[Peace-discuss] NYT: forget about NATO membership for Georgia...

[Robert Naiman]

U.S. Won't Push NATO To Admit Georgia
Helene Cooper, New York Times, August 19, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/world/europe/19rice.html

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that the United States
would not push for Georgia to be allowed into NATO at an emergency
meeting on Tuesday, a tacit admission that America and its European
allies lack the stomach for a military fight with Russia.
...
Administration officials said that they still hoped that Europe would
agree to let Georgia begin the process in December, but allowed that
the probability was even lower than it was in April, when France and
Germany blocked a similar request from President Bush for Georgia and
Ukraine.
...
The NATO charter says that an attack on one alliance member is an
attack on all, which could well have led to a military confrontation
with Russia if Georgia were already in NATO, a prospect that has left
many European governments queasy.
...
If European countries were afraid to let Georgia and Ukraine into NATO
at Bucharest in April for fear of angering Russia, why would they
admit them now, after Russia has demonstrated that it is willing to
fight over Georgian territory?

"Russia has successfully burned Georgia's NATO card," said Sarah E.
Mendelson, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Whatever the
outcome, Russia has all but obliterated Georgia's possibility of
joining NATO, as it cannot belong to this alliance if it has
unresolved border disputes."

-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

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