Wanting to fight everyone, everywhere......
For all those people shouting "we've got to do something" about Russia and Georgia, let's look at a few points.
1) What exactly do you propose the US do? The US is not in a position to deploy "peacekeeping" troops. You're not going to send US jets over Russian troops. As the Chinese will likely cover the Russian's backs, nothing will get through the UN Security Council. You're not going to get into an embargo war with oil rich Russia.
2) Even if you do figure out something, you might as well kiss goodbye any chance on stopping Iran from getting (at least the technology for) nuclear weapons.
3) Because Iran would stall, going hostile with Russia is almost a guarantee of some sort of attack (however ill guided) on Iran, opening a third or fourth or fifth war front with a military that was structured to fight one and one half regional wars.
4) Yes, what's going on is horrible, but the Bush administration (your administration) has been substantially outplayed by the Russians. That's why we're here.
5) Pissing off the Russians and spending all that political capital on Kosovar independence looks like a very poor decision right now. That's part of the reason the Russians are so viciously putting Saakashvili back in his box.
(A gentleman I had lunch with yesterday said that the great flaw of this administration, the neocons, and current hawks is that they had no sense of proportionality, that they didn't properly assess cost benefit in national security.)
1) What exactly do you propose the US do? The US is not in a position to deploy "peacekeeping" troops. You're not going to send US jets over Russian troops. As the Chinese will likely cover the Russian's backs, nothing will get through the UN Security Council. You're not going to get into an embargo war with oil rich Russia.
2) Even if you do figure out something, you might as well kiss goodbye any chance on stopping Iran from getting (at least the technology for) nuclear weapons.
3) Because Iran would stall, going hostile with Russia is almost a guarantee of some sort of attack (however ill guided) on Iran, opening a third or fourth or fifth war front with a military that was structured to fight one and one half regional wars.
4) Yes, what's going on is horrible, but the Bush administration (your administration) has been substantially outplayed by the Russians. That's why we're here.
5) Pissing off the Russians and spending all that political capital on Kosovar independence looks like a very poor decision right now. That's part of the reason the Russians are so viciously putting Saakashvili back in his box.
(A gentleman I had lunch with yesterday said that the great flaw of this administration, the neocons, and current hawks is that they had no sense of proportionality, that they didn't properly assess cost benefit in national security.)
posted by mikevotes at
2:05 PM
10 Comments:
Reuters has the story.
Russia is doing exactly what we did in Iraq. It's that simple.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili "must go," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the Security Council.
They want "regime change" in Georgia.
Churkin did not directly address the question but said there are leaders who "become an obstacle."
"Sometimes those leaders need to contemplate how useful they have become to their people," he told reporters later.
"Regime change is purely an American invention," he said. "We're all for democracy in Georgia."
Does this sound familiar?
They want to replace the leader of Georgia with someone friendlier to their agenda, but they frame as if they doing Georgians a big favour by removing an 'obstacle'.
Did no one stop to think that when Bush stated a policy that essentially said we could remove 'troublesome' leaders of countries that no other nation would follow that example?
"American exceptionalism" is not generally recognised outside of America. Why would other countries agree that the rules don't apply to one country, unless they were that one country?
We will see this regime change policy instituted throughout Central Asia in the "stans". Russia will not tolerate proxy enemies in their backyard any more than we tolerated the Sandinistas. And our hands are tied in The Decider's Excellent Adventure, stabilising a pro-Iranian nation's regime change.
Who could possibly have predicted this?
By
Todd Dugdale , at 4:40 PM
Yeah, sort of.
The regime change goal is somewhat similar, but the backstory is different.
(You have to include the fact that the Russians believe the US played a huge role in Sakaashvili coming to power, and the greater tensions over the Russian belief of the US "interfering" in their backyard. The Russians feel like the US is trying to encircle and constrict them.
I'm not so sure this is the beginning of some great Russian war to change all the heads of state as much as a very ugly example/warning to those states not to go too far.)
By
mikevotes, at 4:49 PM
Obviously there are differences. No party involved is named "Saddam", for instance.
Russia invented a pretext to justify regime change in order to remove a pest. We did the same thing in Iraq. Oil is also involved in both cases.
The point is that Russia doesn't want to invade and annex these countries. They want nice, friendly "independent" leaders that will follow their script.
Very much like what we want in Central America. Very much like what we claim to want in Iraq.
And, no, it probably isn't the start of "some great Russian war...". They don't need to do that now that they've set the example. Likewise, Nicaragua didn't mean that we invaded Mexico down to Panama. Everybody knew that if you didn't kiss our ass, you were next in line for regime change. Leaders simply don't rise to power who will antagonise us, and the same will happen in Central Asia. That doesn't mean massive war and invasion. You just need to draw blood and create a scary situation that you can point to and imply that the same thing could happen to other leaders who become 'obstacles'.
That's what Iraq was supposed to be for the U.S. It would have intimidated everyone into bowing to our will or else risk becoming the next Saddam. Problem is, we blew it and everybody knows our hands are too full to do anything about putative Saddam's.
Look at the parallels, not the minutiae.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 6:00 PM
Oh yeah. Definitely.
Sorry, I just get some pretty ignorant Iraq commenters who tend to blanket everything, so, sometimes I adopt that know it all hat.
Sorry. Wasn't paying attention. You know what you're talking about.
By
mikevotes, at 6:39 PM
Well, let's see -- Georgia became independent after the Soviet Union dissolved. Not a tremendously strong country, but one that admired the West and wanted to be part of Europe. We encouraged Georgia to acquire the army they wanted, because they also wanted to join NATO.
