[BRIEF NOTE] On South Ossetia

[rfmcdonald]

The recent appeal, carried by Reuters, by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to Russia asking for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia proper and hoping for warmer relations in the future didn't seem to be bearing much fruit immediately. It didn't seem to have done much to placate growing opposition at home.

With concerns mounting that Georgia's economy will be in tatters once Russian troops leave, some say the 40-year-old President must publicly account for his Aug. 8 military offensive in the tiny rebel republic of South Ossetia.

The Georgian strike sparked a swift and overwhelming response from Russia, which reclaimed South Ossetia in no time, then pushed further into Georgia proper.

"Neither he, nor his government, are competent," said Temur Koridze, a member of former Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia's government in the early 1990s.

Mr. Koridze and other government critics say Mr. Saakashvili should have predicted Russia's crushing response, or at the very least, obtained backup assurances from its European and U.S. allies before going in.

They say the failed offensive underscores the danger of Georgia's aggressive push to adopt Western values and seek membership in NATO. Both initiatives have long angered Russia.

"We need sound and sane authority," Mr. Koridze said. "[Mr. Saakashvili], as a commander-in-chief, is a loser. His policy has collapsed." One European minister who was in Tbilisi this week during a round of diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, said doubts are rising about Mr. Saakashvili's judgment within his own government. The minister declined to speak on the record.

While the domestic implications of this conflict in Georgia--political, social, economic, military--will be going on, the secessions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will advance. Despite the overblown estimates of the civilian dead in South Ossetia--likely dozens, not hundreds--and despite the ongoing disputes about the exact origins of the recent war, what happened to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali following the initial bombardment and the subsequent battle seems to have soured South Ossetians permanently on Georgia.

The windows were blown out of the old synagogue here, and the wooden bimah splintered and partly collapsed. Shattered glass covered the floor, and parts of the ornately painted walls were torn off.

But the old building held, and it protected 40 people who took shelter in its spacious basement as the neighborhood above them was reduced to rubble.

"Three days we were here, without water, without bread," said Zemsira Tiblova, 60. "We had 14 children with us."

"Unforgivable," said her husband, Georgi Bestaev. "It was inhuman to bomb us."

The war between Georgia and Russia was centered on this South Ossetian town of about 10,000 people, and it cut a swath of destruction, severely damaging many homes and apartment buildings. Five-story blocks of apartments have gaping holes, with debris blown onto shattered balconies.

[. . .]

Here in Tskhinvali, residents have no doubt that Georgia started the war with Russia and there is much bitterness about the rain of artillery and rockets that the government of President Mikhail Saakashvili used in its efforts to capture the city.

The Georgian government said much of the destruction of Tskhinvali was caused by a Russian counteroffensive, but that argument carries no weight with residents.

People insist that a terrible barrage struck the city late Aug. 7 and continued into the morning - accounts supported by Western monitors who were also forced into their cellars. Even buildings used by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were damaged, one severely.

The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during World War II or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, much of which was leveled in two wars between Russian and Chechen separatists.

[. . .]

"Georgia is finished here; they are never coming back," Bestaev said. "We cannot live without Russia."

As Talleyrand might have said, Saakashvili's policy was worse than a crime--it was a mistake.

(Thanks simonff for corrected me on the above quote.)