Rah, I agree with you, the only genius here is Shaaskavilli. He was no fool when he upped the ante on the # of troops in Iraq from 500 to 2000 last year- the largest # of troops after US and UK.
That’s the kind of thing Bush appreciates. Last week he called in his chits. The georgian soldiers in Iraq were brought back in US military cargo planes within 24hrs of the Russians incursion. From that time on there were overt US assets in play. I don’t think Putin was about to risk a bomb hitting a stray US “advisor” from that moment on. That’s why the Russians are strutting around the garden, but don’t dare come inside the house.
The US didn’t blink, Putin did. If he hadn’t, he’d already be in Tiblisi. Let Genius Putin sink a few Georgian ships, and burn as many tanks as he wants. Let him destroy villages, etc. Then dummy Bush will just replace the old worn out hardware with new ones, plus a few goodies for pain and suffering, and a whole crew of “humanitarian workers” will stay in Georgia for years, and I mean years, to rebuild all that devastation.
Maybe Shaaskavilli misjudged the reaction of Russia, but maybe he also wanted to force the US hand. Comments from State Dept. seem to indicate that US felt “played”, but once the pipeline was bombed, US really had no choice. The pipeline was being offered to US on a Shaaskavilli plate.