Word: saakashvili
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...break up a revolt by some 500 soldiers on a military base in Mukhrovani, one day before NATO embarked on sensitive military exercises nearby. Officials painted the mutiny as a covert Russian coup attempt, which Moscow flatly denied. The uprising comes at a bad time for President Mikheil Saakashvili, who faces mass protests calling for his resignation over his handling of last year's war with Russia...
...leaves NATO with no alternative other than military confrontation. She fails to acknowledge that Russia has played a key and improper role in supporting the opposition protesters on Georgia’s streets, and she fails to admit that the protesters refused to carry on any discussions with the Saakashvili regime except regarding the terms of the democratically elected president’s resignation. She fails to recognize Russia’s profound military weakness (while invading Georgia, many of its officers were reduced to communciating on their personal cell phones) or the effect of the nation?...
...also, perhaps, some truth to the statement by Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian envoy to NATO, that NATO would be wiser to hold the exercises “in some psychiatric hospital” than in Georgia, given the current state of affairs. Protests calling for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to resign have rocked Tbilisi, for the past month, and the ranks of the protestors have grown to encompass members of the government. One of these, a former parliamentary speaker, even declared to a crowd of protestors that Georgia “is not a democratic country...
...memory of the government’s violent suppression of protests in 2007 remains a mark on Saakashvili’s record as a democratic leader. And early last week, a tank division mutinied against the government. Whether or not Russia was behind the plot—as Saakashvili has implied—it is a clear indicator that Georgia does not have full control over its military forces...
...Saakashvili has called the exercises a “symbolic event,” and it appears clear that, at least in Saakashvili’s mind, the purpose of these maneuvers is to demonstrate NATO’s solidarity with Georgia and its willingness to defend Georgia against Russia, if need be. Given the suggestions that the August war was at least partly the fault of Saakashvili’s recklessness, however, it seems likely that any suggestion that NATO will come to his aid will only make him bolder, particularly in the face of domestic calls...