About a month ago, I noted in the Columbia Journalism Review that Georgia had devoted a rather significant amount of resources toward pressing its case—in English!—as a hapless victim of Russian aggression. To a large degree, the EU report on the Russo-Georgian War of last August pokes holes in the myth of Georgian victimization, mostly by noting just how thoroughly provocative Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was beforehand (but still nevertheless condemning Russia’s conduct as illegal and extreme).

I would call that a sober assessment of what happened: Georgia behaving like a petulant teenager, and Russia behaving like an unaccountable bully. James Joyner, however, calls it “bizarre“:

If sovereignty means anything, it means that leaders of a state have license to take actions within the confines of their borders as they see fit, so long as they don’t create adverse spillover effects for their neighbors. Saakashvili’s actions against internal groups conducting illegal activities within the borders of his country, while unwise and perhaps even provocative, are simply no justification for an illegal invasion of its sovereign territory by another member of the United Nations. Period. End of story.

Similarly, the United States, Israel, Ukraine, and Georgia are all member states of the United Nations. Georgia was not under any sort of UN Security Council sanction nor was it or is it now a threat to its neighbors. Why, then, are the first three not allowed to sell or give arms to Georgia as they please? Georgia is a staunch ally in the war on al Qaeda and were even participants in helping secure Iraq until illegal violation of its own territory forced them to bring troops home. The United States is particular, then, had every reason in the world to augment Georgia’s military power and none not to. Indeed, if their military were weaker, there’s plenty of reason to believe Russian forces would be even further into “Georgia Proper” now, perhaps even going so far as to remove the duly elected president by force.

There are several things to disagree with here. Let’s start with the “adverse spillover effects”—Russian media certainly portrays the events especially inside North Ossetia and to a lesser degree in Abkhazia as having negative spillover effects in its own conflicts in the Caucasus. Plus, Georgia has not exercised effective sovereignty over either territory for well-night fifteen years under the auspices of the UN, which to me at least makes me wonder just what exactly we are to mean by invoking sovereignty over the two breakaway provinces.

Secondly, I gotta raise a big red flag over the whole “Georgia helps us with al Qaeda and Iraq” thing. Georgia deployed its troops in a very obvious quid-pro-quo for substantial American technical and military training assistance—that is why there was such an enormous U.S. presence in the country during Russia’s advance. In 2006, Nathan Hodge even interviewed Georgian soldiers who viewed their arrangement with the U.S. as being preparation work for forcibly retaking their wayward territories, which would be a violation of the UN-brokered cease-fire.

Then there’s that al Qaeda bit. Unless James knows of something else, most of the concern about “al Qaeda in Georgia” really amounts to 2002-era concern-trolling over the Pankisi Gorge (this article in Time is a good representation). The thing is, until 9/11 the big concern in Pankisi was actually Chechen fighters using the area as a safe haven for their war with the Russian Army—which takes us back to that whole sovereignty bit (namely, just how tacit, from either party, was the approval for such groups for so long?). In other words, the United States has been inserting itself—indirectly, but not very subtly—into both Georgia’s conflict with Russia, and with Russia’s own internal conflicts. Which doesn’t really leave the United States as a neutral partner to the conflict, hence the limitations on its arms sales.

Bringing it all back around, it’s a tough sell to call the Russo-Georgian War a clear cut open-and-closed example of one country violating another’s sovereignty. Russia has staffed a UN peacekeeping force in both of Georgia’s breakaway territories for years, and lest we forget—Georgia started shelling Tskhinvali, which necessitated a Russian response of some sort.

When discussing the conflict’s ultimate blame, however, Georgia cannot be singled out. Russia has undoubtedly behaved provocatively as well, whether issuing Russian passports to Ossetians and Abkhazians, or through its outrageous and unjustifiable lightning thrust into the country. Realizing both countries bear substantial blame for the conflict does not require apologizing or moral equivalency for either side, but rather realizing the situation is both legally and ethically kind of murky, and that, in fact, both countries can be in the wrong. I mean, that isn’t so hard, is it?

