Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Bob Barr has an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Times about the conflict between Russia and Georgia and makes this excellent point about how this conflict should be judged by the United States:
The conflict in the Caucasus is like many other wars around the world. It is complicated, ugly and tragic. The disputes between Georgia and Russia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia have roots going back centuries. There is no correct position on whether Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be part of Georgia (bearing in mind also it was the United States that went to war to separate Kosovo from Serbia’s control).
In fact, we have paid a high price for a similar failure to understand the deep, long-standing and historic animosities between ethnic and religious groups elsewhere - Iraq, for instance. The results there were flawed plans and costly miscalculations in the invasion and occupation of that country. We should never forget that history continues to weigh heavily on the present in many places around the world.
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U.S. foreign policy should be based on a hard-headed assessment of U.S. interests, not warm and fuzzy feelings about a particular foreign leader.
The most important American interest is defending America; and intervening on behalf of Georgia against Russia has nothing to do with defending America.
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The United States must always be prepared to use military force to defend itself. But doing so should be the last rather than first resort. And while Washington should work with the Europeans to pressure Moscow to stand down - and there are significant economic pressure points we can employ - it should not risk or invite involvement in a tragic and unnecessary war; and one with so little direct or immediate relevance to America’s own security.
Nor should America’s foreign policy leaders needlessly inflame relations with a nuclear superpower by engaging in rhetoric comparing actions that are more logicially judged through the prisim of historic Russian nationalism to those of one of the worst mass-murderers in the history of humanity.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Either your citations are misleading or Mr. Barr is off the edge here. Unfortunately, I can not reach the original post as Washington Times site is down.
On what basis Mr Barr suggest that US has any rights to push US (or EU for this matter) into economical sanctions against Russia?
Is this his way of punishing a state for defense of its citizens?
August 29th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
On what basis Mr Barr suggest that US (or EU for this matter) has any rights to push into economical sanctions against Russia?
Is this his way of punishing a state for defense of its citizens? Doesn’t sound like a doublethink? McCain is bold but at least he is straightforward: let’s go and have a war with Russians. What Barr suggest is equally bad, but not that obvious: let’s punish Russians not by military but by economical means. However, he misses the point that why Russia had to retaliate against Georgian’s assault.
Typical populist and double standard approach.