The UN’s number two official in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, has been fired after a clash with head of mission Kai Eide over how to handle fraud in the recent presidential elections.  Galbraith alleges that Eide is covering up massive corruption for reasons of expediency.

My New Atlanticist essay, “Galbraith Fired, Refused to Hide Afghanistan Election Fraud” rounds up the reporting on this story and concludes:

It should be noted that Eide heatedly rejects these charges and that senior UN leaders contend that the role Galbraith envisioned went well beyond the UNAMA mandate. It’s rather clear, however, that in attempting to be “neutral,” Eide and his team have essentially been forced to ignore obvious fraud. That, combined with the fact that the Obama administration has apparently decided that they have no choice but to recognize Karzai as the winner of the election, stolen or not, left Galbraith in an untenable position.

If it were possible for my esteem for the UN to drop further, it would.  As it is, it’s just another check in the “Nothing more can be accomplished here” column.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture, proclaimed yesterday that the United States must prosecute the lawyers who drew up the torture memos and that if we fail to do so it is the duty of other states to step in and bring charges.

In my New Atlanticist piece, “UN: United States Must Prosecute Torture Lawyers,” I wonder how the lawyers can be responsible but not President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales.

As a practical matter, however, it is virtually inconceivable that the United States would prosecute a former president or attorney general for carrying out activities of questionable legality against non-citizens under color of national security. But there’s no concept of law, at least within a Republic, in which mid-level officials carrying out the orders of their superiors are culpable and their superiors are not.

There’s some pressure on President Obama from some senior leaders of his party in Congress to take action here but I’m betting he won’t.  Presidents have historically been loathe to seek criminal sanctions against predecessors and their staff for actions related to their official duties, lest their own power be diminished.   According to the Convention and Nowak, then, that means it’s up to other states to act.   After initially indicating it would do so, Spain has demurred.   As Bernard Finel has noted, for any European state to take action here would create a crisis in transatlantic relations.

This may be one of those times when, as Peggy Noonan infamously suggested, we just “walk on by.”

Oops.

United Nations workers and Palestinian firefighters work to try and put out a fire and save bags of food aid at the United Nations headquarters after it was hit in Israeli bombardment in Gaza City, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009. Israeli forces shelled the United Nations headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, setting the compound on fire as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was in the area on a mission to end Israel's devastating offensive against the territory's Hamas rulers. Ban expressed "outrage" over the incident. (AP Photo by Hatem Moussa)

UPDATE (Dave Schuler)

The story on this incident appears to be changing:

JERUSALEM – Israel’s prime minister says the Israeli military fired artillery shells at a U.N. compound in Gaza after militants opened fire from the location.

Ehud Olmert says Israeli forces “were attacked from there and the response was harsh.”

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon expressed “outrage” over the Israeli shelling of the compound Thursday.

At a meeting between the two, Olmert called the shelling a “sad incident” but said militants were responsible. The U.N. denies the Israeli allegation.

The AP has this story marked as “Breaking”.

Japan, Austria, Turkey, Uganda, and Mexico will replace Indonesia, Belgium, Italy, South Africa, and Panama in the two year terms for nonpermanent seats on the United Nations Security Council beginning on January 1 of next year:

UNITED NATIONS — Japan easily drubbed Iran in the election on Friday for a two-year seat on the Security Council, while the recent financial meltdown in Iceland appeared to have contributed to its loss against Austria and Turkey in the heavily fought contest for two seats reserved for a group of mostly European countries.

Some Council members portrayed the lopsided vote against Iran, with Japan garnering 158 votes to Iran’s 32, as an international referendum critical of the country’s confrontational stance over its nuclear program.

Having Iran hold a seat on the Security Council would have been unseemly to say the least given that its nuclear development program is likely to be one of the topics to be considered by the UNSC during this term.

Besides, Japan’s is the largest economy of any country not holding a permanent seat on the UNSC and it’s one of the UN’s most significant financial supporters. Still, it’s a setback for Iran:

“The reality is that nobody expected Iran to prevail against Japan even if there was no nuclear problem,” said Colin Keating, a former New Zealand ambassador and now the head of Security Council Report, a nonprofit organization that tracks the body. He suggested that 32 votes meant that Iran does have a few committed friends.

French and EU President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a call from the floor of the UN yesterday to expand the Security Council and G8. Declaring that, “The 21st century world cannot be governed with the institutions of the 20th century,” he argued that inclusion of today’s emerging powers is not just “a matter fairness” but a necessary condition for “being able to act effectively.” “We cannot wait any longer to enlarge the Security Council. We cannot wait any longer to turn the G8 into the G13 or G14 and to bring in China, India, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil,” said Sarkozy.

In “Expand the Security Council? Non. The G8? Qui,” I explain why that proposal is only half bad.

