Well, I think we can call him Vlad the Invader now.

There seem to be a lot of people who think Iraq was an illegal war who now say to the Georgians, “You should not have shouted at that old Grizzly, son. Should have moved quite slow around him. Naturally, the most nicest, most tame bear in all creation will chase you down and eat you if you do stuff like that!”

Yes, what we need now — as the gun smoke clears — is a round of detente (aromatic diplomatic smoke blow). I’ll take mine al dente. You know, firm but not hard.

So. The Russian boyars now build an oriental despotism (and they still want to be seen as cultured Westerners — or rather demand it). They’ll invade neighbors without so much as a by-your-leave (what’s worse, they won’t even bother to buy it). This comes in a age when even Oriental Despotisms don’t want to be seen as Oriental Despotisms (hence the current Olympics).

At one time I suggested that the agreement we reach with Iraq contain a “goal” of training their security forces into a “Nato” level military. Might have a nice ring to it given recent events.

Of course, we need to bring Syria around. Swapping regime change in Georgia for regime change in Iraq is a silly notion — Iraq’s been done. Ancient history. But Syria? If Russia were to gobble up Georgia, having a rogue Syria around just wouldn’t make sense. Turkey is going to need strategic depth.

Of course, Spengler says Turkey is going Islamist. If so, the Islamist rulers won’t want to be thought of as Oriental Despots. So look for the Istanbul Olympics in 2020. Who said geopolitics is hard?