I have a new article in the Columbia Journalism Review today, looking at how the media is covering the aftermath of the Russo-Georgian War of last year. A brief snippet:

That doesn’t mean the meta-war over Georgia and Russia has ended. It is to say that Georgia has a big advantage in the English-language press (in Russian, obviously, their fortunes are reversed). We still have right-wingers decrying heartless Russian aggression. There are scattered stories here and there that Russia is not, in fact, the genesis of all evil in the Caucasus, but they get buried by news about America’s wars. There are Russian news agencies trying to get the word out, but would any red-blooded American trust the pages of the Moscow News to give them the truth about the topic? Meanwhile, the op-ed pages are oddly silent about Georgia’s own role to play in the conflict, and the arrogance with which President Saakashvili assumed America would ride to the rescue when Russia inevitably pushed back against his strike into Tskhinvali.

Comments, as always, are much appreciated.

Photo: Tblisi, from flickr user Maykal.

Irakli Alasania, the leader of the Our Georgia-Free Democrats party, has quite an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal:

Most people will be familiar with the threat Georgia faces from its Russian neighbor. But Georgian society also faces massive internal challenges to its democracy and economy. We need to get past our confrontational politics to create a pluralistic democracy and bring prosperity based on open markets to all Georgians. This would also improve our security in the face of the Russian threat.

Unfortunately, some ruling politicians forget that these goals can only be achieved with a strong but balanced government, the rule of law, room for dialogue and disagreement, a vibrant opposition and fair elections. It is time to press the restart button on democracy in Georgia.

Meanwhile, in the Guardian, David Darchiashvili argues the regime of Mikhail Saakashvili is all about hope and change:

Conversely, the government wants to expand its dialogue with the opposition and the public. We want to do so in a spirit of constructiveness and hope, and we want to get moving with it.

In a speech on Tuesday, Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili announced a series of bold reforms over the next 100 days that will set priorities for “a new wave of democracy”. On electoral reform, these include the direct election of mayors, a new electoral code, a head for the electoral commission who is jointly chosen with the opposition and early local elections in May 2010. On constitutional reform, we are introducing new powers and independence for the constitutional commission and stronger checks and balances on presidential power.

And so on and so on. What’s so interesting about this is not that Georgia has a lively domestic politics—the years of protests and street marches is ample enough evidence for that. What is so interesting is that Georgian politics are playing out in Western publications, in English. There are probably a few reasons for that. Joe Biden’s recent visit indicates the U.S. still has some interest in the region. Many of Georgia’s elites were educated in the West, so they see that as a natural outlet for their politiking (similarly, Saakashvili has restricted independent media). But perhaps most importantly, each “side” of the Georgian political world relies on a sense of legitimacy in the West to thrive.

As I noted last month, “this is an American ally, the recipient of a billion dollars in U.S. foreign aid right after it started a war, the owner of a shiny new “strategic partnership” with the U.S., who has spent the last several months beating up opposition politicians and even journalists… and there is scarcely a peep either in the halls of Washington or even the blogs.” Indeed, whether the Georgian ruling groups emerge from the latest round of political turnover as saviors of their country or as petty autocrats revolves largely on how the West ends up perceiving it. Hence, we have competing op-eds by Georgian politicians, arguing their case in the capitals of the West.

Michael J. Totten—remember him?—has a guest author, a former PCV no less, discussing the recent rioting in Georgia.

The events swirling within Iran have been nothing short of startling, taking the world by surprise by its speed and intensity. Perhaps it’s testament to the Army of Davids globalization schema that, for weeks, the top two trending topics on the surprisingly super-relevant Twitter were about the events in Iran. While most have been vocal in their support for the protestors in Iran, other ‘pragmatic’ voices have ranged from cautious to dismissive. Among some of the comments have been some who cynically compare the rather withered, unclearly-supported opposition protests in Georgia with the proto-revolution in Iran. By extension, these analogies imply equivalence between Georgia’s temperamental president Mikheil “Misha” Saakashvili and the apocalyptic lunacy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Suffice to say that this is gross skewing of realities that needs to be put to bed immediately.