John McCain is taking advantage of Barack Obama’s “foreign vacation” in Hawaii and using the crisis in Georgia to showcase his foreign policy prowess.

He’s dispatched his minions, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, to Georgia.  TPM’s Greg Sargent figures,

The idea is to showcase himself as a man of action during a time of international crisis and to remind people that the world is a dangerous place that’s still filled with aggressive actors, something that the McCain camp presumably thinks will play in his favor.

McCain’s announcement of his key campaign allies’ trip abroad also seems designed to shoulder Bush aside as the primary GOP leadership figure here.

Politico’s Jonathan Martin agress and observes, “McCain’s declaration has something of a shadow government feel to it, as though he’s sending his own emissaries into the war zone.” Over at News Hounds, Melanie finds that FOX News — or at least Neil Cavato — is treating McCain like he’s already president.  Why, they’re even covering McCain’s foreign policy speeches!

Andrew Sullivan thinks we’re getting a preview of what a President McCain would look like and he’s less than impressed:

He’s giving press conferences. He’s warning of a new Tsarist empire. You can tell what sends him into high-energy zones: a clear enemy abroad. He knows black and white; and he knows war. It gives him clarity and strength. Up next: Iran and China. Oh, the conflicts we can have …

Various comment sections have the inevitable jokes about McCain being “presumptuous” and “uppity” for acting like he’s already president, an allusion to recent controveries over Barack Obama’s overseas adventures and various campaign logos.

Even AllahPundit thinks this is a bad idea.

Do Committee members really need to conduct their own fact-finding missions in the middle of a hot war? State and Defense briefings could probably get them up to speed. And what would the reaction have been if The One had made this move first with Bayh and Webb in the surrogate roles? Would have seemed to me like a transparent attempt to squeeze a photo op from a crisis that the administration’s already straining to manage without needing any extra distractions.

Foreign policy isn’t golf.  One doesn’t get to shush the galleries.  Presidents have to juggle multiple international crises, make domestic policy decisions, and deal with political campaigns all at the same time.

I say:  More of this, please.  After months of campaigning about nothing, we’re seeing how the two men who could plausibly get elected president less than three months from now are reacting to a big time foreign policy situation.  While I’m frankly not sure what Lieberman and Graham could possibly accomplish by going to Georgia, at least we see that McCain gets how important this is.

Interestingly, as Dave Schuler and I discussed on last night’s installment of OTB Radio, there’s very little light between McCaina and Obama on this issue, at least on substance.  Obama is more low key and McCain is more emphatic about Russia’s outrageous conduct but they’re landing in pretty much the same place: work with our NATO Allies, use the G8 and WTO for leverage, and otherwise engage in diplomacy; military force is decidedly not an option.

McCain’s more visible on the issue, to be sure, which points to both his being behind in the race and thinking foreign affairs is his long suit.   Aside from Obama surrogate Bill Richardson’s bizarre suggestion of having the UN Security Council — where Russia has a veto! — solve this and McCain’s rather humorous suggestion that “In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations,” both teams are playing this rather well.

Photo: Shakesville

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has ordered what the press is describing as a “cease-fire” in Georgia. Given that he is not withdrawing Russian forces and is going to keep killing Georgian troops in South Ossetia in violation of international law, however, that term doesn’t quite seem to fit.

NYT:

The president said Russia had achieved its military goals during five days of intense fighting, which has seen Russian troops advance into Georgian territory and which brought strong denunciations from President Bush and other Western leaders. In a meeting with Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov shown on Russian television, Mr. Medvedev said: “The goal of the operation has been achieved. The security of our peacekeepers and civilians has been ensured.” But he also told Mr. Serdyukov to “eliminate” any enemy remaining in South Ossetia. “Whenever hotbeds of resistance and other aggressive plans emerge, make the decision and eliminate them,” he said.

The fighting appeared to continue in Georgia on Tuesday, and it was uncertain how quickly Mr. Medvedev’s statement would lead to an end to hostilities. Mr. Medvedev took the lead role in announcing the halt in contrast to previous days when the Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, was the dominant public figure in the crisis, even flying to the Georgian border to direct operations.

When asked about the cease-fire, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a senior defense official, said military actions could continue. “If you receive the order to cease fire, this would not mean that we would stop all operations, including reconnaissance operations,” he said. A Russian withdrawal will occur only once a formal cease-fire had been reached, he added.

FT:

“They have taken the decision to end the operation to force the Georgian authorities into peace” Mr Medvedev said during a meeting with his defence minister and army chief of staff. “The aim of our operation has been reached, the safety of our peace keepers and the civilian population has been restored…the aggressor has been punished”.

Georgia said it welcomed Russia’s ceasefire declaration but it called on the international community to ensure that the conflict came to an immediate end. ”This is a step forward. But the international community must ensure it means genuine peace on the ground and a genuine secession of the bombing,” Lado Gurgenidze, the Georgian prime minister, told the FT.

