Who Poked the Bear?

I wrote in yesterday's column about Bush's stirring promise to Georgians in 2005 that "the American people will stand with you."

Anne Gearan writes for the Associated Press: "The Bush administration's assurances of solidarity with a young democracy . . . may have given Georgia's silver-tongued, US-educated leader a little too much swagger as he picked a playground fight he never could win on his own."

Fred Kaplan writes for Slate: "Regardless of what happens next, it is worth asking what the Bush people were thinking when they egged on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's young, Western-educated president, to apply for NATO membership, send 2,000 of his troops to Iraq as a full-fledged U.S. ally, and receive tactical training and weapons from our military. Did they really think [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin would sit by and see another border state (and former province of the Russian empire) slip away to the West? If they thought that Putin might not, what did they plan to do about it, and how firmly did they warn Saakashvili not to get too brash or provoke an outburst?

"It's heartbreaking, but even more infuriating, to read so many Georgians quoted in the New York Times-- officials, soldiers, and citizens -- wondering when the United States is coming to their rescue. It's infuriating because it's clear that Bush did everything to encourage them to believe that he would. . . .

"Bush pressed the other NATO powers to place Georgia's application for membership on the fast track. The Europeans rejected the idea, understanding the geo-strategic implications of pushing NATO's boundaries right up to Russia's border. If the Europeans had let Bush have his way, we would now be obligated by treaty to send troops in Georgia's defense. That is to say, we would now be in a shooting war with the Russians. . . .

"Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly called Saakashvili on Sunday to assure him that 'Russian aggression must not go unanswered.' We should all be interested to know what answer he is preparing or whether he was just dangling the Georgians on another few inches of string."

Scott Horton blogs for Harper's: "Georgia's confidence in America, and specifically the Bush Administration, may well prove tragically misplaced. . . .

"The Georgian leadership, and indeed a whole generation of Georgians, tethered their hopes to George W. Bush and the hollow promises of his administration. Now at the moment of truth, Bush will almost certainly let them down.. . . . [T]hanks to the serial strategic misadventures that make up Bush-Cheney foreign policy, there is little prospect of Russia's actions being answered by a flex of military muscle of the United States or of NATO. Putin's calculation is that an America bogged down in two conflicts in the Middle East will let him give the Georgians a whipping. Putin is probably right."

The New York Times editorial board reserves its greatest outrage for Russia, but notes: "The Bush administration has alternately egged on Mr. Saakashvili (although apparently not this time) and looked the other way as the Kremlin has bullied and blackmailed its neighbors and its own people. . . .

"The Bush administration has made Mr. Putin's job even easier, feeding nationalist resentments with its relentless drive for missile defense."

Inklings?

Jonathan S. Landay of McClatchy Newspapers files an intriguing if puzzling report suggesting that U.S. officials knew both less and more about the trouble brewing in the region than one might have expected.

"Bush administration officials, worried by what they saw as a series of provocative Russian actions, repeatedly warned Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to avoid giving the Kremlin an excuse to intervene in his country militarily, U.S. officials said Monday," Landay writes.