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The United States is likely to seek a stronger dialogue with leading opposition figures in Georgia and end the reliance on personal relations with President Saakashvili says Steven Pifer, former US Ambassador to Ukraine.

In an interview for the Council for Foreign Relations, Ambassador Pifer, commenting on Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Tbilisi, states:

In the case of Georgia, there was an effort to meet with the opposition to show some balance. This may reflect some quiet concern on the part of this administration that the Bush administration's policy toward Georgia may have become too personalized with Saakashvili. There's an effort to say the United States wants a strong, robust relationship with Georgia, but perhaps without the personal attachment to Saakashvili. Certainly there are figures in the opposition--the former head of the Georgian parliament, Nino Burjanadze, and the former Georgian ambassador to the United Nations, Irakli Alasania--who are in favor in Washington. So the approach to Georgia will be more balanced and not so personalized as what we saw in the Bush administration. There's a fine line to walk here, and the vice president is doing it fairly well, where you don't want to signal to the Russians that we're chopping off Saakashvili completely.