Mr Gurgenidze said an attack by Russian warplanes on the Georgian town of Gori and two nearby villages on Tuesday morning raised questions about the sincerity of the Russian ceasefire declaration. ”There may be some time lag before the order from (Russian president) Medvedev gets through to the rank and file,” he said.

AP notes that intense fighting continues in Abkhazia and that international diplomatic pressure has intensified:

The U.N. and NATO had called meetings Tuesday to deal with the conflict, which blew up in South Ossetia and quickly developed into an East-West crisis that raised fears in former Soviet bloc nations of Eastern Europe. Five European presidents were headed to Russia and Georgia to mediate.

A separate FT piece notes, too, that Russian action has prompted substantial regional fallout.

The Baltic states, past victims of Kremlin attacks, have called on the European Union to suspend its drive for closer relations with Russia after its invasion of Georgia. “We have to review our policy. Can we consider a partner a country who behaves like this?” President Toomas Hendrik Ilves of Estonia said in an interview. He added: “It’s time to stop sticking our head in the sand.”

The presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, together with Poland, issued a joint statement at the weekend warning that the Georgian conflict would be a credibility “litmus test” for Nato and the EU.

This immediately prompted a warning from the Russian ambassador to Latvia that they would pay for their attitude. “One must not hurry on such serious issues, as serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards,” Alexander Veshnyakov told the Baltic News Service on Monday.

When one contrasts this strong language with the much milder talk from France and elsewhere, we see, as my Atlantic Council colleague Jim Townsend noted yesterday, that Don Rumsfeld’s much criticized formulation of Old Europe and New Europe was on the mark.

UPDATE: Joshua Keating makes some interesting points:

That Dmitry Medvedev issued his instructions to the Russian military to pull out of Georgia just before he met with Nicolas Sarkozy for peace negotiations seems significant. Russia ended this war exactly when they wanted to, without waiting to be told.

It was also a nice touch that it was Medvedev who made the anouncement. Remember that it was Vladimir Putin who said “war has started” last Friday. This good-cop-bad-cop approach to world affairs seems quite effective for the tandem.

In the short term, at least.  We’ve yet to see how it’ll play out in the international community.  If, for example, this costs Russia G8 membership or a boycott of the Soshi games, it’ll be a loss. If their aggression comes at no cost, however, they’re big winners.

UPDATE: Nick Gvosdev is not optimistic of achieving the necessary transatlantic consensus to put much pressure on Russia.

The Western powers agree that Russia has used disproportionate force in its response to Georgia’s attempts to retake control of South Ossetia by force. All proclaim the desirability of an immediate cease-fire and the opening of a new round of negotiations and dialogue.

Beyond that, however, I don’t see a great deal of agreement. Certainly most Western Europeans–and I suspect privately Eastern Europeans as well–don’t believe that the Russo-Georgian conflict presages tanks rolling westward back into the heart of Europe. Nor do I foresee the major continental powers agreeing with the assessment of some US pundits that the armed clash in the Caucasus is an existential threat to the viability of the Euro-Atlantic community. A regrettable conflict, to be sure, perhaps demonstrating why Russia cannot or will not be fully accepted in the European family of nations. But a clash that nonetheless is containable to the Caucasus and should not be more widely internationalized.

My guess is that he’s right.

Georgian forces have been routed and have retreated from their South Ossetia province after being outmatched by the Russians.  Now, many Georgians are wondering where their Western allies are.

Tony Halpin for The Times of London:

As a Russian jet bombed fields around his village, Djimali Avago, a Georgian farmer, asked me: “Why won’t America and Nato help us? If they won’t help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?”

A similar sense of betrayal coursed through the conversations of many Georgians here yesterday as their troops retreated under shellfire and the Russian Army pressed forward to take full control of South Ossetia.

Andrew Kramer and Ellen Barry for the NYT:

“We killed as many of them as we could,” he said. “But where are our friends?”

It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?

Since the conflict began, Western leaders have worked frantically to broker a cease-fire. But for Georgians — so boisterously pro-American that Tbilisi, the capital, has a George W. Bush Street — diplomacy fell far short of what they expected.

Even in the hinterlands, at kebab stands and in farming villages, people fleeing South Ossetia saw themselves as trapped between great powers. Ossetian refugees heading north to Russia gushed their gratitude to Dmitri A. Medvedev and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian leaders. Georgians around Gori spoke of America plaintively, uncertainly. They were beginning to feel betrayed.

“Tell your government,” said a man named Truber, fresh from the side of the Tbilisi hospital bed where his son was being treated for combat injuries. “If you had said something stronger, we would not be in this.”

