Tough Choices
Still following the news from Georgia obsessively…wondering what’s become of the poor family I lived with in Gori and where it’s all going to end. The administration is dithering, of course, but so is everyone else: I winced when Barack Obama called for a Security Council resolution, the emptiest of empty gestures, even if Russia didn’t have veto power.
It’s time to get real. Instead of Condi Rice mouthing platitudes about Georgia’s “territorial integrity,” it’s time to face some hard truths. Saakashvili rolled the dice and crapped out. The never-terribly-compelling argument that Abkhazia and Ossetia belong to Georgia in perpetuity, just because they did during the reign of Queen Tamar, has become completely untenable. Lasting peace in Georgia can only be achieved if it relinquishes its claims. The thrust of American diplomacy should be to persuade them to do so with serious aid—not the chump-change we’ve given them thus far—and security guarantees with real teeth. Any other scenario just restocks the tinderbox. The Russians will eventually withdraw this time—when they’re good and ready—but if the Georgians ever were to try anything in Tskhinvali or Kodori again, re-annexation looms as a real possibility.