How super-relevant—he’s talking about me! However, here’s one problem: using the exact same metrics he sets up for discussing the Georgian protests, the protests in Iran are also “unclearly supported” (whateverthehell that means). Except I’m wrong for saying so, and he accused me of implying moral equivalence between Saakashvili and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Sound honest to you? Exactly. Is he seriously implying that the Georgian opposition is orchestrated in Moscow? Really? A serious person could not possibly think so: the most important opposition leaders, like most Georgian politicians, are anti-Russian, just not suicidally so the way that Saakashvili often seems.

Anyway, in both Iran and Georgia, the protests are almost entirely urban phenomena. But Michael “I love Instapundit so much I can’t stand it” Cecire uses “swirling” in the first sentence, cites Army of Davids, attaches a bizarre eroticism to invading other countries while elevating General Petraeus to the status of Saint, and calls Ahmadinejad “apocalyptic,” so he’s golden with that whole twisted Kaplan-worshipping crowd.

Sigh. This man found it sensible last August to advocate going to war with Russia over an unimportant spec on a map run by a petty arrogant man who speaks with a pleasing lilt. PLEASE LISTEN TO HIS SAGE THOUGHTS.

The International Crisis Group just released a new study on Georgia:

All sides in the conflict – Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian – committed war-time abuses, but the actions of Ossetian militias, who systematically looted, torched and in some cases bulldozed most ethnic Georgian villages, were particularly egregious. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called those abuses “ethnic cleansing” Human Rights Watch cited ample evidence to label them “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes”. The PACE also noted “the failure of Russia and the de facto authorities to bring these practices to a halt and their perpetrators to justice”. Indeed, Russian troops largely stood by, unwilling or unable to perform their security duties…

[Russia] has now gone two steps further, not only vetoing the UN mission that has been working in Abkhazia but also blocking a renewed mandate for the OSCE mission to Georgia that has been active in South Ossetia. Though none of the other 56 OSCE member states support it on this latter step, the fourth biggest OSCE mission is on the verge of closing on 30 June because a mandate extension requires consensus.

The ICG report focuses only on events with South Ossetia, with Abkhazia promised for a later report. Considering that just today, Abkhazian forces managed to attack and damage part of Georgia’s electricity infrastructure, let’s hope they come out with it soon.

As for the report itself, it’s vintage ICG: there is a pretty god description of the conflict and many of the politics around it, but also suffers from the usual weaknesses of ICG reports, like a touch of utopianism in the suggestions area. Russia’s six months of obfuscation on extending the OSCE’s Georgian mission are stemming from deep domestic political considerations as much as their specific angle inside South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Even so, it is very much worth reading.

Previously:
Registan.net’s coverage of Georgia’s instability.

There is plenty of commentary on Iran out there. You don’t need us to fill you in (though we might try a bit later, from an altitude above the twitter-RTing that’s currently 90% of the “news” about the “revolution”). What I do find remarkable about what’s going on right now remains what’s going on in Georgia. This putative U.S. ally is still beating and arresting its political opponents, and now that opposition has reached out for help:

THE LEADERS of Georgia’s opposition have called on western nations to condemn President Mikheil Saakashvili’s handling of a 10-week-long protest against his rule, after police clashed again with anti-government demonstrators intent on forcing him from power.

The fighting in central Tbilisi came as Russia used its veto in the United Nations Security Council to prevent the extension of an observer mission in Abkhazia, a separatist Georgian region which, like South Ossetia, has been recognised by Moscow as an independent state.

Violence erupted when dozens of masked police wielding truncheons confronted about 50 demonstrators who had gathered outside a police station to demand the release of activists who had been arrested at an earlier rally.

