Bush: You Want to Bring Down Saakashvili

The crisis between USA and Russia sharpens. Putin: you’re helping the Georgians, making them look like victims.

At the White House and the Kremlin it is the moment of truth: while Vladimir Putin accuses Washington of supporting the “Georgian aggressor,” Dick Cheney promises Tbilisi that “the Russian aggression cannot remain unanswered,” citing 96 hours of diplomacy by Condoleezza Rice that, until now, have scarcely produced results. And George W. Bush, having just returned to Washington from Beijing, declares: “If the reports we are receiving are accurate, the Russian actions would represent a dramatic and brutal escalation in the conflict in Georgia. Putin wants to bring down President Saakashvili and could bomb the airport of the capital Tbilisi. The violence resulting from the disproportionate use of force against a sovereign state is unacceptable in the twenty-first century. With its actions, Moscow is threatening its good relations with the United States.”

In the last few days the Secretary of State and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte have been given free rein by Bush to resolve the crisis in the Caucasus, but their choice of focusing solely on the retreat of the Georgian alliance is not paying off. In fact, they have consented to giving Putin a free hand in the military field. The lack of results produced by Rice is evidenced by the difficulties in putting together an UN cease-fire agreement. This brings back to the forefront Dick Cheney, who has been in the shadows for six months due to the Realpolitik of the State Deparment endorsed by Bush. The vice resident made a long and heated phone call to Saakashvili to assure him that America would not abandon him: “The Russian aggression will not remain unanswered, and its continuation will have serious consequences to relations with the USA and the international community.”

The White House has made it clear to Putin that if he does not stop the attacks, Washington will not limit itself to weak UN initiatives. At the request of Saakashvili, the Pentagon took a first step by organizing, in record time, an airlift to bring back home the two thousand military that Tbilisi had in Iraq.

It was exactly this gesture that infuriated Putin yesterday, and he criticized the American “cynicism” and “capacity of presenting the aggressor as a victim.” “It is a shame that some of our partners are not helping us, but instead are trying to hinder us,” said the Russian Premier, accusing the USA of having a double standard: “They hang Saddam because he destroyed a couple of Shiite villages while they defend the Georgian government, who in one hour made 10 Ossetian villages disappear off the face of the earth.” And the Russian media have made it clear that it could be more than a “war by proxy”: an anonymous ex-employee of the services denounced the presence in Ossetia of “three thousand mercenaries trained by Americans.”