Palin on Russia with Couric.

This is not an SNL skit. This is all too real.

Bush Rejects McCain Approach to Russia

From the NYT:

The Bush administration, after considerable internal debate, has decided not to take direct punitive action against Russia for its conflict with Georgia, concluding that it has little leverage if it acts unilaterally and that it would be better off pressing for a chorus of international criticism to be led by Europe.

That's a far cry from John "We're All Georgians" McCain who wants to treat Russian transgressions against Georgia as the next Cold War.

Sometimes it's as if a McCain Administration wouldn't be "more of the same" but simply the realization of the policies even the Bush Administration though too stupid or risky.

And, as Jeffrey Goldberg also points out, America needs Russia if we're going to keep the nukes out of terrorist hands, a prospect made more difficult by the saber rattling McCain.

Hmm, let's see: Russia out of Georgia; Russian nukes out of America.

I know which one I would pick.

Quote of the Day

I wouldn't believe McCain actually said this if it hadn't been in a reputable newspaper like the Post:

I'm interested in good relations between the United States and Russia," he said. "But in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations.'' -- John McCain

W.T.F.

Please don't let this man be president.

McCain and Saakashvili

All well and good for McCain to declare "We're all Georgians." Except that it raises Georgians expectations that we will help them fight the Russians:

This morning Saakashvili told CNN: "Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, 'We are all Georgians now,'" Saakashvili said on CNN's American Morning. "Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it's time to pass from this. From words to deeds."

McCain is acting irresponsibly. Thank God he is not president.

What a Difference a War Makes

If Iraq hadn't happened, I would be cheer leading John McCain's bellicose reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia. Not now. I've been a hawk as long as I can remember. But I now know there are limits to hard power and I simply don't trust a Republican administration to 1) tell the truth about its intentions and 2) wage war competently and 3) act in accordance with with basic human rights.

So I am alarmed by McCain's saber rattling (do we really want to get NATO involved in this?) and reassured by Obama's measured and dispassionate approach.

Apparently there are some Republicans who haven't quite gotten the lesson of the last eight years. Kevin Ivers, posting at Citizen Crain, is disappointed Obama didn't get all riled up:

Where was the passion we (thought we) saw in Barack Obama's primary campaign as the man who would right the wrong-from-the-beginning U.S. policy in Iraq? Where was the man so brazenly adopting the suit and posture of John F. Kennedy on the home stump and in the capitals of Europe? Where was the moral foundation in a man who dared to tell the whole world they could rejoice if he was elected leader of the free world, because he would answer the call of freedom's destiny?

It's almost as if Ivers wants Obama to return to Berlin, re-rally the masses and march into the Russian motherland. As I recall, someone else from Berlin tried that once.

Reason, not passion should rule here. I'm not an isolationist and don't think we can ignore the invasion. But we need something smarter than threatening Russia with NATO.

Cooler heads are cleverer heads. If cooler heads had prevailed a few years ago, Georgia might not find itself under attack today.

Steve Clemmons offers a bit of history at the time the US was pushing for recognition of Kosovo's independence:

When Kosovo declared independence and the US and other European states recognized it -- thus sidestepping Russia's veto in the United Nations Security Council -- many of us believed that the price for Russian cooperation in other major global problems just went much higher and that the chance of a clash over Georgia's breakaway border provinces increased dramatically...

At the time, there was word from senior level sources that Russia had asked the US to stretch an independence process for Kosovo over a longer stretch of time -- and tie to it some process of independence for the two autonomous Georgia provinces. In exchange, Russia would not veto the creation of a new state of Kosovo at the Security Council. The U.S. rejected Russia's secret entreaties and instead rushed recognition of Kosovo and said damn the consequences.

Can it be any clearer that a vote for John McCain is a vote for more war? Iran...Russia. Will the list grow longer?

Zakaria: McCain is the Foreign Policy Unrealistic Idealist

A must read from Fareed Zakaria today:

Ironically, the Republicans now seem to be the foreign-policy idealists, labeling countries as either good or evil, refusing to deal with nasty regimes, fixating on spreading democracy throughout the world and refusing to think in more historical and complex ways. "I don't do nuance," George W. Bush told many visitors to the White House in the years after 9/11. John McCain has had his differences with Bush, but not on this broad thrust of policy. Indeed it is McCain, the Republican, who has put forward some fanciful plans, arguing that America should establish a "League of Democracies," expel Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and exclude China from both groups as well.

Obama's response to McCain's proposals on Russia and China could have been drafted by Henry Kissinger or Brent Scowcroft. We need to cooperate with both countries in order to solve significant global problems, he told me last week, citing nuclear-proliferation issues with Russia and economic ones with China. The distinction between Obama and McCain on this point is important. The single largest strategic challenge facing the United States in the decades ahead is to draw in the world's new rising powers and make them stakeholders in the global economic and political order. Russia and China will be the hardest because they are large and have different political systems and ideological approaches to the world. Yet the benefits of having them inside the tent are obvious. Without some degree of great-power cooperation, global peace and stability becomes a far more fragile prospect.