From Green Light to Yellow

Ian Traynor and Luke Harding write in the Guardian: "The Kremlin last night dictated humiliating peace terms to Georgia as the price for halting the Russian invasion of the small Black Sea country and its four-day rout of Georgian forces."

But Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration suggested yesterday that an apparent cease-fire in Georgia came about because Moscow feared it would be banished from Western-dominated international economic and political institutions if it did not stop its 'aggression' in the former Soviet republic. . . .

"[A] senior administration official said . . . [m]embership in institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the Group of Eight major industrialized nations 'is what is at stake when Russia engages in behavior that looks like it came from another time.' . . .

"Although President Bush warned late Monday that Moscow's actions had already 'substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world,' the administration avoided making explicit threats in its own conversations with Russian leaders, one of the U.S. officials said, adding: 'We don't need to.'"

On the ABC World News last night, Charlie Gibson asked Rice about possible consequences for Russia. Her response: "This isn't 1968. The predecessor state of Russia, the Soviet Union, didn't care about its international reputation because it wasn't attempting to integrate into international organizations. . . . The Russians have said that they do want to be a part of that prosperous and forward-looking international community. And, frankly, they're doing great damage to their ability to do that. I can assure you that Russia's international reputation, and what role Russia can play in the international community, is very much at stake here."

By contrast, Matthew Lee writes for the Associated Press that "with scant leverage in the face of an emboldened Moscow, Washington and its friends have been forced to face the uncomfortable reality that their options are limited to mainly symbolic measures, such as boycotting Russian-hosted meetings and events, that may have little or no long-term impact on Russia's behavior, [administration] officials said Tuesday."

Peter Grier writes in the Christian Science Monitor: "Russia's blitz into the former Soviet republic of Georgia has exposed starkly the limits of US military power and geopolitical influence in the era following the invasion of Iraq."

And Jonathan S. Landay writes for McClatchy Newspapers that "the United States needs Russia's help on a range of issues, from tightening U.N. sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment work to ensuring that North Korea abides by an agreement to eliminate its nuclear weapons program.

"Russia and the United States also work closely on counter-terrorism, and Moscow's influence is also required on a host of other issues, from the Middle East peace process and ending the war in Iraq to halting the proliferation of materials useful in producing biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

"'There is no question that the Bush administration will want to . . . express it's disapproval and to downgrade the relationship,' said Charles Kupchan, a former White House advisor on European affairs now with the Council on Foreign Relations. 'But at the same time, the United States doesn't want to shoot itself in the foot.'"

Mixed Messages

Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker write in the New York Times that "around Washington, there are some rumblings already over whether the crisis might have somehow been headed off. . . .

"In a flurry of briefings intended to counter the critics and overcome the impression of having been caught flatfooted, senior Bush administration officials tried to paint a portrait of American reason and calm in the midst of hot tempers in what several called 'a hot zone.' . . .