"A Beacon of Liberty"

Jörg Himmelreich writes:

The Russian-Georgian “five-day war” in August 2008 did not end the political conflict: It has all the potential to explode into a new armed confrontation any day.

This week, a much-anticipated report by an independent European Union fact-finding commission, of which I was a member, into the origins and causes of this conflict confirmed the common view that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, bears responsibility for the outbreak of the war and that Russia is equally responsible by escalating the political pressures that led to the hostilities.

But the report has a major flaw. It fails to thoroughly analyze the decisive role that the United States played before, during and after the conflict. Only a detailed assessment of President George W. Bush’s Georgia policy and its failures can fully explain the outbreak of the war and help the E.U. and President Obama shape new policies toward Russia and Georgia.

At the beginning of his presidency, President Bush in many regards continued the Georgia policy of President Clinton, accepting Georgia’s Western orientation and rejecting Russia’s claim to a sphere of influence in its “near abroad”; supporting Georgia’s aspirations for membership in NATO; and viewing Georgia as important for American and Western security and energy interests.

After 9/11, however, President Bush changed the policy toward Georgia, introducing two elements that developed into serious strategic disadvantages. Mr. Bush not only made Georgia into a partner in the “war on terror,” but he promoted Mr. Saakashvili and Georgia into a centerpiece of his “promotion of democracy.” In Tbilisi in 2005, Mr. Bush proclaimed Mr. Saakashvili’s Georgia “a beacon of liberty.”

Even as President Bush became increasingly aware that he needed the Kremlin’s help in Iran and for other American interests, he was kept a prisoner by this exaggeration of Georgia’s importance for U.S. foreign policy.

Senior officials of the Bush administration claim they warned Mr. Saakashvili against using force against Russia. But having invested so much ideological importance in the Georgian president, Mr. Bush couldn’t warn him publicly — or, as it turned out, stop him. Having become so dependent on Mr. Saakashvili’s success, the United States lost the political influence to stop him.

Once the war broke out on the night of Aug. 7, President Bush decided against any U.S. military action, and instead to encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, then holding the E.U. presidency, to seek a cease-fire. That was also a strategic mistake: Only the United States had the political clout to negotiate and enforce a serious peace agreement with Russia.

Mr. Sarkozy deserves credit for stopping the war, but he had to accept onerous Russian conditions. Since then, the E.U. has had to swallow constant Russian violations of the cease-fire agreements. President Bush’s policy failure was thus not doing rather than wrongdoing: not stopping Mr. Saakashvili and not taking the lead in the peace settlement.

Today, with Russia’s refusal to prolong international peacekeeping missions, the only political framework for American political engagement in the conflict is the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership agreement to rebuild Georgia’s military — hardly a vehicle for conflict resolution.

A rethinking of U.S. diplomacy and policy toward Georgia is urgently needed. The Obama administration should follow the E.U. lead and set up its own commission of inquiry — not only to fill in the gaps in the E.U. report, but to prepare the ground for a new, balanced policy toward Georgia that takes into account the “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations.

Georgia is a "beacon of liberty" in the way that Afghanistan is a "beacon of liberty": there are elections, but they are shamelessly rigged in order to deliver Soviet-style results. That is clearly what being a "beacon of liberty" means. Thank God that, with the Bush Administration gone, there will never be any more "beacons of liberty".