U.S.: Russia to topple Georgian regime

According to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad, Russia is seeking “regime change” in Georgia.

He said that during a phone conversation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov said Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili “must go.”

Now that’s a charge that’s easily deniable, especially considering it concerns a statement made during a confidential conversation between diplomats. However, the fact that Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin justified the reasoning behind toppling the Saakashvili regime, is rather troubling.

[. . .] Churkin said some leaders “become an obstacle” to their own people, and “some situations take courageous decisions with regard to the political future.”

“Sometimes there are democratically elected or semi-democratically elected leaders who do things which create grave problems for their countries,” Churkin told reporters after the meeting. “So sometimes, those leaders should contemplate how useful they have become to their people.”

I had long suspected Russia would use this recent violence to as a pretext to take down the Saakashvili regime altogether, but its now clear that doing so would greatly isolate the Russian government.

Russia’s made their point, they’ve taken back South Ossetia, they’ve battered Georgia’s Western-trained and overachieving military, they don’t need to rub it in the faces of the world–especially if it means taking down an American ally and rebuilding it in Russia’s own image.

The West clearly still doesn’t know how to react to this crisis, but it will become increasingly hard to find any type amicable settlement if Russia doesn’t accept Georgia’s request for a cease-fire and restrain itself from doing what it has fantasized about doing ever since the Rose Revolution.

If Russia has any interest in dissuading those who believe Russia wants to reinstate its hegemonic influence in its region and bomb all those who disagree, they have to stand down now. This is Russia’s crossroads.