Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me as if what just happened in Georgia brought the place one step closer to a Russian takeover. Putin was angry at Shevardnadze’s friendliness to the West and outraged by Shevardnadze’s refusal to help him wipe out the Chechens, and helped create the chaos that made Shevardnadze unpopular. But while criticizing Shevardnadze’s conduct, he also blamed the new leadership for taking over by force. Now he’s theatening military action unless the new Georgian leader falls into line on the Chechen issue.
Shouldn’t someone be saying something about this? The President of the United States, for example? The suggestion in Jim Hoagland’s column that the Bush Administration helped give Shevardnadze the push because Bush wants Putin’s help against terrorism ought to have all the old anti-Communists outraged, but there’s no evidence of that visible to these tired eyes.
George Soros: coup plotter
Matthew Stinson observes that financier and newfound lefty darling George Soros only seems to have a problem with regime change when he isn’t instigating it…