Then they 'helped' us by sending soldiers to Iraq.
Then a couple of Georgian provinces decided they wanted to be independent from Georgia (upon being urged by Russia).
Georgia uses its new army stuff to try to put the two provinces back in line.
Then Russia steps in to 'protect' them from Georgia, and, just incidentally, steps all over Georgia and Georgia's American-purchased armaments for good measure.
I'd say our current administration got blindsided by this one. What an ugly little mess for the next President to deal with.
And Russia now has its hands on more oil pipelines.
By
r8r, at 6:56 PM
And add to it the Bush administration's apparent promise to "support" Georgia's young democracy.
I think "support" had different meanings to the participants.
(But it shouldn't be lost that Saakashvili took a gamble hoping to draw the US in.)
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mikevotes, at 9:35 PM
#5 is not a very good reason to screw over the nation of Kosova.
Todd: Nice analogy, but none of it matches. Georgia was not engaging in and promoting terrorism. Iraq was. Georgia had no WMD and Iraq did. Georgia was not run by an imperialist dictator who was attacking several countries and was engaged in terrorism. Iraq was. Georgia was not attacking peacekeepers who had every right to be there to patrol after the cease fire. Iraq was. Georgia was not a human rights catastrophe with its dictator slaughtering large numbers of people. Iraq was. Georgia was not violating many terms of the cease fire of a war it had started previously. Iraq was.
"Did no one stop to think that when Bush stated a policy that essentially said we could remove 'troublesome' leaders of countries that no other nation would follow that example?"
That is not really what he did. The US goal was to get Saddam's Iraq to comply with the very reasonable terms of the Gulf War cease fire from 10 years before. He had complied with few of them. If he had complied, there would have been no regime change pressure at all.
The Central America thing does not fit, either. The US did not care whether or not any countries followed its "Script". It just did not want any Soviet colonies there. However, this is a dead issue. The USSR is gone, and with it the wars, conflicts, and tensions in Central America.
"Who could possibly have predicted this?"
Well, perhaps by looking at Chechnya, another instance where Putin also boosted "pride in new Russian imperialism" by invading and wiping out a small independent nation on its border.
By
realist, at 4:47 AM
Well, Realist, We could "screw over Kosovo then, or not have any leverage now. You might argue that the (thousands of dead) Georgians are being "screwed over" just a little bit harder than the Kosovars might have been.
......And, uh, Iraq was "engaging in terrorism?" I'm guessing you're referencing the payments to Palestinian families. A stretch to "supporting terrorism," but "engaging in?"
Do you believe the Cheney newsletter?
By
mikevotes, at 7:28 AM
Iraq really didn't have WMD, or they did at one time (with U.S. approval) and they got rid of them as they said they did.
Georgia has been involved with low-level conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for several years now, as well as creating a credible military threat on Russia's borders. This parallels the threat Iraq posed to its neighbours. It's also interesting to note that when Iraq invaded Kuwait, they were merely seeking regime change as well.
A far as terrorism promoted by Iraq, you are off base. That was a fiction created by the Administration to justify regime change. In fact, it's clear in hindsight that the Administration was determined to invade Iraq regardless of the justifications you mentioned.
And the Iraqi "slaughtering" went on while Saddam was our ally with the full knowledge and tacit approval of the U.S. Twenty years later we recoil in horror and use it as a reason to overthrow him. Saakasvili has human rights issues, too, aside from the electoral fraud that got him into his position.
The Central America thing does not fit, either. The US did not care whether or not any countries followed its "Script". It just did not want any Soviet colonies there.
You seem willfully dense. Do you not see Georgia as the exact same "American colony" on Russia's doorstep? You do realise that Nicaragua overthrew a brutal dictator that the U.S. supported, don't you? And we responded by threatening them militarily to force regime change. They were no threat to us. They merely stopped following the script. The Russians came later. Venezuela is a current example. No threat, but they aren't under our thumb, so the leadership must go.
Look, realist, Bush created a NIE that said we can invade any country, anywhere in the world, if we don't like the leadership. All we have to do is say the magic word "terrorism", even if it isn't true.
You seem to believe that this is okay because we are "the good guys", and it's wrong when anyone else does this because they are obviously "the bad guys".
This isn't a comic book. It's the real world.
Aside from that, you have the Russian FM clearly stating that they want regime change in Georgia, and that is the condition for their withdrawal. No bloody parallel? As I said, there are differences, but on the macro level the two situations are very similar. The old model of invasion (such as in Chechnya) is now a last resort. Why do that when you can essentially determine the leadership of countries and select ones sympathetic to your interests?
There is another parallel in the way that Cheney pushed Israel to attack Syria and then left them in the lurch. Or Colombia and Venezuela.
Mike, sorry for going on so long here.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 8:53 AM
So many things to refute, but I will do just one (of the rather common "Saddam never had anything to do with terrorism" lie), rather than make a post even twice as long.
"A far as terrorism promoted by Iraq, you are off base. That was a fiction created by the Administration to justify regime change."
George W. Bush was not a time traveler. Documents during the Clinton years (from the Clinton administration) and after show the terrorist groups hosted by, promoted by, and funded by Saddam Hussein.
It's not a comic book. At least that statement by you is true. It's the real world. An in the real world, Saddam Hussein actually was a terrorism kingpin, and lots of people, including those on the Left, realized this fact long before Bush came to power.
By
realist, at 8:15 AM
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