Something should be said about the Bush-McCain style of foreign policy, since the Republicans liked to mock Obama on "sitting down with terrorists" or whatever at their convention yesterday, and their cheering of McCain about his Georgia stance.
First off, McCain is dangerous because he overstates the situation. McCain said that the Georgia conflict was "first...serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War."
Excuse me? I thought Iraq and the War on Terror was equivilent to World War III, and now Russia invading a tiny nation which basically invaded it's own citizens is now the most dire situation since evil Communists were pointing 10,000 nuclear weapons at the US. And, uh, Iraq anyone?
Second, this first confirms that McCain shares Bush's "Us vs. Them" strategy to foreign relations.
OK, I understand we disagree with Russia - I disagree with Russia - on the situation, and the Russians definitely went overboard in their response to what the Georgians did, but I just have to state a few things.
The Georgians are not completely innocent in this matter. Indeed, despite what all the people filled with hot-air would like you to believe, Georgia actually initiated the hostilities:
During the night and early morning, Georgia launched a military offensive to surround and capture the capital of separatist Republic of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali thus breaking the terms of the 1992 ceasefire and crossing into the security zone established therein.
Three days before hand, Russia had already signaled that they would intervene if Georgia took action, and they did. Did Russia go overboard? Yes. But the first thing we should do in foreign policy work is not pretend that everything is an "Us vs. Them" situation where one side is always completely right and the other side is completely wrong. That's not to say there aren't situations like that, but you can't pretend that every situation is like that, or even that most situations are like that.
And no, this is not "creating a moral equivalency" as Giuliani was claiming. Indeed, here is Obama's statement on the first day of the conflict:
I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis.
If calling both sides to "enter into direct talks" is the same as creating a moral equivalence, that just shows how dangerous McCain's foreign policy is.
Oh, and to get off track just a tad bit more, while Giuliani was blasting Obama for wanting the UN Security Council to take action, this is what McCain said on the topic:
The U.S. should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course.
Oops.
Third, McCain was rushing as fast as he could into war with Russia. I have little doubt that if McCain was President, the United States and Russia would have had an international military incident.
His inflaming statements about how "We are all Georgians" and how Russia wanted to institute a new "czarist empire" (a comment he later walked back) are immediately antagonizing to one side of a conflict which we much handle in a very gingerly fashion, and his calls for NATO and the US to possibly militarily intervene in the conflict were down right dangerous.
Of course, this shouldn't be surprising as McCain has been at Russia's throat for quite a while.
Forth, McCain has zero standing to criticize Russia.
What does it say about McCain that he can say about the Georgia situation "In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations" while at the same time still claiming that invading Iraq - an invastion of another nation which took place in the 21st century - was a good thing and justified? McCain's credibility on the entire matter internationally was probably totally destroyed after that comment.
All of this leads us to one conclusion: McCain is a full believer of Bush's "stand at a podium and demand" style of diplomacy. In other words, he doesn't believe in diplomacy at all.
What is dangerous about this, especially in regards to Russia, is that we might be able to ultimately face down small nations with our "or else" talk, but what happens if they call our bluff, especially Russia? What if Russia comes back and says "or else...what?" Is McCain really going to go to war with because they had the audacity not to do everything we demanded unconditionally?
Hell, Iran has been calling our bluff for a couple years, and the Bush Administration has found itself nearly totally incapable of doing anything about it because they can't back up their "or else" demand. And if we can't even enforce it against Iran, there is no way we could ever hope to enforce it on Russia.
And perhaps worst of all, Bush and McCain's incessant crying wolf over various "or else" conditions which we never enforce just diminishes our credibility below where it already is, and that wasn't very high. The only way to reestablish that credibility is to actually sit down with both allies and enemies and engage them rather than get puffed up in tough talk which we are unwilling and/or unable to back up.