The current round of rioting has been going on for about two and a half months. But displeasure in Mikhail Saakashvili’s reign as President stretch almost all the way back to the so-called “Rose Revolution” that brought him into power in 2003. In fact, there have been protests against his presidency for so long (prompting both a snap-election and storm troopers) that it seems people are just sick of it.

It’s one reason so many treated the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 as a surprise: it’s no longer news when a riot clogs up the streets of Tblisi, or when there is sabre-rattling over Abkhazia. And Saakashvili has spent virtually his entire term in office in the role of antagonist, both of Russia and his own political opponents. It should have been no surprise that, eventually, the country hit a boiling point, and things started to happen.

What has been deeply surprising is how much the U.S. has tacitly approved of it. The region’s importance as an energy corridor does not excuse Georgian brinksmanship, nor does it mean that the U.S. must approve of whatever the President of each country does. In fact, by enabling Saakashvili’s thumb-in-the-eye approach to both foreign and domestic policy through enormous incentives, huge military aid packages, and a Washington wink and nod, it is quite probable the U.S. has contributed to the Caucasus’ destabilization. All in the name of freedom.

While all the focus is on Iran’s street riots over a possibly-rigged election, let us turn our attention to U.S. ally The Republic of Georgia. Georgia, if you recall, was embroiled in a nasty little border war with Russia this past August, and was pretty successful in pinning much of the blame on Russia’s “aggression.”

An unpublished European Union report, however, casts doubt on that version of events:

The confidential investigative commission documents, which SPIEGEL has obtained, show that the task of assigning blame for the conflict has been as much of a challenge for the commission members as it has for the international community. However, a majority of members tend to arrive at the assessment that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili started the war by attacking South Ossetia on August 7, 2008. The facts assembled on Tagliavini’s desk refute Saakashvili’s claim that his country became the innocent victim of “Russian aggression” on that day.

In summarizing the military fiasco, commission member Christopher Langton, a retired British Army colonel, claims: “Georgia’s dream is shattered, but the country can only blame itself for that.”

Another commission member, Bruno Coppieter, a political scientist from Brussels, even speculates whether the Georgian government may have had outside help in its endeavor. “The support of Saakashvili by the West, especially military support,” Coppieter writes, “inadvertently promoted Georgia’s collision course.”

Now, the report is not as unanimous as that makes it seem, and the commission investigating the war saves a lot of condemnation for both Russia and South Ossetia as well (Russia, for example, violated its own cease-fire more than once, and occupied Georgia longer than was necessary to make its point). But, especially considering the über-heated condemnations of Russia as the new Stalin (or whatever, it got crazy in the U.S.), and the Georgian president lounging around the outrageously decadent Manhattan digs of hack wannabe journalists, and the 5,000-word press releases people seemed to consider actual news… well, it’s worth remembering that Georgia is no innocent lamb in its bickering with Russia.

Then, there are the previous three months of riots in Tblisi. Starting in the beginning of April, Georgia’s opposition movement promised to protest daily until the President quits. They pretty much have since, despite numerous beatings of both activists and the journalists covering them. My favorite? The plainclothes policemen who wade into crowds of protesters before beating them with truncheons.

Now, this is an American ally, the recipient of a billion dollars in U.S. foreign aid right after it started a war, the owner of a shiny new “strategic partnership” with the U.S., who has spent the last several months beating up opposition politicians and even journalists… and there is scarcely a peep either in the halls of Washington or even the blogs now seemingly (and suddenly) obsessed with Iran’s fake “democracy.”

Why is it news when a brutal regime beats up the same wealthy, urban youth they beat up every few years? Why is it not news when a subsidized American ally brutalizes its own opposition movement for far longer than Iran’s weekend of excitement? I really don’t know. But it is really starting to bother me.

Registan.net’s continuing coverage of Georgia’s border conflicts is here.

