Well .... According to Ronald D. Asmus who writes in the
New Republic that's the case.
Asmus was a Clinton
deputy assistant secretary of state. Who now works as an international consultant and is executive director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Center and responsible for strategic planning at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
"The great debate will now begin. There will be those who will insist that the West did too much and encouraged or even emboldened the Georgians. And then there will be those who will argue that we did not do enough to prevent this war and to save Georgia. Put me firmly in the latter camp. If the West had taken these mounting tensions more seriously, this war could have been prevented. At the time, it looked too hard. Now there are many who wish they would have acted before it was too late."Where have all these Hawkish Democrats gone? Asmus makes a convincing argument but fails to address some details that are pertinent to the current situation.
Still we have no firm answers about whether the foolish Saakashvili undertook the ethnic cleansing he is accused of. While it is plain that Russia has been positioning itself for a few years to take action like this it is not yet clear if Saakashvili is as innocent as claimed.
Another point of view from
Times Of London where Richard Beeston writes that "Strutting Russia is heading for a fall"....
Lot's of partisan posturing, opinion and long rhetoric from all sides but too damned few facts for my liking.
Should we stand back while the International Rapid Response Hand Wringers leap into action?
OMMAGLabels: Balkanism, Bastards., Clear Thinking, Where's the MSM?
