Crisis in Georgia Beginning to Turn Into a Big Political Liability for McCain

At first the unfolding conflict between Russia and its neighbor the Republic of Georgia seemed to be just what the McCain candidacy needed: a foreign policy crisis that would allow him to demonstrate a "tough, decisive, experienced" mastery of foreign affairs, and a new rationale for why Americans should choose experience over change in a dangerous world.

But it hasn't taken long for the developments in the Caucuses to become a growing political liability instead.

First, the unfolding conflict provides a fresh example of how McCain's War in Iraq has sapped American power and weakened American security.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned last week that Russia's actions in Georgia might fundamentally alter its relationship with the United States. Of course that is exactly what the Russians have in mind, since they are not at all happy with their current role in the world -- or the way they believe the United States and Western Europe have sought to limit their influence, especially with their neighbors and former client states.

Russia has been smarting for years over its inability to prevent the US-lead NATO action that allowed Kosovo to secede from its long-time ally Serbia. It is none too pleased at the agreement to base a US "anti-missile" defense system in Poland.

First and foremost, the Russian action in Georgia has been intended to support separatist pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But it is also intended to demonstrate to other former Soviet Republics that their alliances with the West have very little value if they come into conflict with Russian interests. The Russians know that the Bush Administration's management of U.S. security policy has left the US with very few options to limit resurgent Russian influence.

Of course the crisis in Georgia is just the latest example of how the War in Iraq has massively limited American's ability to respond to this -- or any other -- security crisis.

America already had one major military operation underway in Afghanistan when the Bush administration -- with McCain's full support -- recklessly poured most of our other military assets into the invasion of Iraq. Today most Army and Marine units are either deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, preparing to deploy or recovering from deployment. The fact is that at the present time, we do not have the wherewithal to respond militarily to a crisis even if such a response were necessary or appropriate.

As a result, John McCain's strident statements following Russia's military actions only place into relief the reality that he has continuously supported Bush policies that make us weaker -- in spite of his tough talk.

Secondly, as the situation in Georgia develops it becomes clearer by the day that the Bush-McCain Iraq policy has severely undercut our diplomatic options as well. Apart from generally poisoning the good will of countries around the world, the Bush-McCain invasion of Iraq lowered the bar for the rest of the world when it comes to justifying the invasion of one country by another.

It has made it very difficult for the U.S. to take the moral or political high ground against Russia when just six years ago our country invaded and occupied another nation that had not attacked or immediately threatened us -- and didn't have the weapons of mass destruction that were used to argue that they might "potentially" threaten our security.

Finally, the Georgia conflict has shined a spotlight on McCain's chief foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann.

Scheunamann was a major organizer of the campaign to get the U.S to invade Iraq. He was a board member of the Project for a New American Century that circulated the now-famous manifesto signed by key Neo Cons that first called for the Iraq invasion. He was a founder of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. More recently he has been a paid lobbyist for a number of foreign governments including Macedonia, Taiwan and, most importantly, the Republic of Georgia.

According to records from the Justice Department's foreign agents registration office, Scheunamann's two-person firm has received $830,000 from Georgia since 2004. Though Scheunamann now claims to have taken a leave of absence from lobbying, his latest contract, with Georgia's National Security Council, was signed as recently as April 17th. According to the Los Angeles Times, McCain spoke by phone with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili that day and then issued a statement denouncing Russian moves to "undermine Georgian's sovereignty."

The paper also cites lobbying forms filed by Scheunamann's firm Orion indicating that McCain sponsored or co-sponsored four Senate resolutions on behalf of Georgia and other Orion clients: Latvia, Macedonia, Romania and Taiwan.

The poor judgment McCain showed by appointing a man who was serving as a paid foreign agent to be his chief foreign policy adviser is simply breathtaking. It is even more so because of the history of the current conflict.

