More irony: Charles Krauthammer in the WaPo today says he knows what Vlad Putin's REAL objective is in Georgia:
His objectives are clear. They go beyond detaching South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia and absorbing them into Russia. They go beyond destroying the Georgian army, leaving the country at Russia's mercy.
The real objective is the Finlandization of Georgia through the removal of President Mikheil Saakashvili and his replacement by a Russian puppet.
Which explains Putin stopping the Russian army (for now) short of Tbilisi. What everyone overlooks in the cease-fire terms is that all future steps -- troop withdrawals, territorial arrangements, peacekeeping forces -- will have to be negotiated between Russia and Georgia. But Russia says it will not talk to Saakashvili. Thus regime change becomes the first requirement for any movement on any front. This will be Putin's refrain in the coming days. He is counting on Europe to pressure Saakashvili to resign and/or flee to "give peace a chance."
Huh??? Since when does Krauthammer not like regime change? And of course, if there's a neocon in the room, there's gonna be talk of oil:
The Finlandization of Georgia would give Russia control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is the only significant westbound route for Caspian Sea oil and gas that does not go through Russia. Pipelines are the economic lifelines of such former Soviet republics as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan that live off energy exports. Moscow would become master of the Caspian basin.
Subduing Georgia has an additional effect. It warns Russia's former Baltic and East European satellites what happens if you get too close to the West. It is the first step to reestablishing Russian hegemony in the region.
So what does Krauthammer want to do? Only dissolve the G8, bar Russia from entering the World Trade Organization, suspend the NATO-Russian alliance and ... Jimmy Carter fans will love this one ... boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics. Yes, you heard it right. He wants to boycott the Olympics.
Yeah, that should show Puty-Put.
Krauthammer is also making news for calling Bush's "lingering in Beijing, yucking it up with the U.S. beach volleyball team" a "mini-Katrina moment." Aside from that, his column is little more than the usual neocon sputter. But it's fully of irony, and we love that!
UPDATE: Yet another one for the irony file ... also writing in the Post today, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili casts the imperative for Western military rescue of Georgia in strangely familiar terms...
The historical parallels are stark: Russia's war on Georgia echoes events in Finland in 1939, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Perhaps this is why so many Eastern European countries, which suffered under Soviet occupation, have voiced their support for us.
Russia's authoritarian leaders see us as a threat because Georgia is a free country whose people have elected to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community. This offends Russia's rulers. They do not want their nation or even its borders contaminated by democratic ideas.
Translation: they hate us for our freedoms ...
This war threatens not only Georgia but security and liberty around the world. If the international community fails to take a resolute stand, it will have sounded the death knell for the spread of freedom and democracy everywhere.
Georgia's only fault in this crisis is its wish to be an independent, free and democratic country. What would Western nations do if they were punished for the same aspiration?
I have staked my country's fate on the West's rhetoric about democracy and liberty. As Georgians come under attack, we must ask: If the West is not with us, who is it with? If the line is not drawn now, when will it be drawn? We cannot allow Georgia to become the first victim of a new world order as imagined by Moscow.
Sounds a lot like George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. The biggest irony of all, however, is that had Bush not invaded a sovereign country his damned self, and had he not dragged America's military, and our reputation, through the mud, the U.S. might have been freer to come to Georgia's aid in a more substantive way (though I doubt we'd be going to war with Russia in any event.) Still, the biggest reason Georgia will get little more than food and good wishes from America, is one Iraq War -- the same war the neocons demanded.
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
