Atlantic Council

On Tuesday, an official EU probe into the causes and progression of the Georgia conflict in August was launched.  Deutsche Welle:

Heidi Tagliavini, former UN special representative to Georgia, will head the enquiry, which will consist of ten "recognized experts" handpicked to dissect the facts surrounding events leading to and during the war.

The team will draw on military, history, legal, and human rights expertise and has until July 31, 2009, to present its conclusions to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), EU nations, Georgia, and Russia.

With Russia and Georgia each accusing the other of provoking the conflict, information about the initial attacks remains murky.  In a piece for the WSJ, Saakashvili insisted that Georgia acted out of self-defense and urged Europe not to take a soft line against Russia:

"If the international response is not firm, Moscow will make other moves to redraw the region's map by intimidation or force."

Troublingly, the probe depends on inspection of the conflict zones, which Russia has thus far not granted to EU ceasefire monitors:

The success of the EU fact-finding mission hinges on gaining access to both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in which Russia has maintained a troop presence since fighting stopped.

Ukraine is seeking to repair relations with Russia as its hopes of entering NATO fade, the Times reports:

The reappraisal comes amid debate in Kiev about the wisdom of antagonizing the Kremlin, particularly after the confrontation between Russia and Georgia in the summer.

President Yushchenko of Ukraine has ordered a policy review in an effort to defuse tensions with Russia over his country’s pro-Western leanings.  The shift is an acknowledgement that friction between Kiev and Moscow has made it harder for the European Union and NATO, particularly members such as Germany and France, to embrace Ukraine.

The news comes as NATO foreign ministers meet for a two-day summit in Brussels where the U.S. has backed off plans to push for Georgian and Ukrainian Membership Action Plans (MAPs) into the alliance.  The policy review marks a major change from Yushchenko's earlier stance:

It is a remarkable change of tone for Mr. Yushchenko, who has raised fears about Russian aggression in Crimea.  He had also accused Yulia Tymoshenko, his rival and Orange Revolution ally, of 'high treason' for failing to condemn the Russian intervention in South Ossetia and Georgia in August.

At the same time, the Independent notes that Saakashvili is pressing NATO not to abandon its promise of membership to Georgia (and Ukraine) at the Bucharest summit last April:

The Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, has urged NATO members to bury their differences and agree to a "compromise" that would accelerate his country's membership of the Western military alliance, despite the fallout from Georgia's six-day war with Russia.

[...]

"Membership is the goal," President Saakashvili said during a teleconference call from Tbilisi.  "How to get there is secondary."  The Georgian leader believes that the diplomatic fudge at the NATO summit emboldened Moscow to retaliate with crushing force by invading Georgia proper when the Georgian military launched an offensive against the breakaway territory of South Ossetia last August.

Mission accomplished for Russia?

News broke over the weekend that shots were fired as a convoy carrying Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and Polish president Lech Kaczynski approached South Ossetia.  There were no injuries, and the convoy returned safely to Tbilisi.  Predictably, Georgia is blaming Russia, and Russia is blaming Georgia.  Reports vary significantly.  RFE/RL wrote:

A spokeswoman for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russian troops manning a checkpoint in the area fired the shots.  The spokeswoman was not present at the scene.  [However,] a witness traveling with Saakashvili told Reuters that uniformed South Ossetians fired the warning shots after the convoy came within 30 meters of the de facto border.

The Independent quoted comments by Saakashvili from the BBC's World Service radio.  As usual, he didn't shy away from the dramatic:

"Frankly I didn't expect Russians to open fire.  I thought they clearly saw that this was an official cortege, this was a high delegation.  Clearly it was intended as a provocation, certainly I would never intend to put the life of the president of Poland in danger, that was none of my intention but the reality is that you know you are dealing with unpredictable people."

The incident comes as Georgia marks the fifth anniversary of the "Rose Revolution" that brought pro-Western Saakashvili to power, highlighting the country's continued instability and the increasing challenges to the president's rule.  According to the Australian, Saakashvili also said:

"Aggression continues in Georgia.  The ceasefire and the European Union-brokered agreement are being violated.

[...]

We were attacked because of the success of the last five years, it was the last challenge of the empire against us.  We have never faced such a dangerous threat.  We need strength and unity.  We must believe in the future and have courage.  Instead of celebrating... we must show unity as we did on November 23, 2003."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov got his two cents in as well:

"This is a clear provocation.  It is not the first time they are doing so.  They are organizing the provocation and then blame the Russian side.  Inviting the [Polish] president to Tbilisi and then taking him for a car ride to a different country – isn't that a provocation?  There was no shooting from either the Russian or the Ossetian side."

The EU will almost certainly not view the event as demanding a review of the Russian-Georgian ceasefire – nor is there consensus that it should.  Similarly, Kaczynski's call for further assistance to Georgia will most likely do little:

"I appeal from this spot to my friends in the European Union to draw the proper conclusions from this event before it is too late.  ...  I do not regret that trip along that dark road."

The Times published an interesting exchange between Sarkozy and Putin from the August ceasefire talks on Georgia, leaked courtesy of Sarkozy's chief diplomatic advisor Jean-David Levitte:

[After Putin said he wanted to hang Georgian president Saakashvili], Mr. Sarkozy thought he had misheard.  "Hang him?" — he asked.  "Why not?" Mr. Putin replied.  "The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein."

Mr. Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: "Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?"  Mr. Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: "Ah — you have scored a point there."

David Phillips, an Atlantic Council senior fellow and the author of the Council's recent report "Post-Conflict Georgia," has published an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal entitled "Smart Aid" outlining a plan for economic assistance to that country.

"If our first revolution was about meeting a threat from within by reinventing a failed state riddled by corruption, our second revolution must be even more focused, as we now face an even greater challenge, one that comes from the outside."  --Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia

Saakasvhili was quoted in RFE/RL speaking Wednesday at the UN about a second Rose Revolution for Georgia in the wake of its conflict with Russia.

Former Georgian defense minister Irakly Okruashvili charges that "President Mikheil Saakashvili had long planned a military strike to seize back the breakaway region of South Ossetia but executed it poorly, making it easy for Russia to retaliate," Reuters reports. "Abkhazia was our strategic priority, but we drew up military plans in 2005 for taking both Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well," Okruashvili said.

Russia has agreed, in a deal brokered by an EU delegation headed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to completely withdraw its troops from Georgia's heartland within a month.  It made no commitment with respect to the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which it has recognized as independent states.  Indeed, President Dmitri Medvedev declared, standing next to Sarzozy,  "As for recognition, for us that issue is closed. From the point of view of international law, for us two new states have appeared"

Sarkozy vowed, "Europe will be very vigilant on the realisation of the agreement we have reached with President Medvedev. If this agreement is applied as I hope and as I believe, we will have avoided deaths, misery and suffering."

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili offered what Reuters correspondent Francois Murphy termed "cautious approval," stating, "I think tonight a step forward was made, a step forward on the path towards the full implementation of the six points negotiated by President Sarkozy on August 12."

Those predicting that the Russian incursion into Georgia will rejuvenate transatlantic solidarity might be overly optimistic.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Georgia  Thursday and reboubled American commitment to that fledgling democracy.  The day after the U.S. announced a $1 billion aid package to Georgia, Cheney stood beside  President Mikheil Saakashvili and declared, "After your nation won its freedom in the Rose Revolution, America came to the aid of this courageous young democracy. We are doing so again, as you work to overcome an invasion of your sovereign territory, and an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change your country’s borders by force that has been universally condemned by the free world," NYT reports.   He continued, "Georgia will be in our alliance. NATO is a defensive alliance. It is a threat to no one."