A John McCain presidency would make the Bush regime look like a bunch of turtle doves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
McCain condemnation upstages Bush
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c3508ce2-67d1-11dd-8d3b-0000779fd18c.html
By Edward Luce and Andrew Ward in Washington
Published: August 11 2008 19:33 | Last updated: August 11 2008 19:33
John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, on Monday upstaged George W. Bush’s administration over the Georgia crisis with his strongest statement so far calling on the US and its allies to come together in
“universal condemnation of Russian aggression”.
Mr McCain, who gave his first response early last Friday several hours before any official word from the Bush administration, said the US should take steps to assist Georgia and other democracies in the region that he said were threatened by Russia’s actions.
“Russia’s aggression against Georgia is both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance to the United States,” said Mr McCain."The implications go beyond their threat to . . . a democratic Georgia. Russia is using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbours such as Ukraine, for choosing to associate with the west.”
Mr McCain’s statement – his third since the crisis began – stood in clear contrast on Monday to the relatively low-key response of the Bush administration and the Obama campaign. Barack Obama himself issued a statement on Saturday but remains on vacation in Hawaii. President Bush, at the Beijing Olympics on Saturday, expressed “grave concern” about Moscow’s “disproportionate response” in South Ossetia, but did not follow Mr McCain in portraying the crisis as a watershed moment for democracy in the region.
“What is interesting about the US response is that you have the McCain campaign in one corner immediately understanding the significance of Russia’s aggression and in the opposite corner you have the Bush administration standing with the Obama campaign taking a much more diluted stance,” said John Bolton, the former Bush administration ambassador to the United Nations.
However, many detected some echo of Mr McCain’s harder-line stance from Dick Cheney, the vice-president. He told Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili on Sunday that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered” and warned its continuation would have “serious consequences” for US-Russian relations.
Mr Cheney expressed US “solidarity” with Georgia “in the face of this threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”, according to a White House account of the conversation. A spokesperson for Mr Cheney rejected suggestions that the vice-president was trying to push the administration towards a more hawkish position on the crisis, insisting he was speaking in “unison” with Mr Bush and other US officials.
Others picked up a by now familiar pattern of division and confusion within the administration, which has suffered a depletion of senior personnel and is entering its final months in office. “This crisis is a watershed moment that demands an exceptionally high quality of diplomacy and it is not clear whether this tired and distracted US administration is able to provide that,” said Sarah Mendelson, senior Russia fellow at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Security.
Mr McCain’s response, which included recommended policy actions for the administration, has also enabled his campaign to restate its support for a “league of democracies”, which would exclude Russia and include countries such as Georgia. Mr McCain pointed out at the weekend that Russia’s membership of the United Nations Security Council had prevented that body from taking any “meaningful action”.
Mr McCain also called on the Bush administration to redouble its efforts to offer Georgia and Ukraine a membership action plan to join Nato.