The crisis in Georgia is not going away. Russia now officially recognizes the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The White House has registered its official disapproval. Be sure to check out Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham’s piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Key quote:
For more than 60 years, from World War II through the Cold War to our intervention in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the U.S. has fostered and fought for the creation of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace. This stands as one of the greatest strategic achievements of the 20th century: the gradual transformation of a continent, once the scene of the most violent and destructive wars ever waged, into an oasis of peace and prosperity where borders are open and uncontested and aggression unthinkable. Russia’s invasion of Georgia represents the most serious challenge to this political order since Slobodan Milosevic unleashed the demons of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans. What is happening in Georgia today, therefore, is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a struggle about whether a new dividing line is drawn across Europe: between nations that are free to determine their own destinies, and nations that are consigned to the Kremlin’s autocratic orbit.
This Washington Post editorial dismantles the argument that the West is powerless to respond to Russia’s aggression. And Richard Holbrooke makes a crucial point: As long as Saakashvili remains the elected leader of democratic Georgia, Putin will be stymied. Speaking of Putin, this Simon Sebag Montefiore op-ed in Sunday’s Times contains the most chilling quote of the week (so far!):
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