia has been wooing the U.S. for years. It had the third largest contingent of foreign troops fighting with the U.S. in Iraq. Just days before the Georgian assault on South Ossetia, 1,000 U.S. troops engaged in training exercises in Georgia with Georgian troops.

Surely Georgian president Saakashvili knew that the Russian army was not going to stand aside when civilians (90 percent hold Russian passports) were attacked by them. What was he thinking? Did he expect U.S. intervention?

The U.S. media has shown little objectivity on this issue and chosen instead to stir up hysteria that the angry bear is on the march again and threatens to take over Europe. Cartoonists had a field day.

For 20 years now, Russia has been in retreat. The Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union are gone. Their former brand of communism has virtually no following anywhere in the world. Their only significant foreign military bases are in remote former Soviet republics. Even their population is projected to decline by 20 million by 2025.

The Bush/McCain/Obama policy is basically to surround Russia, install missiles minutes from their borders and seek to block them from being fully integrated into the world economy in the hopes that they will sit meekly by while tiny nations shell their quasi-citizen’s apartment buildings. More likely it brings nationalists like Putin to power.

South Ossetian and Abkhazian citizens will never agree to reintegration with Georgia any more than breakaway Kosovo would agree to rejoin Serbia. They hate the Georgians. Russia wants them to have independence. It doesn’t want to annex them. They know that will only stiffen the resolve of nations that want to further confront them.

Any expansion of NATO would only serve to make conflict more likely, not less. The Warsaw Pact is gone. Russian tanks are not coming back to Prague or Hungary. It’s past time to begin demilitarizing Europe.

A NATO member wannabe started this latest war. What U.S. national security interests are at stake in having to send troops to tiny nations that go on ill-advised military adventures attempting to drag us into war with nuclear-armed Russia?

Robert Legge is an independent columnist and resident of Madison County. His column appears every other Thursday.  E-mail