I’m somewhat encouraged to see an element of realism in the foreign policy Establishment regarding the situation in Georgia. It appears that people understand that we don’t have any good cards in our hand. In fact, we’ve overplayed our hand and had our bluff called. In such a situation, as painful as it may be, the only correct thing to do is to fold. If we don’t fold…if we double down on our bluff, the result might look like this:
Putin criticized the United States for viewing Georgia as the victim instead of the aggressor, and for airlifting Georgian troops back home from Iraq on Sunday.
“Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages,” Putin said in Moscow. “And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection.”
That is a naked threat to invade all of Georgia, hunt down President Mikhail Saakashvili and his top cronies, and to hang them until dead. If you want to talk about throwing down the gauntlet…it has been thrown.
