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Submitted by georgiamedia on Fri, 01/01/2010 - 15:49
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Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionPresident Mikheil Saakashvili's televised new year address (pictured) to Georgia saw him choose the rhetoric of confrontation and focus on Russia and talk of the 
need to be ready for war.
With one-fifth of the country in the hands of break-away regimes that are dependent on Russian aid and military support for survival, the talk of "the enemy" and of holding weapons was understandable enough. But it also showed that the president, who generally qualifies his calls for the country to be ready for war with the statement that he is only interested in peaceful ways of reunifying the country, has yet to develop any serious language of peace or dialogue with the Ossetians or Abkhazians.
It suits the president for "domestic" reasons to keep the sense of tension with Russia high (and the Russian regime finds a similar need), especially when one opposition party leader, Zurab Noghaideli, has been regularly visiting Moscow for talks with Putin and others. Such talk is also cheap in the middle of winter when there is no practical chance of a Russian attack across the Caucasus in any case.
Last Spring the Georgian regime talked down the prospect of war when they were seeking to calm the domestic situation, before cranking it up again when it suited them in advance of Joe Biden's visit. It is a dangerous game.
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[...] and winter the Georgian regime only made things worse for itself internationally by consciously and deliberately talking up the prospects of war with Russia. School children were to be taught how to use guns, every Georgian was told to be ready to fight, a [...]
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[...] Last time this sort of rhetoric was heard from Georgian sources - in the depths of last winter when such talk is as cheap as snow at 2000 metres - it sufficiently alarmed the west that they essentially told the Georgians to back off. In summer these words are very much a temptation of fate. [...]
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