Obama Turns More Hawkish On Georgia Conflict

By Cernig

I have to say I think Obama has shot himself in the foot with his revised statement on the conflict yesterday.

Chicago, IL -- "I just spoke separately with Secretary Rice and President Saakashvili about the grave crisis in Georgia. I told President Saakashvili that I was deeply concerned about the well-being of the people of Georgia.

"Over the last two days, Russia has escalated the crisis in Georgia through it's clear and continued violation of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity. On Friday, August 8, Russian military forces invaded Georgia. I condemn Russia's aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate ceasefire. Russia must stop its bombing campaign, cease flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia. Both sides should allow humanitarian assistance to reach civilians in need. Russia also must end its cyber war against Georgian government websites. Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected.

"As I have said for many months, aggressive diplomatic action must be taken to reach a political resolution to this crisis, and to assure that Georgia's sovereignty is protected. Diplomats at the highest levels from the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations must become directly involved in mediating this military conflict and beginning a process to resolve the political disputes over the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A genuinely neutral mediator - not the Russian government - must begin a process of negotiations immediately.

"The situation in Georgia also requires the deployment of genuine international peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The current escalation of military conflict resulted in part from the lack of a neutral and effective peacekeeping force operating under an appropriate UN mandate. Russia cannot play a constructive role as peacekeeper. Instead, Russian actions in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia appear to be intended to preserve an unstable status quo."

The statement contains more condemnation of Russian aggression against Georgia, and its trespassing on Georgian sovereignty, than Obama's first well-balanced statement. It's playing right into McCain's camp, as Obama is obviously moving towards the hawkish anti-Russian rhetoric emanating from there.

There's no apparent mention of Georgia actually, you know, starting the thing by sending its entire army into an unstable area which doesn't want to be Georgian sovereign territory in the first place and in which Russia had an internationally-recognised and CIS-mandated duty as a protector of the local's lives and liberty. No mention that Georgia, a CIS member, violated its own obligations to the CIS brokered deal over South Ossetia. But at least Obama's correct that Russia can no longer continue that role. It's just not a neutral enough actor and never was - which didn't stop anyone approving said role before now.

No mention either that a senior State Dept. official was in Georgia just last week or that the US actually has a small permanent military base in Georgia - a tripwire pretty much guaranteed to ensure that Russia doesn't try to annex georgia proper, even if it really wanted to - and so the Bush administration must have known which way Saakashvili intended to jump and seems to have done diddly-squat to dissuade him.

It looks, at first glance, like Obama's been listening too hard to old Cold Warriors like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who wants to compare Putin to Stalin and Hitler. (Is it required by American hawks that any foreign leader they don't like be compared to Stalin and Hitler?) Brzezinski also backed McCain's call to throw Russia out of the G8, saying the G8 Group is "an impotent fiction anyway", and included a call to add Georgia to the NATO membership action plan forthwith - so that the West is obligated to get militarily involved next time out too!

Yet another disappointing move by triangulating Obama. "Change you can believe in" shouldn't include swapping the last set of hawks for the previous ones, but apparently it does - and it also includes playing to decades old American fear of the Soviet/Russian "menace". I can console myself with the thought that Clinton would have been even more hawkish and McCain is dreadfully warlike in comparison still, but it doesn't really give me a warm-fuzzy about the elections.

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

Anything like this requires that the Democrat walk a tightrope. Any sign of "weakness" will be damaging in the election. It's not right but it is reality. The American people have been conditioned to be paranoid hawks.

[Jay C]

Actually, Sen. Obama's statements about the Russia/Georgia war may not end up hurting him all that much - as the McCain campaign, in one of its typical spasms of inanity, has castigated Obama for, in effect, being a tool for the Russians (prompted by the revelation of their campaign's Georgian lobbyist connections). A bit of Bear-baiting by Barack may serve the dual purpose of a) getting the candidate a bit more behind the public mood of Russophobia and b) making the McCain crew look (even more) self-contradictory and foolish.

[PeeDee]

This is just another one of the many hoops that Obama will have to jump through (eg. FISA) to prove that he is macho enough for the imaginary Joe Sixpack. They will become more and more contrived and fantastical (black is white, up is down) until he finally balks, and then the GOP will run that theme through November.

[Roman]

Russia Georgia
Where were we when South Ossetia held referendums in 1991 and 2006 to join Russia and voted overwhelmingly to do so? I dont remember CNN reporting on that or the fact that after the 1991 vote the Georgian troops went into South Ossetia and killed over ten thousand civilians to stop them from leaving Georgia. Where was CNN then, where was NATO?

And this time again when they went to join Russia after a democratic vote the Georgians started to bomb again. The only reason Russia went in is because Georgians started to kill civilians again and we in the west did not care.