French President Nicolas Sarkozy has agreed an outline plan with Russia and Georgia to try to resolve their crisis.
A key element calls for all forces to return to the areas where they were before fighting broke out last week. EU foreign ministers in Brussels are discussing the plan at an emergency meeting on the crisis.
Some 100,000 people are estimated to have been displaced by the conflict, which has created huge tensions in international relations.
The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, in Georgia, says fighting in the South Ossetia region does now seem to have ended.
Not but twenty four hours later, Russia has once again re engaged in hositilities within the sovereign nation of Georgia.
Russian troops and paramilitaries thrust deep into Georgia on Wednesday, rolling into the strategic city of Gori and violating the truce designed to end the six-day war that has uprooted 100,000 people and scarred the Georgian landscape. Georgian officials said Gori was looted and bombed by the Russians, who denied the claim. An AP reporter later saw dozens of tanks and military vehicles leaving the city, roaring southeast.
It appears to me, at least, that Vladimir Putin has sized up the rest of the world and he has decided that they don't have the will to confront him. Not only did he exercise naked aggression in entering the sovereign nation of Georgia but twice he has claimed to a cease fire only to break it almost imminently.
Some will continue to say that the answer is diplomacy. I don't necessarily disagree, but clearly the answer is not the sort of diplomacy we have engaged in so far. Clearly, we do not have an equal partner in diplomacy in Russia. Vladimir Putin will not be deterred by half measures. He will not be deterred by strongly worded condemnations. He will only be deterred by a force greater than his. He is a bully and like all bullies, in order to stop him, you must stand up to him. The world is a bigger force than he is, but it must act as one.
This is now a moment of truth for the world. If we continue down the same path we have had since this started the government of Georgia will fall. Russia will install a puppet government and Georgia will move from a democracy to a dictatorship almost seamlessly. Of course, this will not end. Georgia is not the end game for Putin but merely the beginning.
The world has a serious and monumental choice. They can stand up for freedom and democracy or they can capitulate to bullying and naked aggression. So far, the will of Vladimir Putin is much greater than that of the rest of the world.
Fortunately, this can still be resolved with peaceful but forceful diplomacy. NATO needs to call an emergency session and immediately accept the membership of Georgia. Then, NATO must immediately give Russia 48 hours to immediately remove all its troops from the sovereign nation of Georgia or face the full wrath of NATO itself. Keep in mind the NATO charter says an attack on one is an attack on all.
So far, Putin has clearly sized up the will of the world as wanting to avoid war more than wanting to confront naked aggression. This feckle and foolish view of the world allows Putin to do what he pleases in Georgia because the world simply doesn't have the will to confront him. The simple fact of the matter is that either the world confronts him now, or they confront him later. If they wait, procrastinate, he will be stronger. The world must understand that non confrontation is not an option. He will not stop. His goal is the consolidation of as much power as possible into his own hands. Today, it will be Georgia. Tomorrow it will be the Ukraine and eventually the rest of the world. At some point, he is either confronted or he rules it. There is no third option. This is the sort of man we are dealing with.
This is the moment of truth for the world. Will they capitulate to evil and agression, or will they finally, once and for all, stand up to the geopolitical version of a school house bully?
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