Ex-U.S. Diplomat: Georgia a Test Case of Western Ties with Russia
?Vladimir Putin is going all out to undermine and get rid of Georgia’s young, pro-American, pro-democracy president, Mikheil Saakashvili,? Richard Holbrooke, a former US ambassador to the UN, wrote in his monthly column for the Washington Post on November 27.
Holbrooke, who recently visited Georgia, says that Russia is assuming that the US, overwhelmed by Iraq and needing Moscow?s support on North Korea and Iran, ?will not make Georgia a ‘red-line’ issue and that the European Union, fearful of endangering energy supplies from Russia, will similarly play it down.?
?When President Bush brought Georgia up with Putin on the margins of the Asian-Pacific summit in Hanoi last weekend, Putin went into a rant, as he does every time the subject arises,? Holbrooke writes.
He says that the EU and US must make the continued freedom and independence of Georgia a test case of the West’s relationship with Russia.
?If Bush’s freedom rhetoric has any meaning, let him prove it in Georgia, not just with polite calls for mutual restraint, but with real pressure on Moscow and the assembling of a united front with the European Union to make clear to Putin that he must cease his attempts to destabilize Georgia and overthrow Saakashvili,? he wrote.
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