Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice was/is considered an expert on Russia and the Soviet Union. What’s going on in Georgia (a former state in the USSR) should not be hard to figure out ... and could have been prevented. But just in case you’re not in tune, here’s a brief overview of Georgia’s history from the BBC.
What’s happening in Georgia is, in part, a product of larger on-going issues between George Bush’s failed positions in the region, and the administration's continued inability to see or anticipate events.
Specifically, the Bush administration has been meddling in Russian affairs, and getting in Russia’s face for the better part of six years. So when the Bush administration decided to warn Russia on Georgia, you can imagine Moscow's response. To be sure, Russia has genuine interests in Georgia, but President Bush’s actions have not helped improve conditions, or our hand, in the region.
STUPIDITY IN THE BALTICS
President Bush visited Moscow in 2005 to observe the 60th anniversary of the Allies' victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. In the process he irritated old WWII wounds in the region by bringing up a past that is better left alone. Here’s a brief review of a past he should have left alone.
The Russians believe they should be thanked for “liberating” the Baltics from the Nazis during WWII. They also feel they are being polite to the Baltic states (Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia) for not mentioning large scale collaboration on their part with the Nazis. The Balts, however, do not feel the Russians liberated them because the Russians turned around and occupied their land and, in the process, wiping them from global maps for 50 years.
On the other side of this mess, the Baltic want to forget how eager many of them were to help Germans kill Jews, with the Riga Ghetto being one of the largest in Europe. To counter this, many Balts remind the Russians that many of their countrymen fought in the Red Army, and are not shy about reminding Russia about the Russian soldiers who defected to the Nazis (these soldiers were executed on the spot when captured by Russian troops).
At this point it should be pretty clear why it might be a good thing to “let sleeping dogs lie,” right?
Enter our President, the Idiot Prince, to make sure that all of this gets revived. Rather than simply saying he’s in Moscow to celebrate the end of WWII he wrote a letter to the three Baltic heads of state stating the end of World War II "also marked the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the imposition of Communism." Nice.
The letter arrived in the Baltic states right before Bush arrived in Moscow for the WWII ceremonies in Spring 2005. As you can imagine Putin was ecstatic.
But just to show that President Bush really has no idea what he’s doing, he didn’t back off. Instead Bush told a Lithuanian reporter that he confronted Mr. Putin on how he needs to work on democracy in Russia and to remind him that "the remembrances of the time of Communism [for the Baltic states] are unpleasant remembrances.”
Reminding a people of two occumpations. Digging to uncover old Nazi wounds. Insulting prospective hosts on the eve of arriving in their nation. A trifecta in dimplomatic incompetence.
To Mr. Putin’s credit, in a May 4 interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" (which aired May 8, 2005) Mr. Putin said that America should not be lecturing him about rollbacks on democracy when "four years ago your presidential election was decided by the court." Ouch.
Score one for Putin.
STUPIDITY IN THE CAUCUSES?
OK, back to the present dispute ...
Just last month Condaleeza Rice was in Georgia telling Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili one thing, but sending Russia another set of signals.
Specifically, while asking President Saakashvili (who has a law degree from Columbia University) not to antagonize the Russians by using Georgia's military force to settle the separatist movements in issue (specifically in Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Ajaria), it appears that the Bush administration had been going out of its way to, well, antagonize the Russians. They did this by: (1) sending military advisers to bolster the Georgian military, including an exercise last month with more than 1,000 American troops (aren’t they needed in Iraq?); (2) working hard to bring Georgia into NATO, while providing few assurances to Russia; (3) providing material support for the 2003 Rose Revolution, which replaced President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former communist party man, who had ruled Georgia for more than 30 years, and (4) loudly proclaiming support for Georgia’s territorial integrity at the same time Russia was making clear their concerns over Georgia’s separatist enclaves.
With these developments in the background you can imagine how the Russians felt after Condaleeza Rice provocatively told the press (and Putin) on the eve of her July 2008 visit to Georgia, “I’m going to visit a friend and I don’t expect much comment about the United States going to visit a friend.”
Score one for arrogant, child-like, hubris.
As you can imagine, after all this, Moscow was in no mood to be lectured by the Bush administration after they began bombing Georgia on “behalf” of Russians and Ossetians. It also helps to explain why the U.S. is virtually absent from the on-going cease fire dialog. Russia is in no mood to listen to President Bush.
Making matters worse, we now have John McCain trying to score cheap political points off of this disaster by attempting to make it appear that he knows what's going on ... while clumsily reading from a prepared script (no doubt prepared by the same foreign poliy aide who was a lobbyist for Georgia, and whose firm is still being paid by Georgia).
There’s more. But it doesn’t get any better. In real simple terms, President Bush will go down as an historic incompetent on many levels. The man is a fool.
- Mark
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