Interesting article but Saakashvili deflects a lot. Of course the Russians goaded him into fighting.
The other thing I thought was poor was him bad mouthing Sarkozy. I read that Putin was so pissed off at Saakashvili he was getting ready to roll into the capitol and hang Saakashvili in the square. Sarkozy flew to Moscow and told Putin if he wanted to be a player with the big boys in the west (which he desperately does) that he needed to calm down and forget it and come to an agreement. Sarkozy likely saved Saakashvili’s neck.
That’s for sure.
All in all his maniacal fixation on NATO membership against all odds was a factor of this failure.
He had to restore control over all the rebel republcs to be eligible and opted for military ways which worked in Ajara and Abkhazia but backfired in Osetia after Russian OSCE forces were chewed by the Georgian offensive.
The response was imminent and nobody in a sane mind would have sided with him after that.
MSM made a great job to deflect for Saakashvili and present the war as an unprovoked Russian invasion but the facts surfaced sooner than later.
It doesn’t make sense for him to call Condi Rice and Steinmeyer liars. That he said as they have deceived him in their assertions sounds more like they have warned him not to do that he later did but in a diplomatic way.