There is more than appearance of conflict of interests. Before Georgia's President Saakashvili sent Georgian troops to reassert control in the semi-autonomous region of Ossetia, even the US State Department says it repeatedly warned him against precipitous action that might provoke a Russian response. He did it anyway. In other words, the government of the United States and Georgia had different agendas, different interests, and different policies with respect to the Ossetia conflict.

Where were Scheunamann's loyalties? Did he represent the position of the government of the United States, or of his old client Saakashvili. Do the actions and statements of McCain represent his independent judgment of what is in the best interests of the United States, or the views of a top adviser who made just short of a million dollars representing a foreign power?

What's more, if Scheunamann and McCain did encourage Saakashvili to send troops to Ossetia, it once again calls into question their simple strategic judgment. Saakashvili's action has been a disaster for the Georgian government that has lead to the rout of the small Georgian army, and increased the likelihood that he will ultimately be replaced by someone more acceptable to Russia. This is exactly the kind of poor strategic judgment that McCain and Scheunamann used to lead America into the War in Iraq. Americans don't want more of that kind of judgment.

Odds are, the more we learn about the involvement of McCain and Scheunamann in the Georgia fiasco, the more that McCain's foreign policy judgment will be called into question. Many Republicans have prayed for a foreign policy crisis that could refocus voter attention on foreign affairs and away from the domestic economic disaster. Sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.

Robert Creamer is a long time political organizer and strategist and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight. How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com.

Comments

[rboylern]

I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about Sen McCain that just gives me the heebie-jeebies. He's kind of creepy.

[CRayD11]

Richard Nixon creepoy or Uncle Fester creepy?

[ClarkJensen]

I would love to believe that this analysis is true.

But the logic of the article is 180 degrees off "true north" because it resupposes that the electorate thinks.

[RepugsOut08]

I'm not much on conspiracy theories, but the desperation on the part of the McCain campaign has me worried. McCain really needs to scare Americans into voting against their wallets this time.
What better way, he might have thought, than to convince the Georgians to attack the Russians, promising to join them in their fight for independence. He would have known the obvious result of that kind of action would be the Russian invasion we're now seeing.
What better way to frighten Americans than to re-insert Russia onto the list of evil-doers? What better president to handle the "crisis" than ol' steadfast ex POW McCain? I hate to even think such a thing possible, but I've seen so much lying and deceit in the last eight years it wouldn't surprise me.

[UrbanInterloper]

Excellent analysis. I only wish you mentioned the pipeline in Georgia and the energy interests that also paid Scheunamann to get a piece of it.

[Jazzcomedian]

I think the Russians are thugs and bullies, but I feel they have the higher moral ground on this. Look at what we did to Cuba (who we're still treating like sh*t) when Russia came into our sphere of influence and put missiles 90 miles away from us, and we expect Russia to accept missiles aimed at them from bordering countries. That's absurd. That proposed expansion of NATO with former Soviet satellites is a non-starter, and the Russians are right to draw a line in the sand, unless we let them put missiles aimed at us in Mexico and Canada.

Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons are bullies, but compared to pissed off Russians they are out of their league. You can see it in the tentative bluster of both Bush, and Rice. They both know they're just blowing smoke to people who don't give a f**k what we think. They are not Grenada or Iraq.

[joanndarc]

USSR and USA were/are very similar.

[d52brooklyn]

If Senator Obama had done what Senator McCain did regarding Georgia, he would have been called presumptuous Too, we would still be reading and hearing about it over every news channel for panel discussions. W is Commander In-Chief and Secretary Rice and Gates are still in power. We don't need another foreign crisis or someone acting tough.

[meshach]

Ditto

[Paul]

Exactly.

McCain's statements don't look so good in retrospect.

[egal]

Please, if Obama had said that Gergia was 2 square miles smaller than it is, he'd still be suffering attacks against his "obvious ignorance, inexperience, and unfitness to be CIC".

But of course, it's only news if somebody other than McCain does anything wrong, even when McCain has done the same but worse. Apparently, our news people haven't yet figured out, despite 8 years of evidence, how self-destructive it is to have a president utterly ignorant about everything vital to governing today. Or ever, probably.

