Hillary's Statement on Georgia in April, and just look at Georgia now.

[sunonmars]

Well, she had this right on the head. If you needed any other reason why Clinton is needed by the democrats for foreign policy, this is it.


4/18/2008

Statement by Hillary Clinton on Georgia and Ukraine

I am deeply disturbed by the latest Russian actions regarding Georgia, and Russia’s broader policies towards its neighbors.

Several weeks ago I called on NATO to extend a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Georgia and Ukraine at the Bucharest Summit. I emphasized that this move would be a litmus test for the success of President Bush’s leadership of the trans-Atlantic community. My support for MAP was based on the need to send a positive signal to Tbilisi and Kyiv to encourage them to stay on track with their positive reforms as well as to send a signal of our concern to Moscow about the future security of these countries.

I deeply regret President Bush’s inability to convince our NATO allies to take this action. This is the first time in memory a U.S. President has traveled to a NATO summit and failed to achieve his publicly proclaimed goals.

Now the Russian government has taken advantage of the lack of unity coming out of the Bucharest Summit to further ratchet up the pressure on young democracies on its borders. Moscow’s actions this week to strengthen ties with the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia undermine the territorial integrity of the state of Georgia and are clearly designed to destabilize the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgia is a small democratic state in a turbulent region. It must not be allowed to be undermined. Two weeks ago President Bush sat with President Putin in Sochi just a few kilometers away from the Georgian border. He prided himself on his close working relationship with Vladimir Putin. President Bush should call on the Russian leadership to immediately rescind these steps.

I also call on President Bush to immediately send a senior representative to Tbilisi to show our support for the government of Georgia. The United States should raise this matter in the United Nations Security Council, in a special 26+1 session of NATO’s North Atlantic Council (NAC), and in the NATO-Russia Council. Russia needs to hear a unified message from the United States and our European partners about our shared commitment to Georgia’s security and territorial integrity.

These are not the only Russian moves that I have found troubling. Senior Russian officials have engaged in a pressure campaign to prevent Ukraine from seeking deeper ties with NATO. President Putin even raised the prospect of retargeting nuclear missiles against Ukraine.

I am not advocating, nor do I envisage, a return to a new Cold War with Russia, which I believe ought to remain in the G-8, where the United States and its allies can together address our growing list of concerns with Moscow. But the current Administration’s mishandling of Russian relations has contributed to Moscow’s belief that it can do as it pleases. America and its allies can and must do better.

[Median Democrat]

1. Arguably, That Would Have Provoked Russia Further and Embroiled The US

Here is an excerpt from the NYT regarding what lead to the crisis. Notice how Georgia's integration with the US might have emboldened Georgia. If Georgia were in NATO, and Georgia started this fight, and Russia attacked, we would be drawn into a war with Russia.

/snip

Several other long-term factors had also contributed to the possibility of war. They included the Kremlin’s military successes in Chechnya, which gave Russia the latitude and sense of internal security it needed to free up troops to cross its borders, and the exuberant support of the United States for President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, a figure loathed by the Kremlin on both personal and political terms.

Moreover, by preparing Georgian soldiers for duty in Iraq, the United States appeared to have helped embolden Georgia, if inadvertently, to enter a fight it could not win.

American officials and a military officer who have dealt with Georgia said privately that as a result, the war risked becoming a foreign policy catastrophe for the United States, whose image and authority in the region were in question after it had proven unable to assist Georgia or to restrain the Kremlin while the Russian Army pressed its attack.

* * *

This feeling was especially true among Russian specialists, who said that, whatever the merits of Mr. Saakashvili’s positions, his impulsiveness and nationalism sometimes outstripped his common sense.

The risks were intensified by the fact that the United States did not merely encourage Georgia’s young democracy, it helped militarize the weak Georgian state.

/snip

[Wetzelbill]

2. not just drawn in, we'd have to fight

The other aspect though is it might have made Russia back off until it got this far, But of course you know this because you said "arguably."

