Cross posted on RK
It's great to see Jim Webb, a man with a great deal more foreign policy knowledge and wisdom than John McSame, call out Hothead McSame for his bellicose comments on the Russia-Georgia situation:
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said Friday that presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., "overreacted" to the Russian incursion into Georgia.
Webb, while visiting Harrisonburg, took exception to McCain's declaration earlier this week that "we are all Georgians." McCain was wrong, he said.
"We are all Americans," Webb said. "It's a very complicated issue to sort out."
Webb, a former Marine combat officer who served as secretary of the Navy during President Reagan's second term, advises caution in how the U.S. responds to the crisis.
Speaking of people with more foreign policy knowledge than John McCain, check out what Hisham Melhem (Washington bureau chief for Al-Arabiya TV, and Washington correspondent for "An-Nahar"), Paul Starobin (National Journal), and Karen DeYoung, (senior diplomatic correspondent, The Washington Post) had to say yesterday on the Diane Rehm show. First, Hisham Melhem:
Putin, who's the real leader of Moscow today, realizes that the West is weak, that there are problems in the transatlantic relationship...Putin understands that the Americans have 170,000 men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's no military option, there's no sanctions through the United Nations, the Europeans who depend on gas and oil from Russia are essentially hostages. The whole world is watching. This is the end of the post-Soviet era. This is the beginning of a new era that a new American president is going to inherit. It's going to be a messy world.
Now, Paul Starobin:
I think the Russians are sending a message to everyone, not just in the south Caucusus but throughout these former lands of the Soviet Union that they are back, that American commitments may be fine on paper, but the actuality is that America cannot deliver on these commitments. I think there's a certain frustration in Washington's rhetoric that is proportional to Washington's inability to deliver on its rhetoric. I mean, there's a sense, I think, particularly among the Europeans, that Saakashvili has overplayed his hand. I mean what was he thinking? You know, I mean there was every indication that the Russians would respond in force to any effort by Saakashvili to resolve South Ossetia by military means - he did rocket Tskhinvali, the capital...and that's when the Russians came in...This is now a new situation underlined by American weakness.
Last but not least, Karen DeYoung:
Well, you know, the Bush Administration has been very very supportive of Saakashvili, the president of Georgia. The so-called "Rose Revolution" has been one of its primary case studies to show how the "Democracy agenda," as the president calls it, is working. They have wanted to bring Georgia into NATO, this is something that infuriates the Russians. I think that this was the kind of disparaging remark that we've seen from the Russians all week, which is this kind of "double dare you," you say this is your country, you're going to protect it, you're not going to protect it.
With all his blustering, tough talk and "overreacting," do you think John McSame understands any of this? I seriously doubt it.