He had not slept for three days, and he was angry — at himself, at Georgia, but mainly at the United States. “If you want to help, you have to help the end,” he said.

[...]

On the other side of the line of battle, Georgians had begun to question the strength of their alliance with the United States.

In recent years, Mr. Bush has lavished praise on Georgia — and the so-called Rose Revolution that brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power — as a model of democracy-building. The feeling was mutual: when Mr. Bush visited Tbilisi in 2005, the authorities estimated that 150,000 people showed up to see him. He famously climbed up on a platform and wiggled his hips to loud Georgian folk music.

Those exuberant days seemed very distant around Gori on Sunday, as people fled, leaving behind corn fields and apple orchards. A group of men tried mightily to push a truck with a blown-out tire, but it got stuck on the road, and they finally abandoned it.

Gato Tkviavi lingered in Tirzini, a village of one-story houses where cows were wandering through the streets.  Asked where the border with South Ossetia was, he pointed at his feet. “The border is where the Russians say it is,” he said. “It could be here, or it could be Gori.”

The grimmest among the Georgians were the soldiers, haggard, unshaven and swinging their Kalashnikovs. A group of them had piled onto a flatbed truck, crowding on in such numbers that some were sitting on the roof, their feet dangling over the windshield.

One, who gave his name as Major Georgi, spoke with anger.   “Write exactly what I say,” he said. “Over the past few years, I lived in a democratic society. I was happy. And now America and the European Union are spitting on us.”

Indeed.

As sad as the events of the past few days have been, I do not believe that the United States has sufficient interests in Georgia keeping sovereignty over South Ossetia to justify war with Russia.   Strong words, and perhaps diplomatic sanctions — including ousting Russia from the G8 — are as much as we can reasonably do.

But here’s the rub:  It is the position of the United States government that Georgia should be admitted to NATO.  We begged, cajoled, and arm twisted our European allies to that end in Bucharest this past April, ultimately settling for a vague pledge that Georgia will be put on the path to membership soon.

While NATO has become many things since the end of the Cold War, it remains at its essence a military alliance in which an attack upon the territory of any one member is considered an attack on all members.  Everything beyond that is a function of the fact that NATO feels itself safe from outside attack and therefore has the resources to do more, including having ambition as a collective security alternative to the United Nations.

If, however, we have no intention of defending Georgia from an attack by the only country on the planet that could conceivably pose it any threat, what the hell are we doing inviting them into NATO?

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias, now ensconced at his new digs at the Center for American Progress, agrees.

Photo credit: Dmitry Kostyukov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via NYT

The views in this piece are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Russian tanks have moved into the disputed Caucasus region of South Ossetia, dramatically escalating already high tensions with Georgia.

Russian television reports that Russian troops are moving into South Ossetia.

The development comes hours after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Georgia that its attack on South Ossetia will draw retaliation.

Channel 1 television showed a convoy of Russian tanks that it said entered South Ossetia. The convoy was expected to reach the provincial capital, Tskhinvali, in a few hours.

This is still a holdover from the breakup of the Soviet Union. South Ossetia declared its independence from Georgia in the early 1990s and has de facto sovereignty over large parts of its territory. While neither Georgia nor the international community recognizes the secession as legitimate, Russia has been sympathetic.

Tensions came to a head with Kosovo’s declaration of independence and the push to offer Georgia a membership action plan and eventual inclusion into NATO. Russia immediately began throwing its weight around in both South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia.  It appears that Russia is now making its play.

Given that NATO all but promised Georgia eventual membership at its Bucharest summit mere months ago, ignoring Russia’s move here is unthinkable.

UPDATE: George claims it has shot down two Russian planes.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry spokesman says that Georgian forces have shot down two Russian combat planes. Shota Utiashvili says the planes were downed while they were raiding Georgian territory, but wouldn’t give their type or any further details.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied an earlier Georgian report about one Russian plane downed. It had no immediate comment on the latest claim.

Georgia launched a massive attack Friday to regain control of South Ossetia, using heavy artillery, aircraft and armor. Russia’s television reported that a convoy of Russian tanks rolled into South Ossetia.

This is getting ugly, fast.

UPDATE: It has.

Georgian troops launched a major military offensive Friday to regain control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia, prompting a furious response from Russia — which vowed retaliation and sent a column of tanks into the region.

More than two dozen were reported dead in the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won defacto independence in a war that ended in 1992. Ten Russian peacekeepers were killed and 30 wounded when their barracks were hit in Georgian shelling, said Russian Ground Forces spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov. Russia has soldiers in South Ossetia as peacekeeping forces but Georgia alleges they back the separatists.

The Times of London’s headline says it all: “Georgia says Russian tanks mean ‘war’ in South Ossetia.”

