Under the title of The miscalculation of small nations he makes it clear that this is chiefly another episode in history where small nations thought that they could stand up to bigger ones.
He cites other examples which include
Israel in attacking Egypt in 1967, and Lebanon in 1982; Turkey in invading Cyprus in 1974; Egypt in attacking Israel in 1973; Cuba in sending troops to Angola in 1975; Iraq in attacking Iran in 1980, and Kuwait in 1990.and while the issues are complicated in the region
the chief responsibility belongs to Georgia's reckless and demagogic president, Mikhail Saakashvili. His precipitous launch of a brutal assault on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on the night of 7-8 August 2008 is worse than a crime: it is a terrible blunder. More broadly, however, the responsibility devolves onto the self-inflating nationalist ideology which traps Saakashvili and Georgians who think like him. Here, indeed, is a local manifestation of a universal problem. For while the particular circumstances of the latest Caucasian war have been ably analysed it is important to broaden the discussion by exploring the role that the nationalist ideology of Saakashvili's type - with its heady mix of vanity, presumption and miscalculation - has played in the modern world.
No comments:
Post a Comment