Michael O'Hanlon and Robert Kagan on This Week in Politics

Michael O'Hanlon and Robert Kagan talking about taking Georgia into NATO and whether it would be poking Russia in the eye to allow them in. After talking about their views on the Presidential candidates and their policies on Iraq and Georgia the conversation moves here:

Foreman: You brought up Iraq and I think that's an important point here because Vladimir Putin and many pundits have said both the candidates, George Bush, everybody had their legs cut out him, from them a little bit because of the Iraq war, because the United States went into a country without waiting for this gigantic UN consensus to say let's go. So how, Russia itself says "How do you criticize us? We're protecting our national interest too". Is this a real problem Bob?

Kagan: Not really. I wouldn't say that many pundits have said that. I uh, if you look at what's happening in Europe right now which is where this whole action is taking place uh, European leaders are condemning uh Moscow's action uh from the British government to the Swedish government. Uh there's, there's pretty good, I mean there's some difference between about exactly how to move but there's very strong trans-Atlantic unity condemning this action. No one is waving ah Iraq or anything else. So people can see the difference between what Russia has done uh and what the United States and many European allies did in Iraq.

Foreman: Do you think people can see the difference? Because certainly some people who are enemies of George Bush who don't like this White House say there's not much of a difference. They're bothered by it. They're bothered by what Russia did but they're equally bothered by what we've done in Iraq.

O'Hanlon: I would say with both Iraq and the case of Kosovo which is something Russia invokes a lot as an analogy here, we dealt with brutal dictators. There was a question about whether we had gone through all the proper diplomatic preparation. I do not think George W. Bush did a great job at preparing the ground work for the Iraq war. But come on, we overthrew a guy who killed a million people.

Foreman: As opposed to essentially a territory dispute of some sort.

O'Hanlon: Exactly a far lower level of violence regardless of who fired what shot first.

Foreman: Good explanation.

I'd like to know why we should trust this guy: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

And this guy: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/11/kagan/

about anything they say?

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[SgtMcCuddles]

the point is... russia invaded a country on their borders. the US invaded a country.. how far is iraq from the US? beyond hypocritical.

[violageo]

Washington's bloody fingerprints are all over the invasion of South Ossetia. Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili would never dream of launching a massive military attack unless he got explicit orders from his bosses at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.Saakashvili owes his entire political career to American power-brokers and US intelligence agencies. If he disobeyed them, he'd be gone in a fortnight.

[tonylee1973]

@alanbalfe what do these two clowns think we could do to stop russia from invadine georgie? are military is stretched so thin its beyond belief. odly enough i think bush knew this and pissed cheney and the cabal off by holding back.

[alanbalfe]

@asdffd Haha true, C'mon we overthrew a guy who killed a million people! What is the civilian death toll in Iraq at right now then. These guys are nuts. Kagan himself has even stated that he does not believe in multilateralism i.e. international diplomacy like the U.N. and that instead there ought to be a global hierarchy controlled by U.S. hegemony.

These "NeoCons" are about as close to Fascists as you can get.

[alanbalfe]

Without waiting on " this gigantic U.N. consensus" the reporter says XD. There was no consensus to be had, nothing to talk about. To make a consensus would be in contravention of the U.N. Charter and everyone knew it. The invasion of Iraq constitutes the unlawful use of force by one sovereign nation on another a.k.a. an act of INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM.

[GeTarHrO]

are you serious? hmm define sovereignty

[angel2901]

lol!

[Robguy66]

Darnnit - doesn't Russia know that only the US can attack sovereign nations.

[getplaning]

Russia deployed its tanks and troops to South Ossetia to save the lives of civilians and to reestablish the peace. It has no interest in annexing the former-Soviet country or in expanding its present borders.

Brzezinski and Holbrooke are veteran cold warriors. They are not bungling neocons like Feith and Rumsfeld. They know what they are doing and they are good at it. They have aligned themselves with the Obama camp and are preparing for the next big outbreak of global trouble-making.

[cvjucla3]

Did you see the Fareed Zakaria's GPS Sunday Program. CNN's Gen. Grange concludes that he thinks that the Russians may have prompted the Georgian attack by using South Ossetia proxies to attack Georgia first. Even foreign policy experts, Zbignew Brezinski and Richard Holbrooke, who have been friendly to Obama in the past, have portrayed Russia as the "bad guys." There views are not exactly what I have been reading in the newspapers. There seems to be a lack of continuity in the media right now.

[getplaning]

Now the media are revising the facts to manage public perception, just as they did with the fictional WMD in Iraq. Nearly every article and TV news segment in the neoconservative corporate media begins with accusations of Russian aggression, concealing the fact that the Georgian Army bombarded and invaded the capital of South Ossetia one full day before the first Russian even tank crossed the border. By the time the Russians arrived, the city was already in a shambles and thousands were dead.

[cvjucla3]

Obama was totally appropriate in his response. He was both evenhanded and fair with respect to the Russia/Georgia conflict. Obama's foreign policy approach is exactly what the international community has been clamoring from the U.S.: a fair and honest broker; not the Russians are the bad guys; or the Palestinians are the bad guys; or, I can only see things in black or white, which is the McCain, GOP, and certainly the Bush administration's approach.