Bush's Risky Move

"'The Georgian leadership is a special project for the United States,' Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, quoted by Interfax news agency.

"'At some time it will be necessary to choose between supporting this virtual project and real partnership on questions which actually require collective action,' he said, apparently referring to Moscow support for US-led diplomatic efforts to end nuclear drives by Iran and North Korea."

Knox writes that, at her press conference yesterday, Rice said she "told Lavrov that Washington stood firmly behind Georgia.

"Rice also told Lavrov that Russia was not doing 'a favor' to the United States by joining the diplomatic drive against Iran and North Korea as such efforts were intended to bring about a 'stable' Middle East and Korean peninsula."

Deb Riechmann writes for the Associated Press: "The White House grasp of developments in war-battered Georgia has been hampered by confusing reports from the ground and intelligence resources that initially were focused more on Iraq and Afghanistan than the former Soviet republic.

"One-sided and possibly exaggerated accounts of actions from both sides and the Bush administration's difficulty in independently verifying information about the war have left the White House standing on an ever-changing platform from which to speak out on the crisis."

Charles Clover, Catherine Belton and Stanley Pignal write in the Financial Times: "Russia made clear yesterday that despite a ceasefire agreement with Georgia it will do whatever it pleases in the defeated country. . . .

"It was clear that the peace document agreed by the two sides on Tuesday was open to different interpretations, and the Georgian side, with its army almost destroyed, had no leverage except international diplomatic support."

AFP reports this morning that "Bush assured leaders of Ukraine and Lithuania on Thursday that he remains fully committed to 'a sovereign, free Georgia and its territorial integrity,' the White House said. . . .

"In his conversations with Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Bush stressed US 'solidarity' with Georgia in its conflict with Russia, according to spokeswoman Dana Perino. . . .

"Perino had a brutally dismissive response to reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the world can 'forget about' Georgian sovereignty, describing it as meaningless 'bluster' with no effect on US policy."

Reaping What They Sow?

Juan Cole writes for Salon: "The run-up to the current chaos in the Caucasus should look quite familiar: Russia acted unilaterally rather than going through the U.N. Security Council. It used massive force against a small, weak adversary. It called for regime change in a country that had defied Moscow. It championed a separatist movement as a way of asserting dominance in a region it coveted.