It's hard to disbelieve the meme that the newscasters have, err, male organ envy and therefore must attack the black man with everything, however flagrantly inane and irrelevent or even untrue, just so we're distracted from their lack of endowment. (sort of tongue-in-cheek)

[phughez]

Yet McCain masquerades as the honorable American Patriot. Clearly the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, while the propaganda intensifies.

[V is for Vendetta]

" interventor See Profile I'm a Fan of interventor I'm a fan of this user

I see that CNN and FNC finally are reporting on the shellings, too bad the rest of the MSM aren't.

Most of the South Ossetia government leaders are actually Russian nationals from Russia proper, its a Potemkin nation. Only 10 percent of Abkhazian are ethnic Russians. The majority are muslim Abkhans Posted 04:17 PM on 08/18/2008"

CNN is full of NSA spooks and PsyOPs ..remember them during 1999 "war" against Milosevic.

HAHhAHAAH.

Links please for census claims on SoOssetia Govt.....( actually Russian nationals from Russia proper )...all fiction???

[Franksa]

CNN has jumped the shark! Their coverage is dammed by the sin of omission! Instead of dedicating a whole hour to the Georgian flare up, Anderson "Vanderbilt" Cooper provided just enough coverage and analyses to supports McCain and the Republican talking points, and then proceeded to wasted the rest of the show on a missing toddler.
They willfully ignored the actions of the Georgian President over the preceding weeks which provided the most predictable of outcomes from Putin and the Russian Army not to mention the role that Condi Rice played during her visit in the preceding weeks. CNN is allowing John McCain to have his "Alexander Haig moment " and pretend to be Commander in Chief while Barak Obama is scolded for not coming out strong enough (and most assuredly would be scolded if he came as strong McCain.)

[taylorndncar]

this country has a long history. when russia was at its weakest, NATO should have approved its application into the organization. we did our best, but the rest of the world was against us (it dropped the ball, like it usually does). we are the new roman empire and too few is on our side. Georgia was one of the few...!!!

[theyank]

Was it " poor judgement" or did it go exactly as planned to achieve yet another clean slate!
As I read Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" I must admit I harbored some skepticism but the more I really listen and really pay attention to the details of happenings in the world both past and present the more the skepticism fades. Everyone needs to read this book ......Ever­yone.

[CroatianCritter]

Why do we continue to debate this issue? Georgia is a right wing dictatorship supported by the U.S. with a failed presidency that was trying to take back two rebel provinces that want to secede. This is the exact situation in Serbia but reversed. The media is demonizing the Russians for a humanitarian action. What the hell is wrong with us? Do we need to be on the wrong side of every issue in foreign policy?

[elcojonu]

In a world running low of an important, expensive commodity (Oil ) whoever has lots of it has a very poweful leverage.
Russia knows this and it's starting to make its move; they're very good at levereging.
That, in a nutshell, is what's going on here.

[joanndarc]

At least it's not stealing oil from Pesian Gulf countries.

[elcojonu]

WE WON THE COLD WAR; don't they know it ?
How dare they !

[GrannyForObama]

First and foremost, the last thing most Americans want is to send our heroic but overstressed troops to yet another location overseas. Enough is enough. Senator McCain is sadly mistaken if thinks we will view yet another military expedition as a sign of his foreign policy acumen.

There is no doubt that Georgia is an important strategic partner for many reasons. If we were a true friend of Georgia, therefore, we would not stand by and "wink wink" while they try to "shoot at the feet of the Russians and watch them dance" because it is very clear they are going to get stomped on by a lot of angry Russian dancers. Instead we should have been working with them on diplomacy and negotiations with the Russians. This whole crisis would have then been prevented in the first place. And an ounce of prevention is better foreign policy judgment than a pound of cure any day. Expecially when it takes a hundred years for the cure!

[historia]

McCain = "More Wars," any war, forever