Once again, the West is to blame

Istanbul: It may be the Caucasus but Moscow is using a Balkan strategy.

Just as Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic rode roughshod over its neighbours in the early 1990s, so Moscow is gambling that the West will just not come to the military aid of Georgia. Put aside the words of support by US president George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, put aside the protests that Russia will pay the consequences, and put aside Bush's silly remark that he warned Vladimir Putin against this blood-soaked venture, the West will do nothing. Just as it did nothing when Sarajevo was under siege.

Add Gori to another city that began with G and spelt shame for the West. Nobody should compare the atrocity of Guernica to Gori or the Russian offensive to the German dive bombers, but the silence of the West is just as deafening.

Of course there will be those in Washington and London who will say: "Hold on a minute, if we fight Russia there is no telling where it will stop."

There is a word for this mindset, for this compromise, and it is called appeasement.

No stomach

The truth is if the West does nothing, there is no telling where this will stop. If Georgia is subdued, look to the Baltic states that border Russia for the next incident. We already have a "South Ossetia" in Europe: it is called Belarus. What about the missile defence in Europe? Who will stop Russia if they start to threaten the Czech Republic and Poland? An EU that is wrapped up in the banalities of the Lisbon Treaty clearly has no stomach to take on Russia. Washington has shown it will not support one of its key allies that has been invaded.

But again the apologists say it is not our fault. But in a very real manner it is the West's fault. It was the West who kept on urging Georgia to pull the bear's tail.

Near abroad

At the Nato summit in Bucharest this year, Washington pressed for Georgia and Ukraine's membership of the alliance. The move was blocked by the Europeans but Nato did give a commitment to offer the two countries membership later. That move was seen in Moscow as a challenge to its dominance in what it calls the "near abroad", the former Soviet republics.

This does not excuse what Russia has done.

Over the last three years the Kremlin tried to break Georgia's resolve by deporting its citizens from Russia, imposing blockades and banning the import of Georgian goods. But for the West to urge without making clear to Moscow just what the consequences would be was nothing short of moral abondonment.

Russia has every right to be concerned about Nato encroachment, but this is not about defending Russia's borders. It is about oil and gas; in short energy. Control the Caucasus and you have a chokehold on European energy requirements.

Nobody should compare the atrocity of Guernica to Gori... but the silence of the West is just as deafening.