Arthur Herman makes an interesting point:

To understand the nature of this challenge, consider that the distance between Baghdad and Tbilisi is barely 578 miles, less than the distance between New York City and Chicago. Iraq and Georgia, both of which have democratic governments, are sandwiched between Iran and Russia, two of the most authoritarian governments in the world. Russia has been collaborating with Iran to strengthen the latter’s nuclear program and its military. It is also steadily arming Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia came exactly one month after Iran test-fired its Shahab III intermediate ballistic missile in order to intimidate neighbors like Israel and Iraq, and two weeks after Mr. Chávez traveled to Moscow to formalize a “Strategic Alliance” with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile, Iran’s proxies remain the principal threat to peace in Iraq — while on the other side of the world, evidence mounts of Mr. Chávez’s links to the terrorist group FARC, which threatens neighboring Colombia.

Coincidence? Iraq, Georgia and Colombia are battlegrounds in a new kind of international conflict that will define our geopolitical future. This conflict pits the U.S. and the West against an emerging axis of oil-rich dictatorships who are working together to push back against the liberalizing trends of globalization. One of their prime objectives is toppling or undermining neighboring, pro-Western democracies.

The term “axis” has been overused in recent years, and in misleading contexts. But Russia, Iran and Venezuela are acting very much as Japan, Italy and Germany did in the 1930s, when each took advantage of each other’s aggressive moves to extend their own regional power at the expense of liberal democracy — and, as a result, propelling the world to the brink of war.

[ABC News] The latest threat came after a top Russian general said Poland would risk a military strike if it allowed the base and as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed Russia’s saber rattling, saying the threats “border on the bizarre.”

“When you threaten Poland, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988,” Rice said, according to The Associated Press. “It’s 2008 and the United States has a … firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland’s territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it’s probably not wise to throw these threats around.”

Condi’s defense of Poland is both an important line in the sand and message of solidarity to other Eastern European allies. But it also seems to validate the quote of appeasement by Richard Holbrooke posted earlier today.

The U.S. seems to be saying, “You can have Georgia, but don’t go after Poland.” I recall similar messages regarding Czechoslovakia in 1938…

[WSJ] Georgian officials say they were surprised by the strength of [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel’s show of solidarity last Sunday when she visited Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.

She promised that Georgia would one day join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, despite Russian opposition, and proposed NATO help rebuild Georgia’s military and infrastructure. NATO foreign ministers agreed on an aid package at a meeting Tuesday in Brussels.

The German leader didn’t get on well with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in previous encounters, partly because Mr. Saakashvili lectured her on economics, according to people familiar with those meetings. And Ms. Merkel was instrumental in blocking Georgia’s U.S.-backed bid to start NATO membership talks at the alliance’s April summit in Bucharest. She said a country with unresolved territorial disputes wasn’t ready to join NATO.

German officials at the time said she also wanted to give Russia’s incoming president, Dmitry Medvedev, room to deliver on promises of liberal changes. At a terse meeting Friday in Sochi, Russia, Ms. Merkel told Mr. Medvedev that Russia’s image in Europe was worsening every day Russian tanks remained in Georgia, according to German officials.

Germany’s business lobby opposes political moves that could offend Moscow. The German economy relies heavily on exports, which make up 47% of gross domestic product, and Russia is one of Germany’s fastest-growing markets. Germany also gets 37% of its natural gas and 31% of its crude oil from Russia.

Ms. Merkel is the first German leader to grow up in Communist East Germany, an experience that left her instinctively suspicious of Russian power, unlike many politicians from Germany’s capitalist West who have long tried to act as a diplomatic bridge between Washington and Moscow.

“Watch yourselves, Russians! We’re dispatching experts!” A pathetic response by NATO… but given what we’ve seen with the U.N. bending like a wet noodle before Iran and North Korea, it’s expected.

NATO Urges Russia To Withdraw but Will Say Little Else
Envoy Mocks the Allies’ Declaration

BRUSSELS, Aug. 19 — NATO allies said Tuesday that there will be “business as usual” with Russia until its troops withdraw from all parts of Georgia, but Moscow’s refusal to bend to the West’s political will left the alliance with few options for punishment.

A declaration issued after an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers here called on Russia to “demonstrate — both in word and deed” — its commitment to a cooperative relationship with the alliance. It outlined a series of measures the alliance would take to help Georgia rebuild and ultimately bring it into the embrace of the West.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO would coordinate assistance to what he said were more than 150,000 Georgians displaced by the fighting. The alliance, he said in a news conference, would dispatch experts to assess damage to Georgia’s infrastructure and armed forces.

But with no sign that the Russians have begun a full-scale withdrawal from Georgian territory — days after pledging to do so — diplomats privately described the document as an indication of the limits of what NATO’s diverse membership would agree to beyond denunciation.

The Russians themselves appeared to ridicule the declaration. While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters the document was a “clear indication of NATO’s interest and NATO’s concern,” Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to the alliance, assessed in his own news conference that “the mountain gave birth to a mouse.”

[McClathy Newspapers] In Britain’s House of Commons, only 15 of 646 members are non-white, although minorities make up about 8 percent of the country’s population.

In France , there’s only one minority deputy among the 555 members of the National Assembly who represent mainland France , although perhaps one in five citizens is of minority descent. Two members of the 305-seat Senate hail from North Africa , although no senators are black, and President Nicolas Sarkozy has appointed three minority women to his Cabinet.

Neither Britain nor France has significant affirmative action programs, nor is there a sizeable black middle class, as in the United States . The French, for whom national identity is paramount, don’t count race in their census.

European political systems also function differently than the American-style primaries. In Europe , tight circles of party insiders, who often attend the same elite schools, choose the national candidates. Critics say that makes it harder for outsiders, and minorities, to break in.

…”I think because of Obama a lot of people feel it’s more possible now here because they didn’t expect it in America,” said Zachary Miller , a black man who hails from Ohio , lives in Paris and is vice chairman of Democrats Abroad in France and an Obama supporter. At the same time, Miller said, “the conclusion is certain things would have to change. No one’s really very optimistic that will happen anytime soon.”

Didn’t expect it in America..? In America? Sounds like Europe should worry about Europe and stop casting stones at America.