Georgia: Some Members of US Congress Question Bush Administration Policy Toward Tbilisi

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, seeking to retain the backing of the United States, is vowing to carry out a "second Rose Revolution" that would hasten the democratization pace in the Caucasus country. While the Bush administration continues to offer strong support for the Georgian leader, some influential members of the US Congress have started to question Washington's policy stance toward Georgia.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 23, Saakashvili sought to keep international attention focused on his nation, specifically the ongoing presence of Russian troops in Georgia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Saakashvili tacitly offered the West a bargain, pledging to deepen his administration's commitment to promoting political and economic pluralism, in return for a continuing international commitment to pressuring Russia to abide by existing agreements and withdraw its troops from Georgia.

"Georgia was attacked because it is a successful democracy in our part of the world," Saakashvili asserted during his UN speech. "We will fight the specter of aggression and authoritarianism with the most potent weapons in our arsenal; namely our commitment to ever-expanding freedoms within our own borders."

"If our first [rose] revolution [in 2003] was about meeting a threat from within by reinventing a failed state riddled by corruption, our second revolution must be even more focused, as now we face an even greater challenge, one that comes from the outside," Saakashvili continued.

The financial crisis in the United States could have a ripple effect on Georgia, severely impairing Washington's ability to provide assistance to rebuild the conflict-ravaged country. Even if plentiful aid money were available, though, there are stirrings of discontent on Capitol Hill over the Bush administration's Georgia policy.

Several members of Congress are rebelling against the United States' strong support of Georgia, including a proposed $1 billion aid package. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In three committee hearings in early September, officials from the Bush administration faced tough questioning from members of Congress not happy that taxpayers were being asked to bail out a country that, in their telling, started a disastrous war with reckless support from the United States.

Criticism came from both parties and covered a wide array of US policies.

Dana Rohrbacher, a Republican from California, said the United States lost credibility when it helped liberate Kosovo from Serbia, and then insisted on the principle of territorial integrity in the case of Georgia. "The Russians were right and we were wrong," he said at a September 9 hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

It was an indicator of the broad dissatisfaction with the US policy toward Russia that Rohrbacher, a pro-defense hawk, was on the same page as Ron Paul, the isolationist libertarian, who said, "We're not there [in Georgia] for democracy, we're there for a pipeline, and that's tragic."

Several representatives criticized the Bush administration for sending senior officials to Georgia, including Vice President Dick Cheney, while doing little to engage Russia diplomatically. "Administration policy toward Russia seems to be: Speak loudly, and carry a small stick," said Howard Berman, a Democrat from California and the chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

While some criticism of Georgia was heard during the hearings, Tbilisi also had many stout defenders. Even so, the resistance to the Bush administration's strongly pro-Georgia stance was striking, and could endanger assistance efforts.

US State Department officials who testified at the hearings -- Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, and his deputy Matthew Bryza -- defended the administration's $1 billion aid package as necessary to shore up Georgia's economy. Foreign direct investment has seen "a severe drop," there has been a loss of confidence in the banking system and shipping has been disrupted, Bryza said. "When you've got Russian military checkpoints, or observation points, around the port of Poti and along roads that are used for commerce, there is a danger that the Georgian economy could lose the confidence that has sustained it," he said.

Given the market meltdown in New York, the foreign aid picture for both the United States and European Union is unclear. There is lingering dismay among some members of Congress over the Bush administration's apparent intention to bail out Georgia from its own strategic miscalculation, specifically the Saakashvili administration's decision to send troops into the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali in early August, and not anticipating that such action would provoke a Russian riposte. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

At one early September hearing, after Fried insisted that Washington told Georgia "loudly, unequivocally and repeatedly" that they should not attack South Ossetia, Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, asked: "Then why is ? Georgia going to get a huge amount of funding from the United States for damage it suffered by ignoring the loudest and most specific warnings from the United States?"