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How could Mr. Buchanan, at the end of this article, be so oblivious as to ignore that all the U.S. Presidents since Kennedy, all nine of them, and still counting, have not exerted the U.S hegemony this side of the Atlantic? It is understandable that Khrushchev manipulated Kennedy into giving his word not to intervene in Cuba. However, why did all the subsequent presidents keep the Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact in place, when the Soviet Union does not exist?

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Re: Laura Vianello Smithies Smithies must be referring exclusively to some dream of invading Cuba. She forgets military interventions in Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada, Panama, and what happened to Che Guevera & friends as he was trying to export Castro's communism. She also forgets less-public actions in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Columbia. My impression of South Florida's Cuban exile leaders is that they still hope to go back to reestablish the pre-Castro dictatorship. That's what happened in Iraq. We put a bunch of bloodthirsty, former exiles back in power so they could beat up n the Sunnis. We don't need to do that in Cuba. Georgia is not a place NATO should be obliged to defend. It's currently run by a fool who was elected under questionable circumstances. Even if he goes soon, they are likely to put another fool into his place. Interlocking treaties that included the unimportant Balkans were what set off WWI. We need to stop threatening and even criticizing Russia, put Georgia-NATO on the back burner, and then make nice with Russia again. NATO should be realigned as a counter to China, not Russia. That would open the door to Russia. Europe is already dependent on Russia for oil & gas, so Europe is unlikely to mount any strong opposition to whatever Russia does on its borders not contiguous with Europe. Russia is also dependent on Europe as a market for its oil and gas, so the co-dependency goes both ways. Putin understands all of that. It's time for NATO and the US to start acting rationally and to play the cards we have instead of telling Putin not to play his. None of the current hand-wringing has been of any help at all. We don't need Georgia as an ally if Russia becomes an ally. Russia will continue to keep order in Georgia. I thought Rice was supposed to be an expert at dealing with Russia. Nothing we've said or done about Georgia or Poland reflects any judgment or understanding at all.

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Spoken like a true liberal Pat, you shopuld get along well with Ohoma

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The trouble with the devil in the details is too any devils to name without heading down the conspiracy theory path and losing the "Average American." For this reason, I was actually impressed with Pat's editorial. I think that regardless of anyone's political persuasion, conservative, progressive, moderate, "left-wing-liberal," libertarian..., Russia/US relations is not on the radar screen in a productive way. They are a large land mass, relatively large population, nuclear-armed, well-heeled in natural resources and high literacy rate country. That is true no matter what your particular political philosophy. So you do not "tell them" what to do, you suggest or request. And if someone remembers history -- quote Reagan's pledges for the kind of post-cold war world he envisioned -- one of his better ideas. Expanding NATO to Russia's borders was NOT a Reagan view. So there is nothing expressly conservative about our attempt at rekindling the cold war, just provocative at a time when we should be aligning for common security.

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Re: varner moonh Bravo to Mr. Buchanan for sheding light and objectivity on the Georgian fiasco...Saakashvilli is a moron and any politician who jumps on the bandwagon of his absurd agenda belongs in the same company. Would the US endorse and accept the Russians setting up camp in CUBA? Hardly.

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Pat Buchanan has really become the voice of reason. Bravo, Pat for this insightful, right on the money, look at the Georgian conflict. I firmly believe this to be true. Any reasonable person would be able to turn this situation around and say, "What if Russia was doing what we're doing in Georgia in Mexico?" The U.S. would obviously flip out, but for some reason we feel it's okay to do it in their hemisphere under some cloak of NATO. What happened to avoiding entangling alliances? Guess we threw that part of our founding father's wisdom out years ago.

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Once again Pat is right on the Money. It's extremely unfortunate that the Neo-Cons have successfully usurped the place he once had as an influential conservative commentator. In his place we have a plethora of idiotic, war-mongering idiots who think there is NO war too far away, NO war to costly and NO reason too small to overlook to commit our troops too. Even more outrageous, is the neo-cons success in getting our Corporate media to call Georgia an ally. An ally has something to offer. Georgia in terms of military strength has nothing to offer. In terms of strategic Georgia's location is only important if we decide we must have a presence on Russia's doorstep, which is so insane it's pathologically criminal to consider it normal. Going up against Russia would not only be a military defeat, it would also enrage Russia like nothing ever has before. Should even one foot of an American soldier step foot on Russian land, you can be sure that as enraged as Russia would be a limited nuke strike would be the option they'd choose. The Russians are clear, given a choice of living in a world where they are humiliated and ignored on every issue of concern to them, or giving the West a defeat that also destroys Russia, Russia would choose the latter, for in the Russian mind, being humiliated and ignored as the West has done is tantamount to being destroyed so why not share the distruction for real with the West via nuclear weapons.

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Pat covered most of the bases; however, the devil is always in the details, many of which Pat did not mention. The Bush Administration now trumpeted by McCain, staged the Georgia v Russia/Russia v Georgia event to bolster McCains campaign. So far the U.S. backed, planned and mandated, Saakashvilli stunt, has paid off big for McCain and U.S. military contractors. McCain had allot to do with the timing of the event, but it had been on the U.S. drawing boards for some Time. The plan was outlined to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on March 1, 2005, by the then EUCOM Commander, General James I. Jones, USMC, in testimony supported by a written report, that included an appropriation of $2.51 billion, U.S. taxpayer dollars, to recruit, finance, train and arm locals sympathetic to U.S. interests and directives, in the Ukraine, Georgia and the Caucasus region. Not only did the U.S. recruit, finance and arm locals in the region, but the Bush Administration deployed thousands of U.S. troops to the region for joint "training exercises" in the summers of 2006 and 2007, co-incidentally, leaving behind 100's of millions of dollars of U.S. military equipment, arms and ordnance. The Bush/McCain neo-cons, and U.S. military have drawn up plans and re-positioned assets, in the event some unnamed General, feels it appropriate to pull the pre-emptive nuclear trigger. And Just encase our NATO allies are not up for the fight. Saakashvilli is just one of the many U.S. pons that are being called upon to play. The Bush/McCain neo-cons,U.S. contractors and Big Oil all see fun and profit and want to brawl with Russia.

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The only objection I have to this article is the characterization of Georgia's sneak attack on civilians/war crime as "this madcap adventure of Saakashvili". Sometimes, Pat, understatement is inappropriate.