The Osterley Times: Russia warned: withdraw from Georgia, or else

And now Europe catches the George Bush disease and starts threatening Russia to leave Georgia, however - as with Bush - the consequence of ignoring our threats remains spectacularly vague.

With the US and European governments due to meet tomorrow to consider their options for the first time since the crisis erupted 10 days ago, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France threatened the Kremlin with an ultimatum for the first time, warning that more delays in a pullout "would have serious consequences on relations between Russia and the European Union".

The French warning echoed similar statements from the Americans in recent days, none of which appears to have rattled the Russians, whose forces remain in firm control of large tracts of Georgia well beyond the two separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"People are going to begin to wonder if Russia can be trusted," said Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, yesterday of Moscow's failure to keep its promises.

I don't know about anyone else but I am beginning to find this all vaguely embarrassing, as politicians of all hues pretend that this piffling little crisis is somehow like Czechoslovakia in 1968. Perhaps it suits their egos to pretend that they are actors at one of history's defining moments. When, in reality, it is their grandstanding which is making a bad situation worse.

And, of course, Europe is being ripped apart over this with the newly admitted East European states looking not to France, Germany or Britain for leadership; but to Washington, where the worst of the cold war nutters reside.

At the weekend, President Lech Kaczynski of Poland slammed France and Germany for being too soft on Moscow, and complained that they were trying to monopolise the EU position.

France was unapologetic. "We have to invent a new language with regard to Russia. That is what the European Union is trying to do," said Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister.

And it is interesting that Max Hastings, who is about as right wing as one could get, today displays a pragmatism and understanding which is so sadly lacking in Washington's cold war hawks, who always seem to yearn for conflict.

It is unnecessary for the west silently to acquiesce in the Russians' excesses, but it must tread cautiously in the face of their sensitivities. America must stop pretending that democracy is, of itself, the answer to all the world's ills. Washington is already learning painful lessons about this in the Muslim world. Few people doubt that, even if Russian elections are flawed, Putin's policies command overwhelming support among his own people.

While the west can offer political and economic encouragement to nations on Russia's borders, it is folly to go further, seeking to include them in western security organisations, or bribe them to accept US military installations. Such policies merely provoke violent Russian virility displays, to which the west can make no effective response.

Edward Lucas, an impassioned hawk, wrote before the latest Georgian imbroglio: "The west is losing the new cold war, while hardly having noticed that it has started." The Bush administration today talks of gallant little Georgia in 2008 as if it was gallant little Poland in 1939. As so often, it draws the wrong lesson from history. Britain and France had to fight Hitler. But in September 1939 both countries found themselves in the grotesque position of having offered security guarantees to Poland, while being incapable of doing anything practical to frustrate the German invasion.

Those are the lessons in all of this which Washington is glossing over. Firstly, the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have as much right to state what they wish their future to be as anyone else. It is silly for us to say that Georgia is a democracy therefore they both must naturally see that it is in their best interests to remain part of Georgia. If we believe in democracy, as much as we claim, then we must allow them to state what it is that they want, although I strongly suspect they would prefer neither Russia nor Georgia to be their masters and would choose autonomy.

The second lesson is much simpler. We should stop shooting our mouths off unless we are willing to back up our words with actions. Bush, Cheney, McCain, Cameron and others are all issuing threats which they are not prepared to follow through on.

For God's sake, even Max Hastings has worked this one out:

It is several bridges too far today to pretend that the west can defend Georgia, or indeed Ukraine. The only sensible advice Washington and its allies can offer their governments is to rub along as best they can with the Russians, and avoid offering them military provocations.

Appeasement gained such a bad name in the 1930s that it is sometimes forgotten, especially by Washington's neoconservatives, that it is often indispensable. It can be defined by more honourable names. Most of the world's problems cannot be "solved", least of all by force of arms. They must be managed or endured, in the hope that better times will come, as they often do.
In a world which has seen within the past 20 years the peaceful transfer of power to the black majority in South Africa, as well as the peaceful collapse of the Soviet European empire, it seems absurdly pessimistic to suggest that current difficulties with Russia can be resolved only through confrontation.

The war hawks in Washington love confrontation, they love to see themselves as Churchill and everyone else as Neville Chamberlain. But, in this instance, when the time has come to shit or get off the pot, they are doing neither. They are issuing vacuous threats which no-one, least of all the Russians, believes they have any intention or ability to carry through.

The west needs to appreciate that the Russians have concerns every bit as valid as ours. And, just as the US objected to the Russians sitting in their backyard during the Cuban missile crisis, so the Russians object to the west installing missiles in Poland and pro-western regimes in their backyard.

And we need to stop pretending that we represent mankind's greatest values by exporting democracy, when often this is merely a subterfuge; poorly disguising blatant American interests.

The people of Georgia deserve to have their freedom, but the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are no less deserving of the right to state what it is that they want.

Hastings, again:

American foreign policy is still cursed by post-cold war triumphalism, and aspirations to the "victory" of democracy and capitalist values, while that of Russia languishes under the stigma of defeat. These sensations inspire excessive hubris in both. If Barack Obama wins the US election, the highest hope of the rest of the world must be for a revival of traditional diplomacy, an understanding of the virtues of talking to everybody: the Iranians, the Syrians, Hamas - and the Russians. Successful diplomacy also requires recognition of banal principles of give-and-take, you-win-some-you-lose-some.

US policy towards Moscow for almost two decades has been based upon the assumption that since the Russians were losers, their wishes could be ignored or defied on every front. No useful business could result from such a posture. Putin conducts an ugly polity, and his Russia is not a place where even most successful Russians want to live. But the west will find it easier to coexist with this tormented, intransigent, melancholy and oil-rich neighbour when Russia feels comfortable with itself, not when its nose is rubbed in its long history of failure.

The west has won, but we have yet to learn that one must show magnanimity in victory. The neo-cons appear to believe that victory means that Russian opinion is of no consequence. That route is as foolish as it is ignoble.

For the Russian bear still packs a considerable punch, which is why the US and Europe are making a lot of noise but actually doing nothing. This is not 1939 and they are neither Churchill nor Chamberlain. And this is not a disaster, it was a predictable conflict brought about by us flying far too close to the sun.

We should stop pretending that we are willing to risk all for plucky little Georgia and start to talk about the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

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