The Post-Mortem Begins

This is an important piece of the Russo-Georgian puzzle:

During a private dinner on July 9, Ms. Rice’s aides say, she warned President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia not to get into a military conflict with Russia that Georgia could not win. “She told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to put a non-use of force pledge on the table,” according to a senior administration official who accompanied Ms. Rice to the Georgian capital.

Mixed messages, maybe, but that one can't be diluted by mere rhetoric, and Saakashvili should have known. It is much more likely that the US was a better judge of Georgian national interests than Saakashvili was of America's.

And again, as far as Randy Scheunemann's double play is concerned, what matters is whether McCain would have been inclined to take the same aggressively anti-Russian line whether Scheunemann was a trusted advisor or a figment of his imagination. By all indications, the answer is yes. What would McCain have told Saakashvili if he were at that dinner instead of Rice?

McCain: ready -- to start a war -- on Day 1! Probably not true, really, but too close for comfort. Sane Republicans and conservatives must push pack firmly against the idea that 'toughness' is foreign policy experience. Which is exactly the narrative McCain's trying to sell.

Comments

[ScurvyOaks]

Saak should have understood that the public statements by Rice et al. were for Russian consumption, and that the private warnings were what the US really meant for him to hear. There are things I like about Saak, because he's our moron, but really -- what a moron!

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