In the most serious regional crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 50 tanks – and possibly many more – rumbled through the Roki tunnel, which cuts through the Caucasus mountains separating South Ossetia from the Russian province of North Ossetia.

“One hundred and fifty Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles have entered South Ossetia,” President Saakashvili of Georgia told reporters in Tbilisi. “This is a clear intrusion on another country’s territory. We have Russian tanks on our territory, jets on our territory in broad daylight.”

The feeling is mutual:

We cannot allow the deaths of our countrymen to go unpunished. The guilty parties will receive the punishment they deserve,” President Medvedev of Russia told a meeting of his security council in the Kremlin. “I am obliged to protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens, no matter where they are located.”

More as things develop…

UPDATE (Dave Schuler)

The Russian language press is reporting that two Russian tank columns have begun shelling Georgian positions near the town of Tskhinvali.

Update (Dave Schuler)

The online Russian language press is just full of this story. The prevailing take is that Russian forces are hurrying to defend the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, ten or more of whom have been the victims of Georgian aggression.

UPDATE (James Joyner):   CNN is reporting, “The U.S., NATO and European Union have all called for an end to the fighting. U.S. President George Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday discussed the conflict in Georgia, the White House confirmed.”

Meanwhile, Joshua Keating argues, “However this ends, Georgia’s bid to join NATO is now effectively dead. In that sense, Russia has already won and the months of ratcheting up the pressure in the breakaway province seem to have paid off.”  I don’t know whether that’s true; indeed, it could shame recalcitrant European governments into backing Georgia.

One thing’s for sure, though:  While NATO is many things in the post-Cold War environment, it is first and foremost a military alliance committed to the mutual security of its members.  If the U.S. and Western Europe aren’t prepared to use force upon the invasion of Georgia by Russia, then we’ve got no business even considering inviting them to join the Alliance.

UPDATE (James Joyner):  Danger Room’s Nathan Hodge has two interesting essays on the conflict: Ground Zero in the New Caucus Conflict and Did the U.S. Prep Georgia for War with Russia?

The upshot here is that 1) this has been coming to a head for years and recent events have stoked them and 2) military power is fungible.  The U.S. is rightly impressed with the amazing pace of reform Georgia has achieved under President Saakashvili and we have been supplying them with arms and equipment in order to get them up to speed as an ally.

Officially, SSOP was supposed to prepare Georgians for service in Iraq. But Georgian trainees I spoke to in 2006 at the Krtsanisi training range saw things a bit differently. A female sergeant told me: “This training is incredibly important for us, because we want to take back Georgia’s lost territories.”

In fairness, Russia has helped stoked regional tensions, backing separatist governments in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And the Russian media have done a fair job of demonizing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and raising the general level of hysteria (the word “fascism” gets thrown around a lot). Clearly, a Georgia that aspires to NATO membership – and that does not bend to Moscow’s will – irritates the Kremlin to no end.

Quite right.  I think Russia’s wrong on that front; NATO has moved on and countering Russia is simply not its aim these days.  But, given its history, it’s not hard to understand why Russia feels otherwise.

FINAL UPDATE: More discussion in future posts, including this morning’s Kosovo and South Ossetia.

__________________________

Per John Cole’s request in the comments, more background below the fold.

Also, while this disclaimer is always true and is listed in the About section of the blog, I should especially emphasize on this post, given its controversial subject matter, that views expressed in this post are strictly those of the post authors and do not necessarily convey any endorsement by their employers.

From BBC:

Escalating tensions between Georgia and its breakaway province of South Ossetia have erupted into serious fighting.

The separatist administration in South Ossetia has been trying to gain formal independence since breaking away in a civil war in the 1990s.

Russia has troops in the region, on a peacekeeping mandate. But Moscow also supports the separatists.

What is the status of South Ossetia?

South Ossetia has run its own affairs since fighting for independence from Georgia in 1991-92, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It has declared independence, though this has not been recognised by any other country.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, back under full Georgian control.

Why do Ossetians want to break away?

The Ossetians are a distinct ethnic group originally from the Russian plains just south of the Don river. In the 13th Century, they were pushed southwards by Mongol invasions into the Caucasus mountains, settling along the border with Georgia.

South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, which is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.

Ethnic Georgians are a minority in South Ossetia, accounting for less than one-third of the population.

But Georgia rejects even the name of South Ossetia, preferring to call it by the ancient name of Samachablo, or Tskhinvali, after its main city.

What triggered the latest crisis?

Tension has risen since the election of President Saakashvili in 2004. He offered South Ossetia dialogue and autonomy within a single Georgian state – but in 2006 South Ossetians voted in an unofficial referendum to press their demands for complete independence.

