The US is saying that Russia lied to it about its intentions; gave false assurances of their objectives and planned this assault for a long time. Official Washington, rightly or wrongly, seems about to regard this as a major act and treacherous act of aggression. Bush is now saying Putin lied to him in Beijing. Deliberately.

It’s no longer about what Russia has done in a small Caucasian enclave like South Ossetia. It’s about the signal that has been sent from the Kremlin to Washington. Bush has a few months to go in office. One of the things he can do, and which everyone ought to consider very carefully, with the utmost gravity, is whether to respond in a manner that will commit his successor, whoever it may be to a definite course. This is structurally like the Cuban Missile crisis, only Bush has many fewer options. All the options now available to GWB mean entering the same high stakes casino Putin’s actions have set up. It means betting a lot, more than we can even calculate.

If you look back at my earliest posts on Georgia, I had the idea of deploying air superiority nearby quickly to send a signal. To keep it from getting this far by dissuading the Russians from doing something stupid. Unfortunately, Bush chose to believe Putin, who was playing, we now see, for time to carry out his plan. But the Georgians have had their say in this drama too. I think the Russians didn’t expect five brigades to be able to delay their army and yet stay together as a fighting force. The Russians are throwing in more and more men. It’s a race still, but whether to oblivion or to security — we’ll see. Hold on to your hats.