I wrote a few days ago that sometimes it's good to be the President. There was Bush, chatting up the ladies from the women's beach volleyball team. And there was Putin, getting ready to invade Georgia and make all of the John Edwards news look like the meaningless garbage that it is.
So much for "good to be the President." I can't think of too many worse photo opportunities than standing beside bikini-clad babes while the "good friend" leader of Russia decides to rip Georgia in half.
In a flash, Putin put paid to how irrelevant are so many things that the so-called international community takes as sacred: the United Nations, the Security Council, the Olympics, the European Union.
Once again we find ourselves with Europe in trouble, and all eyes looking to the US for answers. It's only natural. When confronted by a tyrant, soft power fetishists go looking to men that fight to solve their problems.
Europe is the source of most of history's troubles, and they gave us the majority of the 20th century's tyrants and basket cases. Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Milosevic, Lenin, Stalin, Putin.
I include the Russkies in that list because for all intent and purpose, they might as well have been born "European." Lenin ran around Europe quite often while formulating his plans to liquidate undesirable people back home, and Stalin had his ass kissed so many times by Europeans that he probably thought he had an eclair stuck to his ass.
Putin, too, has been let off the hook time and again by the leaders of all Western countries, including those from Europe. He looked Western leaders in the eye, and he saw just what Hitler did so many years ago: appeasement.
Putin had to know they wouldn't do a thing when he invaded Georgia. He also had to know that it was going to take a while for the US to heat up and rise to the moment...if they ever would.
Putin's gambit is nothing new. According to him, there are people in Georgia sympathetic to Russia, and the Georgians are persecuting them. In order to protect these "friends of Russia," then Russia must hurry to their rescue.
If that sounds familiar, it is. Hitler pulled the same stunt regarding the Sudenten Germans in Czechoslovakia, and his plan worked. Hitler knew he could cut out a chunk of Czech simply by implying that he would invade in order to "liberate" the "Germans" living there. He didn't need to send in the tanks. Europe caved, and the Sudentenland was folded into the Reich. This was another example of European diplomacy, as they breathed a sigh of relief, feeling they'd averted a war. Of course, Poland and World War II were right around the corner.
There's a very real possibility of this scenario happening in Georgia. Now that the Russian tanks are there, how long do you think it will be before Europe caves yet again, and asks Georgia to grant Russia some concessions, including territory? If that happens, there's going to be interesting times ahead. If the US continues to back Georgia, they may send them cash and weapons, and pretty soon you have Afghanistan/Russia II. Europe, of course, will sit on the sidelines, content to criticize every move the United States makes while not getting their own hands dirty.
The UN is helpless to change any of this, of course. Even if the Security Council gets together and condemns Russia every day for the rest of the year, it won't matter in the least. Russia has veto power on the Security Council, so any resolutions passed would be quashed. Besides, to paraphrase Stalin, how many battalions does the UN have? Exactly zero.
It's up to Bush and the US to decide how much pressure they want to exert on the Russkies, and to see if the Russians will fold. That's an interesting problem. Putin is surely going to say that he can't negotiate with the current Georgian president, in which case Europeans will say that the Georgian president must step down for the good of peace.
That would be a grave mistake. Even if Russia were to leave Georgia, they would only do so after a puppet president was put into power there. Victory Russia. This would embolden them to take a look at the Ukraine, and decide if that democracy is also worth bullying into submission.
Look at it from Putin's point of view: what's to stop him? Only the Americans, who are busy fighting all over the world, and are caught up in a ridiculous presidential campaign that hinges on what the candidates voted for years ago.
The past is the past. The present has now arrived to give us some change you can really believe in.
So, is it sometimes good to be the president of the USA? Sure. As long as you like grey hair and long nights.
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