Word: saakashvili
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With much to prove, Saakashvili gave an unusually robust Show during my visit. It started with a ride along the Black Sea coast on his presidential helicopter, and by the time it was finished almost a week later, it had led from the Abkhazian border in the northwest to the central wine country of Kakheti and eventually to the President's offices inside the new glass-and-steel chancellery building in Tbilisi...
...Saakashvili still has the immense talent for communication that made him an international celebrity when he took power after 2003's bloodless Rose Revolution. He's an imposing man - at 6 ft. 4 in. (193 cm), he is the tallest Georgian I saw until we watched the national basketball team beat Belarus - with a polyglot charisma. At various times throughout the week, he spoke to me in Russian, Spanish and - above all - his famous English, an enthusiastic tumble of idiomatic American that he learned while studying and practicing law in New York City and Washington. (See pictures of the Russians...
...question isn't Saakashvili's charm; it's the quality of his vision for Georgia and whether his wary allies can trust him to lead his country there. The stakes are high. This tiny country half the size of North Carolina is the rawest point of contact between the rising confidence of Russia and the eastward encroachment of the great Western alliances - NATO and the E.U. Yet the most crucial conflict may be the one within Saakashvili himself, between his enormous ambitions for Georgia and the impetuousness that could yet spoil his young democracy or bring more bloodshed...
...Road to War Our first flight took us to a deserted stretch of Black Sea coast at Anaklia Bay. Saakashvili, who is sometimes swept away by his own optimism, met several leading Spanish architects on the beach to discuss developing a resort nearly 4 miles (6 km) long that would lead right up to the border with the breakaway republic of Abkhazia. The area may have natural potential - "The water's like boiled milk," an official told me approvingly - but Saakashvili seemed to be ignoring the obvious. If war breaks out again, the Russian army will rumble first through Anaklia...
...Saakashvili's heavily armed SUV convoy then took us north over dusty roads to the border village of Ganmukhuri and the 8-ft. (2.5 m) earthen berm he likes to call "the next Berlin Wall." Throngs of jubilant Georgians waved flags, passed him handwritten notes, yelled "Misha" and led chants of "Gaumarjos!" (To victory!). Saakashvili's personal film crew, which follows him nearly everywhere he goes, climbed the berm looking for a better shot but was quickly pulled down. This is, after all, a tense place, where a shouting match two years ago between Saakashvili and a Russian general almost...