SCOTTSDALE, Aug 25, 2008 – When the U.S. trained and supplied client-state Georgia launched its attack on South Ossetia, a disputed northern territory that wants to be reunited with North Ossetia, a Russian region, the "Bushies" were hoping to catch the Russians napping.  Which is why they timed the attack to coincide with the Russian premier Putin's visit to Beijing, for the opening of the Olympic Games.  But the Olympic fig leaf failed to cover a massive failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy.  Russia's  swift victory over Georgia exposed Washington's backing a naked aggression, and then cowardly staying put while its "ally" was pummeled and humiliated. 

In football, what happened on August 7 would be called "play action."  The offense faked a run to set up a passing play.  The "run" was another crisis that the "Washington Crisis Factory" (Jan 1999) instigated in the volatile Caucasus region (see the map - right).  The "pass" was the Aug 20 signing of an agreement reached with Poland on Aug 14 to set up a new missile base just 115 miles from the Russian border (left).  

Except that the Russian defense wasn't fooled.  They struck back at the Washington client with vengeance, destroying much of the U.S. and Israeli supplied and trained-Georgian army in a matter of days. The Russian deputy chief of General Staff, Colonel-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn (right), said in Moscow on Aug 15 that Poland's agreement to accept a U.S. missile defense battery exposes the country to attack.  He pointed out that Russian military doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons in such a situation, the Interfax news agency reported.

So the fake run failed and the pass was fumbled.  Which left the U.S. foreign policy in the region in shambles. 

"Who in Bush's or Cheney's office approved this stupid adventure?," asks Eric Margolis, a foreign policy commentator, in a recent column.  "Why did the very smart Israelis get sucked into this imbroglio?  Saakashvili's stealth 'coup de main' quickly turned into a disaster. Russia's 58th Army responded by routing Georgian forces and delivering a humiliating strategic and psychological blow to the Bush administration. Saakashvili fell right into Moscow's trap."

Furthermore, Russia's parliament unanimously called today (Aug 25) on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognize the independence of two breakaway Georgian regions that sparked Russia's first foreign military incursion since the Soviet era.   Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the State Duma, the lower house, told reporters in Moscow today that he expects Medvedev to respond to the lawmakers' appeal regarding South Ossetia and Abkhazia "in a very short time," the Interfax news service reported.

The regions, which broke away from Georgia in wars in the early 1990s, have cited the U.S. facilitated Kosovo's Feb. 17 declaration of independence from Serbia as a precedent. Russia opposed Kosovo's independence, arguing that it violated Serbian sovereignty, but it did nothing beyond rhetoric.  Not so when it comes to its own back yard in the Caucasus.  That's where Moscow acted swiftly and decisively, leaving Washington to practice empty rhetoric... a role reversal from Kosovo.

Medvedev, who has final say on the matter, has said Russia supports the regions' aspirations, though he has stopped short of formally recognizing them. The U.S. President Bush, who has insisted they remain part of Georgia, is dispatching his Veep Dick Cheney next week to visit the country.

Way to go, George, Jr!  Sending a proven Russophobe to the region is like adding fuel to the fire (see "Tricky Dickey II Comes Back," May 2006).

The U.S. views recognition of the two regions as "unacceptable," said a State Department spokesman Robert Wood in Washington today.  "Russia needs to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia," he added.

You mean, the way the U.S. "respected" the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia?  (by bombing the country to smithereens before wresting the cradle of its civilization (Kosovo)  from it?).  Hm... Interesting how such behavior becomes "unacceptable" when the shoe is on the other foot.

Other experts have told Associated Press that the backlash over Kosovo would prompt Medvedev to support independence for the enclaves.

"Medvedev will recognize both regions," said Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. "There's no way out," he said. "This is a consequence of the recognition of Kosovo by the West and Western policy in the Balkans."

So there you have it.  What goes around, comes around.  Washington's duplicitous policy in the Balkans has come back to bite it.  A Kosovo blowback in the Caucasus is yet another example of the ineptness of the Bush administration's foreign policy team.  Of course, the "Clintonistas" have had plenty of those, too, in the 1990s.  And if John McCain and Joe Biden, Barack Obama's "Dick Cheney," stay true to their Russophobic vitriol, things aren't going to get any better after November.

As I said in my election-year radio interviews, when asked whom I would support in presidential elections, I replied, "anybody but a Democrat or a Republican" (for reasons why,  see "The American Demofarce," Washington Times, 1996; "Election 2004: Patriotic Dissent;" "Origins and History of the Electoral College," 2000; "Sellout of America," 2004).  All we can expect from any of them is "perpetual war for perpetual commerce," the true NWO motto they practice, not the "world peace through world trade"-mantra they preach, as we also noted in before (also see "Weep Mankind! 'Dubya' Picks Warmonger for Veep"  & "Ayatollah Klintonmeini", 1996).

One saving grace, however, this time around is that the gray eminences (the "commerce" in the above motto), who are paying for all these American politicians' meal tickets, now have substantial stakes invested in Russia, the world's second biggest energy exporter after OPEC.  At a time of soaring global fuel costs, they aren't likely to allow the warmongering politicians to bite their own noses off to spite themselves.  So a cooling off period is likely to follow the war of words with Russia, if common sense and business interests prevail.  And in our society, when money talks, politicians listen.  And bow in deference, socks in mouth.