Plenty of well-deserved attention is being paid to the goings-on on in Moldova. (I recommend the fantastic Scraps of Moscow for plenty of news and analysis on the situation.)

Meanwhile, the conflict between the opposition and the government continues to simmer in Georgia. Considering the ways in which storming the halls of power seems to be communicable in the former Soviet Union, keep an eye on the planned rally in Tbilisi tomorrow, which organizers say will bring 100,000 people into the streets. Though the opposition coalition is pretty much only united by a dislike of President Saakashvili, they say they plan to continue protesting until he steps down. To me, the interesting question will be how and whether events in Chisinau shape those in Tbilisi.

Saakashvili’s opponents have received some interesting ammunition from the blogosphere.

TONIGHT was even better. I massaged the best looking President on earth, Mikheil Saakashvili . … He is the President of Georgia and super fun to talk to. He originally wanted only a 30 minute massage but 90 minutes later, he told me my massage is “the best massage I have had in my life so far”. Mikheil had body guards outside the massage room the whole time, who were all over 6 feet tall and like 4 feet wide. One spoke English really well and told me his favorite group is Metallica. Ha. He said “I am a rocker!” so we got along fine, whilst waiting for the President to finish his work out. I was excited to finally get to massage a President. I have massaged the Prince of Saudi Arabia before and a few Mayors, but this was the first President for me.

During the massage ‘Mr. President’ was very witty. I was massaging his massive neck and told him “wow! Your neck is so tense!” and he answered “no kidding, I have RUSSIA sitting on it!”.

For the full story, visit The Lede.

I still don’t get the strategic calculus behind this one:

The United States and Georgia officially became “strategic partners” under a charter signed by the two governments on January 9. While Georgian officials are hailing the document as a guarantee of Washington’s support for Tbilisi, analysts are divided on what kind of impact the agreement will actually have. Many believe the only certainty is that the pact will rile Russia.

Few details have been publicized about the charter, which was signed four months after Georgia’s disastrous war with Russia. It has been widely reported, however, that the Georgian pact resembles a strategic partnership charter signed by the United States and Ukraine in December.

According to the public version of the Ukrainian document, the signatories pledged “to strengthen” relations in five areas: economics, politics, diplomacy, culture and security. The charter also stressed US “support” for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which “constitutes the foundation” of the bilateral relationship.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lauded Georgia during the signing ceremony in Washington as “a very valued partner of the United States.” She added that the charter “outlines a way to advance our partnership.” Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze celebrated what he described as a “historic development for my country.”

Correction: I don’t agree with the strategic calculus of this agreement. In essence, it says that the American relationship with Georgia is war-proof, that no matter the appallingly bad decisions of its leadership it will be rewarded simply for being a thorn in Russia’s side and offering a partially non-Russian corridor for energy.

Indeed, going back to the context of the Russo-Georgian War is interesting. A lot of commenters and bloggers gave us grief here at Registan.net for declaring the war a disaster for Russia—it served to strengthen the view that Medvedev is a shallow puppet, yet even as it highlighted Russian weakness the war showed just how ridiculous all the talk of a New Cold War was pure rubbish (no matter what bankrupt geopolitical ideology you choose to use).

Regardless, the Bret Stephens of the world got their wish: the U.S. is rewarding aggression and intemperance, while Dmitri Medvedev has graduated toward complaining Putin isn’t solving Russia’s severe economic problems quickly enough. You’d think there is a lesson in there, somewhere.

Remember when I said Mark Ames was being too hard on CJ Chivers over his coverage of the Georgian conflict? Well.

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

Call into question indeed. Chivers is not pushing any agenda here, he is just reporting what information he can get when he can get it—and unlike way too many journalists, not treating the information he has as conclusive and case-settling. Even so, documenting the growing divergence between the Georgian portrayal of the war and what independent observers on the ground have seen is a laborious process—and Chivers deserves thanks for continuing to do the work needed to get it all into the open.