Georgia’s Dangerous Game

The former Soviet republic is determined to antagonize Russia, and it thinks the United States has its back. It had better think again.

Domestic discontent: The Georgian government is under pressure to resign by opposition groups at home.

While much of the world has been distracted by crises in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, a dangerous dispute over espionage, energy, and ethnicity has been growing between Russia and its diminutive neighbor Georgia.

The relationship, prickly since the breakup of the former Soviet Union, took a sharp turn for the worse in late September, when Georgia arrested four Russian soldiers for alleged spying and threatened to block Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Russia responded with a ham-fisted crackdown on all things Georgian, cutting off trade and telecommunications to the country and deporting planeloads of Georgian citizens.

Media coverage of the dispute has focused on the behavior of the principal antagonists, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But there is another powerful player who has remained far off stage: the United States. Its fingerprints aren’t obvious, but Washington has helped to fuel this crisis—by showering Georgia with cash and praise, by extending the promise of NATO membership, and by standing silent as Saakashvili and his government made ever rasher attacks on Russia.

"That same week in Tbilisi, hundreds of demonstrators protested the government’s alleged cover-up of the Interior Ministry’s involvement in a high-profile murder. One of the country’s most prominent television newscasters quit her job on camera, to protest attempts to censor the news at the government-affiliated channel."

Nonsense. Only Russians commit murder and censor the news. Georgians are genetically incapable of such things (well, except for Stalin, I suppose.)

Besides, this article was published in a journal that no one has heard of, so it is probably just more Russian lies. :-)

An interesting article.

Extend a helping glass to Tbilisi

We are not personally acquainted with Georgian wines, although since they've been making them for 8,000 years the wines ought to be pretty good, but we are sympathetic to the Republic of Georgia's cause.

Georgia is a small, population 5 million, country on the shores of the Black Sea that won its much-prized independence with the breakup of the Soviet Union. It has a democratically elected pro-Western president, has been a member of the World Trade Organization since 2000 and has aspirations to join the EU and NATO.

One of Georgia's biggest exports is wine and its biggest and best customer, accounting for 65 percent of its exports and $62 million in earnings, is - or was - Russia, where Georgian wine has traditionally been much sought after.

But Russia still has proprietary feelings toward Georgia and the two have unresolved border issues and the fact that Georgia has been looking toward the West and not toward Russia for its future hasn't set well in Moscow. And then Georgia had the audacity to oppose Russia's entry into the WTO for its heavy-handed trade tactics.

Russia retaliated, in heavy-handed fashion, last March by banning the import of Georgian wine on the trumped up excuse that the wine didn't meet Russian health standards.

Since then Georgia has been desperately seeking replacement markets in Europe, where its wines are barely known, and in the U.S., where, it is safe to say, they are not known at all. However, there are American importers who stock them - the reds are said to be especially good even if tough to pronounce, Kindzmarauli, Khvanchkara, Saperavi.

The researchers say a couple of glasses of red wine a day are good for your heart. So here is a chance to strike a blow for both freedom and your health. Cheers.

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