Prudence, Perhaps?

Continuing the theme of idiocy you should ignore is this piece of crap about how Russia really lost because it can’t assist Iran now when we blockade them, and how this is the perfect time to cut off South Ossetia. Seriously? This is all that crowd can come up with?

Back in reality, it appears to be Russia who is violating the cease-fire and looting villages, not Georgia (and it should NOT be the United States). President Bush just interrupted the Olympics—I guess no more slapping asses at the beach volleyball court?—and called Russia out, saying it is not behaving like a responsible member of the international community. He sternly warned Russia that he expects Russian troops to safeguard Georgian civilians “of all ethnicities” (a nice dig to claim that Abkhazians are as Georgian as Georgians), and that he is sending Condoleeza Rice to Paris and then Tblisi to confer with Sarkozy and demonstrate support for Sarkozy.

Bush is also sending military humanitarian aid, with Bob Gates at its head. (Once these stories hit the wires, I’ll try to find something, though here’s Ria Novosti as a primer.) This can spiral out of control very quickly. Russians are just as, if not more prideful as Americans, and publicly calling them out like this on a fight they believe is right and worthy of pride risks forcing another Russian escalation (private pressure is usually more effective, though it’s unclear how much private talks took place). Imagine Russian sending humanitarian aid through its military while the U.S. was still in the process of invading Iraq. It is that level of precariousness.

Indeed, Sergei Lavrov has eloquently and passionately argued that this country’s war in Georgia is the height of moral and appropriate war—and that Georgia is no innocent lamb being slaughtered. That last bit is certainly right, though Lavrov could have done us the courtesy of mentioning that Russia granted South Ossetians Russian citizenship specifically so it could have made this argument.

Anyway, with the DOD getting more deeply involved—Bush said cargo plans are already en-route to Georgia—and with Russia reportedly not obeying the cease-fire it helped to draft, the situation is spiraling out of control. I really hope President Bush didn’t push things over the brink by doing this so publicly.

This post was written by...

Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.

Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor.