Dobbs and Remnick weigh in on South Ossetia

Two Russian experts weighed in on the conflict today and both articles contain some of the best commentary that I've read.

First, Michael Dobbs gives a concise summary in the Washington Post of the three principles in the conflict, the US, Russia and Georgia, and he apportions some of the blame onto the Bush administration's foreign policy. This is the final paragraph:

Instead of speaking softly and wielding a big stick, as Teddy Roosevelt recommended, the American policeman has been loudly lecturing the rest of the world while waving an increasingly unimpressive baton. The events of the past few days serve as a reminder that our ideological ambitions have greatly exceeded our military reach, particularly in areas such as the Caucasus, which is of only peripheral importance to the United States but of vital interest to Russia.

That pretty much sums it up, folks. What's also mentioned in the article, and is something we really should be hearing more about, is that our positions on Kosovo and South Ossetia are blatantly hypocritical. It's hard to say that Putin wasn't correct when he stated that Kosovo set a dangerous precedent.

In the New Yorker, David Remnick has a great comment. There are a number of stand out quotes and you should really check it out (it's only a page), but I've got to quote this in full:

Taken individually, the West’s actions since the collapse of the Soviet Union—from the inclusion of the Baltic and the Central European states in NATO to the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state—can be rationalized on strategic and moral grounds. But taken together these actions were bound to engender deep-seated feelings of national resentment among Russians, especially as, through the nineteen-nineties, they suffered an unprecedentedly rapid downward spiral. Even ordinary Russians find it mightily trying to be lectured on questions of sovereignty and moral diplomacy by the West, particularly the United States, which, even before Iraq, had a long history of foreign intervention, overt and covert—politics by other means. After the exposure of the Bush Administration’s behavior prior to the invasion of Iraq and its unapologetic use of torture, why would any leader, much less Putin, respond to moral suasion from Washington? That is America’s tragedy, and the world’s.

This will be a top story for some time, it seems. It's been definitive proof that Putin remains in charge. I'm still not sure if Medvedev is a puppet or is getting pushed out of any chance of wielding influence in the Kremlin or what's going on.

Next up to keep an eye on is whether Sakaashvili is done. For the sake of peace, I hope that Putin is smart enough to realize that the Georgians will eventually grow tired of their president and that Moscow doesn't need to forcibly depose him.

Then there's Ukraine. I wonder what this means for them? August wars have had a tendency to expand into broader conflicts and this needs to be resolved immediately.

There's been a number of things I wanted to mention, focusing mostly on the media's coverage of this and, more specifically, the conservatives' baffling rhetoric towards Russia. I'll try to post more tomorrow as I've the day off.