Russia warns the west: Military aid to Georgia will be taken as a "declaration of war"

The invasion is not all black and white, triggered as it was by Saakashvili's move to suppress South-Ossetia - but seriously, how can you look at that comparison and conclude that it's America who should be chided for being the bad, aggressive guy in the game?

It's a little alienating for me, and for many East-Europeans too, to see people over there basically just embrace Russia's notion that it has the right to do whatever the F it wants in those countries.

And to consequently declare that any move on our part to establish a partnership with any of them, regardless of it being at their own pleading, is our "aggression".

I never gave the qualifier of "in Transcaucasia" so why are you trying to make my comments fit under a qualifier I never gave?

What decision? It needs to "think long and hard about whether they want to continue the projection of power, rewriting of maps and regime change it has subscribed to for nearly a decade," because "The military aggression this administration subscribed to is not tenable."

But how does that description even apply to the situation you're talking about? It's not been America that has been rewriting maps here, or that's engaged in military aggression.

Kosovo may influence Russian ties with Georgia breakaway regions
Russia has repeatedly said that granting Kosovo sovereignty could set a precedent and trigger a chain reaction for secessionist regions throughout the world, including in Greece, Spain, Georgia, Moldova and Cyprus. But Western countries supporting Kosovo's independence insist that the case is unique, and that there is no threat of the weakening of international law.

It sounds more like you have a general beef about American foreign policy, informed majorly by Iraq, and are now superimposing the conclusions you've learned about Iraq on a wholly other region and situation.

And you're not the only one. I see a lot of liberals talking about Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, and what America should do - and all I hear is America, Bush, Iraq, Bush, Neoconservatism, Iraq. Their take on it is wholly informed by their opposition to the neocons strategies on Iraq etc, and hardly by any but the most immediate, cursory information from the region at hand itself, which seems mostly picked up just now and filtered through the a priori assumption that any US/Bush admin engagement must have been wrong.

It's very frustrating for those who have followed the issue for two decades and believe that you know, it's a different situation at hand here, and you cant just superimpose lessons from Iraq , and that for once, it's not actually the Americans that are the baddies here.

It's taking exactly the wrong lessons from Iraq, and applying them in a situation where, if anything, America needs to step up and be very vigilant.

Russia has indicated it may change its policy towards breakaway regions in Georgia if the West recognises the independence of Kosovo.

Moscow has repeatedly hinted it could recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia if Kosovo separates from Serbia.

The foreign ministry said Moscow would "take into account" developments in Kosovo, but did not say how.

"We will, without doubt, have to take into account a declaration and recognition of Kosovo independence in connection with the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The statement came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met the leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Moscow.

A European diplomat who was at the meeting and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lavrov had compared Kosovo to Palestine. Lavrov asked the ministers why they were in such a hurry to grant independence to Kosovo while for 40 years they had failed to support independence for Palestine, the diplomat said.

.....

Lavrov said that if Kosovo achieved independence, then Ossetia and Abkhazia would have every reason to claim independence as well. Georgia's behavior toward the Ossetians and Abkhazians, he said, was much worse than Serbia's treatment of the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo.

By splitting the West and the wider international community, the U.S.-backed declaration of independence by Kosovo has given Russia an opening. Countries concerned with separatist problems of their own, from Spain or Cyprus to China, have been unable to follow the U.S. lead in recognizing Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia. And Russia has sought to exploit the gaps that have emerged as a result.

The Balkans is not the only theater in which Moscow is strongly reasserting its presence. This week, just as Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia formally appealed to Russia, the U.N., the E.U. and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) a loose association of post-Soviet countries to recognize their independence.

Leonid Slutsky, First Deputy Chair of the Russian Duma's Foreign Relations Committee, told Itar-Tass on Friday that "So far, Russia doesn't have plans of recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia." However, he said, "Should Georgia try using force there, the situation will cardinally change. The same concerns Georgia's plans of joining NATO."

Even a staunchly pro-Western Georgia, furious as it is with Russia, might finally be forced back into Russia's orbit because of Kosovo. "It's indeed surrealistic," quips Japaridze darkly: "How it happens that in terms of the 'Kosovo Precedent' we, Georgians, Azerbaijani, Moldovans, have to support Russia's position and go against the West?!"