Georgia and Russia as Electoral Factors

Barack Obama’s campaign has started focusing on the Georgian crisis in the worst way possible. When the Russians attacked Georgia- and South Ossetia is Georgia- McCain hurried to show his support for the Caucasus country assaulted by Moscow. Obama’s campaign postponed a bit before reacting. If it was thinking over its position, it isn’t very clear why they needed to wait. And finally Hari Sevugan, spokesman for Obama, accused McCain of “being entangled in the lobbyist culture.” This reference to special interest groups comes from McCain’s chief consultant on foreign policy, Randy Scheunemann, a known neoconservative who up until March directed the Washington office of Orion Strategies. From his office he defended Georgian interests before the North American Administration.

There’s no need to extend oneself too far to see that the enormous consequences of Russian aggression against Georgia, after some reflection, have only made Obama’s campaign try to use it for its own electoral benefit. If the invasion of a fragile Caucasus democracy characterized by its alliance with the United States doesn’t motivate Obama to immediately take sides in favor of the victimized country, if Putin wants to play with Ossetia the way Hitler played with the Sudetenland, and if the response seventy years later from current democracies is the same-nothing-then something’s going very wrong.

It is as much the West that plays in Georgia. And the United States has an enormous base there for its defense of the promotion of democracy. McCain’s campaign has already stated that if he is elected he will reactivate Georgia’s admission into NATO while paying attention to the demands of its government and ignoring Moscow’s protests. Obama needs to react, because while the Caucasuses are very far away, if there’s anything the North American media understands, it is that they must be firm in front of Moscow. They carry it in their blood. In this crisis, Obama has not demonstrated the qualities of a Commander and Chief.