[Peace-discuss] Georgia

[David Green]

  I endured a Brookings panel on C-Span this evening, and beyond Robert Kagan's bellicosity, here is an excerpt from Strobe Talbott, of the Clinton State Department (and President of Brookings), stressing the consensus on these issues. This panel was an amazing example of the assertion of doctrine and denial of basic facts (such as who fired first, and how destructively), although a woman named Martha Olcott seemed at least to be able to represent Russian concerns.
   
  Talbott also asserted that this is the "exact opposite" of Kosovo, where the Serbs committed ethnic cleansing and genocide against their own citizens. In Georgia, he asserted, the government has just been trying to work out an arrangement with groups whose status as Georgian citizens is problematic. He didn't explain how they came to work it out by killing 2000 innocent people. 
   
   
  http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/0814_georgia.aspx
   
   
  But this is beyond personal. The real motivation here from the
  Russian standpoint is that they regard it as inherently and unacceptably
  anti-Russian for an independent state –- and by the way, what does CIS
  stand for? Commonwealth of Independent States. They regard it as
  unacceptable for an independent state on their borders to want to
  integrate with Western European international institutions including NATO,
  including the E.U.
   
  Now that, I would suggest, is highly problematic and certainly not
  something that any other country should accept, but moreover it calls into
  question the premise of U.S. policy towards Russia going back at least
  three administrations: George Herbert Walker Bush, Bill Clinton and the
  current President. There are more than nuances of differences among all
  three of those administration and all three of those Presidents, but all
  three of them have been committed to the proposition that it is in Russia’s
  interest and it is in the world’s interest for Russia to rejoin Europe, to join
  international institutions and, by the way, to partner and maybe someday
  even be more than just a partner with NATO.
   
  And, if Russia is going to take the position that not only is it not
  interested in integrating in that fashion, but it’s not going to allow its
  supposedly sovereign and independent neighbors to do so, that calls into
  doubt the entire premise of U.S., European and Western international
  relations with Russia and will need to be taken into account by the next
  President of the United States.
   
  While the two candidates for that office are exaggerating the
  differences between them and while the press is exaggerating the
  differences between them for perfectly legitimate and understandable
  reasons, I don’t think there is that much difference between them on this
  question, and it’s going to be a huge challenge for the next administration.
   
   

       
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