And finally...

Because I'm pretty sure you want me to get off the Georgia thing already, John Cole wraps the whole thing up with the important lessons.

Saakashvili thought he was a player in the game, when really he was just the ball. In fact, because of our possible behind the scenes antics, not only may we have falsely emboldened the foolish leader of Georgia, we may be responsible for a large part of the perception of him in Russia:

Second, if Russia really is entering Georgia in force, it’s about to become a different sort of game altogether. Russia has no reason to do that unless it’s gunning for regime change. Attacking Gori is right at the bleeding edge of plausible self-defense; Gori is near the border, and has been the forward base for Georgian operations in South Ossetia. But going beyond Gori, landing forces on the Georgian coast, or attacking in force out of Abkhazia, would be something else again.

There are undoubtedly plenty of people in Moscow who’d like to try. Russia’s leaders view Saakashvili as obnoxious and dangerous: for American readers, it’s sort of like how conservative Republicans feel about Fidel Castro. You know how, for fifty years now, a certain minority of Americans have entertained fantasies about landing in Havana and slamming that sonofabitch up against the wall? Like that. Except the Russians have the power to actually do it.

Maybe people are just that dumb after all.