In April 2008 Nato said Georgia would be allowed to join the alliance at some point – angering Russia, which opposes eastward expansion of Nato. Weeks later, Russia steps up ties with the separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In July Russia admitted its fighter jets entered Georgian airspace over South Ossetia to “cool hot heads in Tbilisi”. Occasional clashes escalated, until six people were reportedly killed by Georgian shelling. Attempts to reach a ceasefire quickly collapsed.

Could Russia become directly involved in war?

Russia insists it has been acting as a peacekeeper in South Ossetia, rejecting Georgian accusations that it has been supplying arms to the separatists.

However, it has vowed to defend its citizens in South Ossetia – of which there are many. More than half of South Ossetia’s 70,000 citizens are said to have taken up Moscow’s offer of a Russian passport.

Russia may view limited military intervention as less risky than recognising South Ossetia’s independence, which could lead to all-out war with Georgia.

What about Georgia’s links to Nato?

President Saakashvili has made membership of Nato one of his main goals. Georgia has a close relationship with the United States and has been cultivating its ties with Western Europe.

There are those who believe that Mr Saakashvili may be hoping to draw Nato into a conflict with Moscow, making their alliance a formal one.

But analysts say it is difficult to perceive Nato allowing itself to be drawn into a direct conflict with its Cold War rival, when it managed to avoid that for so long.

Reuters offers some scenarios:

* Georgia, whose army and reservists total around 18,000 soldiers, swiftly completes its assault on breakaway South Ossetia before Russia can mobilise a major military response.

A Georgian victory could spark an exodus of non-Georgians to Russia. The majority of the breakaway region’s roughly 70,000 population feel close to Russia and are ethnically distinct from Georgians.

Should Georgian troops quickly establish control over the territory it could prove more difficult for the Russians, diplomatically, to seize back control of the province by sending in its own forces.

* Failure by Georgia to quickly establish full control over South Ossetia could allow Russia, which has a peacekeeping mandate in the region, time to launch a counter-offensive, arguing that it needs to protect its own peacekeeping forces as well as civilians, most of whom have Russian passports.

Georgian officials say Russian armour is already pouring into the region from across the border. Hundreds of volunteers from Russia and another Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, were reported to be making their way to South Ossetia.

* If Georgian troops fail to retake South Ossetia, Tbilisi could be vulnerable to political and diplomatic pressure from the United States and Europe to halt its offensive. The European Union is wary of antagonising Russia, one of its main sources of energy. Some European members of NATO, also wary of President Mikheil Saakashvili’s record in clamping down on opponents, have resisted moves to put Georgia on a fast track to membership. Russia fiercely opposes NATO membership for its former Soviet satellite.

* Outright defeat for Georgian forces, with a retreat to pre-conflict positions, would be a humiliation for Saakashvili. He has made it a priority to win back control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebel region on the Black Sea. Defeat could also boost his domestic opponents and raise doubts about Georgia’s pro-market reforms and drive to align itself more closely with the West.

Dave Schuler: “I wonder if the irony of a dinner in the interests of aiding the hungry is lost on them.”

He doesn’t really wonder.

Bernard Finel argues that we have done a poor job of formalizing rules to deal with the fight against international terrorists.

Few, even today, question the legitimacy of the U.S. campaign to remove the Taliban. But has this case set a broader precedent? And if so, what are the parameters of this precedent. Does any country unilaterally have the right to engage in regime change if they are struck by a terrorist attack launched from another country? Must the victim demonstrate that the host country is actually complicit in the attack in some way? Must the victim seek out some sort of collective legitimization before resorting to military action? Can an unwilling host country avoid retaliation if it can demonstrate that it is trying to eject the terrorist organization.

This is not an academic exercise. Rather, these issues reflect fundamental challenges in current U.S. counter-terrorism policy. The United States has relied on targeting killings of AQ operatives in numerous countries. Is this policy legitimate? Could the Chinese, for instance, legitimately target Tibetan activists in the United States by claiming that those activists were inciting violence in China? What are American rights vis-à-vis AQ bases in Pakistan. Does the Afghan precedent suggest that the United States could legally engage in regime change in Pakistan in retaliation? If not, why not?

As a practical matter, the answer to each of these questions is that countries can do whatever they want so long as they can get away with it. The United States and China will have more latitude in these matters than, say, Turkey.

But it’s more complicated than that. As Finel’s colleague, Jim Ludes, points out
there is value in establishing rules ahead of time and then following them.

If you believe the conflict will endure for decades, it makes sense that you would seek to institutionalize, both domestically and internationally, the legal authorities and procedures for prosecuting this war. That was the genius of the 1947 National Security Act, the creation of NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the complex of international institutions and laws that helped us win the Cold War in 1989.

[...]

We are, at our core, a nation of laws. If our laws aren’t adequate to the challenges at hand, then they need to be revised, but they can not–and must not–be ignored. Nor can we afford to let terrorists go free. Our concern over due-process is not simply about the rights of detainees, it is about preserving our identity, defending our way of life, and defeating the terrorists.