Bush's political and diplomatic maladroitness, surely played a part in this. If we could have engaged Russia in a more positive manner for 8 years, we'd have a better hand in this. And our invasion of Iraq has given Putin cover for his exploits in Chechnya and the same basic philosophy goes with Georgia. (Medvedev is president, but obviously Putin is still the power) Because of Iraq Putin was able to further repress Chechnya over the "terrorism" issue, and now Russia can use that Bush template to justify any aggressive action or reaction with their former satellites. McCain, because he has the certainty of a fool and the credibility of a POW, would probably be worse in all of this. McCain, as Pat Buchanan said, would make Dick Cheney look like Gandhi.

[Median Democrat]

3. Rule 1 - Don't Admit Members Into NATO Who Pick Fights With Russia

Georgia's surprise offensive underscores that it would have been unwise to rush NATO membership for Georgia. NATO membership carries certain responsibilities, and you do not want to get drawn into fights started by other members without your knowledge and approval.

The last thing you need is a small country starting military conflicts with a former super power, then crying to NATO when that super power hits back really hard. Sadly, I think Georgia was emboldened as noted by the NYT, and NATO membership could have made things worse.

[Wetzelbill]

6. Not only that, and I agree with you

But if Georgia is Pro-US and a member of NATO, their attack would look like a proxy action, especially when you have one major party candidate who doesn't seem to realize the Cold War is over.

[LSparkle]

4. Agreed ... Shrub and his Soviet "expert" Condi have ignored Russia

while courting the former Soviet Republics that were their
"buffer zone" and afforded them some feeling of security.
If we had hoped Russia would behave in a "hands off" manner
in their own neighborhood, we should have given them more
reassurances that NATO membership and other interactions
between those former satellites and the west wouldn't
endanger Russian security. Instead, we seemed to expect
them to just stand by while we "stole their girlfriend(s)."

[Wetzelbill]

7. yeah good points

The Bush administration has provided the best blueprint ever on how to conduct foreign policy, or a presidency for that matter, and that is to just do the exact opposite of everything they have done.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Stupid idea to bring NATO, an aggressor institution, into the picture!

European diplomats accept that Mikheil Saakashvili initiated military action in seeking to reassert Georgian control of its breakaway province of South Ossetia, perhaps hoping that he could consolidate power there while the world was preoccupied with the Olympics.

At the time of the Rose Revolution in 2003, European lawmakers saw Saakashvili through similarly tinted spectacles, but nowadays they regard him as a somewhat headstrong figure who had already damaged his credentials as a democrat by the way in which he suppressed dissent in his country last November.

Georgia may claim that South Ossetia's leaders are controlled by the Russia's FSB security service but Europeans sense Saakashvili gave Russia the excuse it was looking for to intervene, insisting that its own "peace-keepers" in South Ossetia were under threat and had to be protected.

If Saakashvili thought that the Europeans in particular and the Western world in general would rally to his cause, he miscalculated. European diplomats have for a while been confessing a degree of "Georgia fatigue."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/11/georgia.russia.oakley/index.html

Here is what Gorby had to say:

Over the past few days some Western nations have taken positions, particularly in the U.N. Security Council, that have been far from balanced. As a result, the Security Council was not able to act effectively from the very start of this conflict. By declaring the Caucasus, a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent, a sphere of its "national interest," the United States made a serious blunder. Of course, peace in the Caucasus is in everyone's interest. But it is simply common sense to recognize that Russia is rooted there by common geography and centuries of history. Russia is not seeking territorial expansion, but it has legitimate interests in this region.

The international community's long-term aim could be to create a sub-regional system of security and cooperation that would make any provocation, and the very possibility of crises such as this one, impossible. Building this type of system would be challenging and could only be accomplished with the cooperation of the region's countries themselves. Nations outside the region could perhaps help, too -- but only if they take a fair and objective stance. A lesson from recent events is that geopolitical games are dangerous anywhere, not just in the Caucasus.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081101372.html?hpid=opinionsbox1