The Hollywood Liberal

Rice refuses to ?interrupt her holidays? to deal with Georgian conflict.
When she should be traveling abroad to work with allies to deal with the ongoing fallout from Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has instead been “noticeably absent.” AFP reports she is busy with other plans: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also been noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed […]

When she should be traveling abroad to work with allies to deal with the ongoing fallout from Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has instead been “noticeably absent.” AFP reports she is busy with other plans:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also been noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed to interrupt her holidays to fly to Tbilisi in support of the Georgian government.

Instead senior State Department official, Matthew Bryza, who oversees the Caucasus region was sent, two days later than planned, to join a joint EU-US mediation effort to win a ceasefire.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Rice made more than 90 calls this weekend to discuss the situation in Georgia.

Russia’s Power Play
WASHINGTON — Asked in 1957 what would determine his government’s course, Harold Macmillan, Britain’s new prime minister, replied, “Events, dear boy, events.” Now, into America’s trivializing presidential campaign, a pesky event has intruded — a European war. Russian tanks, heavy artillery, strategic bombers, ballistic missiles and a naval blockade batter a European nation. We are not past such things after all. The end of history will be postponed, again. Russia supports two provinces determined to secede from Georgia. Russia, with aspiring nations within its borders, generally opposes secessionists, as it did when America, which sometimes opposes secession (e.g., 1861-65), improvidently supported Kosovo’s secession from Russia’s ally Serbia. But Russia’s aggression is really about the subordination of Georgia, a democratic, market-oriented U.S. ally. This is the recrudescence of Russia’s dominance in what it calls the “near abroad.” Ukraine, another nation guilty of being provocatively democratic near Russia, should tremble because there is not much America can do. It is a bystander at the bullying of an ally that might be about to undergo regime change.