Indeed. While there’s some short-term advantage to the ad hoc, make-it-up-as-you-go approach that the Bush Administration has taken, it’s damaging in the longer term. Not only does it undermine our moral authority in trying to hold others to the rule of law but it’s problematic on the domestic front, too. Those who have been perfectly happy to trust Bush to do what he felt best to protect us will likely not be so sanguine if he’s succeeded by a President Obama.

Speaking of decrepit New York City landmarks, Mark Leon Goldberg reports on a major renovation of the 50-year-old United Nations building, which would have condemned “long ago if not for the fact that it falls under international jurisdiction.”

According to the UN News Centre, the current buildings are “plagued by leaks, safety violations and outdated systems.”

Somehow, that seems fitting.

In the cover story of the new American Prospect, Matt Yglesias describes John McCain thusly:

The candidate who, despite his protestations in a March speech that he “hates war,” not only stridently backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq but has spent years calling on the United States to depose every dictator in the world. He’s the candidate of ratcheting-up action against North Korea and Iran, of new efforts to undermine the United Nations, and of new cold wars with Russia and China. Rather than hating war, he sees it as integral to the greatness of the nation, and military service as the highest calling imaginable.

But this is wrong in almost every sense imaginable.

Can anyone seriously doubt that a man who spent 5-1/2 years being tortured by the Viet Cong hates war? But one can simultaneously hate war and think it preferable to allowing despots to gain nuclear weapons.

I’m not sure undermining the United Nations, which has been virtually useless at preventing wars or enforcing its own Security Council mandates, is necessarily inconsistent with hating war. Regardless, McCain isn’t seeking to undermine it but rather augment it with a “League of Democracies,” which he has described as a “SEATO-type” ad hoc coalition of states with similar values. Indeed, pressed by this author on the question, he specifically said that he did not envision this as a military alliance ala NATO. Whose existence, oddly enough, hasn’t undermined the UN.

Nor has McCain advocated “new cold wars with Russia and China.” Rather, his critics, like Fareed Zakaria, have posited that as a likely outcome of the League of Democracies.

Now, I agree with Matt that McCain is the neo-cons’ neo-con who “truer version of the faith during the early years of hubris that followed September 11.” He’s a “national greatness conservative.” I’d prefer a president with a little less confidence in our ability to make the world a better place through the force of arms and a little less interested in shaping the internal politics of far-away lands, period. But that’s not likely. We’ve alternated between hawkish Republicans and interventionist idealist Democrats since the end of the Cold War. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are also interventionists, just stressing different places to intervene. And Hillary Clinton was for the war in Iraq before she was against it. Or, rather, before the political winds shifted.

McCain, at least, is unlikely to intervene half way, as John Kennedy did in the Bay of Pigs, Jimmy Carter did in Desert One, and Bill Clinton did pretty much everywhere. Or, for that matter, as George W. Bush did in Iraq and Afghanistan. If military interventionism is inevitable — and I believe it is — then we might as well at least do it right.

Fareed Zakaria argues that John McCain’s foreign policy would be bellicose whereas Barack Obama’s would be conciliatiatory but, as Dave Schuler notes, both are “confrontational” and “interventionist,” just with slightly different priorities.

Zakaria points to a recent McCain speech:

Not only does it declare war on Russia and China, it places the United States in active opposition to all nondemocracies. It proposes a League of Democracies, which would presumably play the role that the United Nations now does, except that all nondemocracies would be cast outside the pale. The approach lacks any strategic framework. What would be the gain from so alienating two great powers? How would the League of Democracies fight terrorism while excluding countries like Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Singapore? What would be the gain to the average American to lessen our influence with Saudi Arabia, the central banker of oil, in a world in which we are still crucially dependent on that energy source?

But this vastly overstates and misunderstands McCain’s proposals — not to mention the nature of the presidency.

McCain does not “declare war on Russia and China” or even place “the United States in active opposition to all nondemocracies.” Rather, he argues that we should seek to pursue our interests through the venue of an alliance with those with whom we share values.

He thinks Russia, which has not lived up to the bargain through which it was granted membership to which it was never due to the G-8, should be removed from that institution and that it should be expanded to include emerging economies that are on the same path as the core members of that group. Russia was not admitted to the club of the world’s greatest economies either through having a great economy or, as Zakaria asserts, “to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large chunks of the old Russian Empire as well.” Rather, Boris Yeltsin showed up at the meetings and the other leaders didn’t really know what to do about it. Russia was finally admitted in 1997 after making agreeing to and reaching certain milestones but has backslid toward autocracy and regional belligerence in recent years.

China is an emerging economy and I agree with Zakaria that expansion of the G8 to include the likes of India but not China would be problematic. On the other hand, India is more-or-less democratic and complies with the rules of international law; China, not so much.

