As an American, my sympathies lie with the Georgians but let’s not get carried away. Russia and the US are both great powers, at least in southern Asia. It matters whether we can work with, not work with, or actively oppose each other.

We have higher priority interests in dealing with Iran and our fight in Afghanistan. We can probably deal with Iran militarily regardless of Russia’s position but Russian cooperation in not reviving a pounded Iranian nuclear program would be helpful.

If we are on bad terms with Russia, supplying Afghanistan would be much harder, particularly if Pakistan turns uncooperative. I’m in favor of advice and information being given to the Georgians, but the best advice we can give them is to offer a ceasefire with South Ossetia going independent, then probably into Russia. Abkhazia is too big for the Georgians to digest so it would probably also go independent. That would be win-win for Russia and the US, would cost Georgia face but not something it doesn’t currently have anyway, and would reduce the bloodshed.

IMO the wildcard in all this is Turkey. The BTC pipeline is important to them economically. Russia seems to want to fight this to establish a monopoly on hydrocarbon exports from the former SU. If Turkey helps Georgia, this could be painful for the Russians.