The idea that a League of Democracies would somehow lessen our mutal interest-based relations with Saudi Arabia and others is likewise puzzling. Does our membership in NATO do that?

Further, as Dave notes, while Obama is more open to diplomacy for its own sake than McCain, as demonstrated by his stated willingness to talk to the leaders of Cuba, Iran, and other states — which I support, incidentally — we shouldn’t pretend that he’s Jimmy Carter.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are equally confrontational and interventionist. You can hardly interpret Sen. Clinton’s bellicose statements about Iran and her stump speech hostility to China or Sen. Obama’s stated willingness to intervene in Dar Fur or invade Pakistan in pursuit of Taliban and Al Qaeda finding safe haven there in any other way.

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It looks very much as though come what may we’re going to have a confrontational interventionist president and we and the world had better get used to the idea. So much for mending fences and restoring the U. S.’s lost credibility.

Which, frankly, isn’t surprising. To become president of the United States, after all, one has to be elected by Americans. Our political culture demands a willingness to stand tough against rogue regime and to use military force against those who attack our interests. Even Jimmy Carter had his Desert One. And Carter was a one-termer largely because of his (minus that botched rescue mission) diplomacy-only response to the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Beyond that, as I’ve noted in previous posts, American presidents operate within the institutional confines of the office. The bureaucratic information process remains largely unchanged despite the changing of the occupants of the Oval Office. Congress continues to have essentially the same institutional stance as well, putting enormous pressure on presidents to conform to the expected role of the office.

None of this is to say that the November election won’t impact America’s foreign policy. It will. The personality, temperament, and preferences of the president very much matter, especially in world affairs. But the impact is not nearly as radical as Zakaria and others would have you believe.

During a major foreign policy address yesterday, John McCain talked about his plan to create a League of Democracies. Charles Krauthammer sees a plot to do away with the United Nations:

Well, I like the idea of the league of democracies, and only in part because I and others had proposed it about six years ago. What I like about it, it’s got a hidden agenda. It looks as if it’s all about listening and joining with allies, all the kind of stuff you’d hear a John Kerry say, except that the idea here, which McCain can’t say, but I can, is to essentially kill the U.N.

See the video here.

Ben Armbruster thinks Krauthammer is on to something

After all, he backed anti-U.N. crusader John Bolton’s nomination as the organization’s U.S. ambassador and secretly pushed his confirmation. Bolton famously said “there is no such thing as the United Nations” and if the U.N. building in New York “lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

Well, here’s what McCain actually said on the subject:

The United States must lead in the 21st century, just as in Truman’s day. But leadership today means something different than it did in the years after World War II, when Europe and the other democracies were still recovering from the devastation of war and the United States was the only democratic superpower. Today we are not alone. There is the powerful collective voice of the European Union, and there are the great nations of India and Japan, Australia and Brazil, South Korea and South Africa, Turkey and Israel, to name just a few of the leading democracies. There are also the increasingly powerful nations of China and Russia that wield great influence in the international system.

In such a world, where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone. We must be strong politically, economically, and militarily. But we must also lead by attracting others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. Perhaps above all, leadership in today’s world means accepting and fulfilling our responsibilities as a great nation.

One of those responsibilities is to be a good and reliable ally to our fellow democracies. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact — a League of Democracies — that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.

At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. Recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

This is a very broad internationalism, encompassing not just “Old Europe” but emerging democracies as well.

Further, McCain has been talking about a “League of Democracies” for months. When he brought up the idea in a blogger conference call last October, I was able to ask him directly:

I was able to get in the first question and followed up on this idea, asking whether he was talking about a “NATO Plus” organization or something else. McCain replied that he envisioned something more along the lines of ASEAN or the G-8, a somewhat formal IGO that would have regular meetings but no standing forces. In follow-up, I inquired whether he thought this meant that NATO and the UN Security Council, as presently constituted, were failures. He said that, no, those organizations have their purposes but that NATO was a military alliance whereas his League of Democracies would focus mostly on non-military solutions such as economic sanctions, trade, diplomacy, and public relations.

Now, Krauthammer is right that using an IGO other than the UN to accomplish purposes that the UN was chartered to do weakens the UN by making it less vital. But the fact that we have created dozens of multi-lateral organizations over the years to get around the UN’s inability to function would seem to demonstrate that the UN doesn’t need much help in being weak.

Bolton was fundamentally right when he said, “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.” (Yes, context helps.) The UN isn’t an organism which can be killed but rather a building and a mechanism through which sovereign states attempt to transact business. Attempting to get that business done through a smaller coalition of more like-minded states only makes sense, and it’s a far sight better than either going it alone or waiting on the UN to achieve consensus.

via Memeorandum

Photo Credit: Traveling Mego Hulk