Washington Post
August 19, 2008 Pg. 13
Is Ossetia Essential?
By Richard Cohen

...When Russia invaded Georgia, the brief war ignited an immense barrage of analogies and comparisons... But one that occurs to me is the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and how the Soviets brutally extinguished it. Afterward, some inquiring minds in the U.S. government wondered whether the Hungarians had been led to expect U.S. help. They found, in the records of Radio Free Europe, several broadcasts that "implied that foreign aid would be forthcoming."

Yet another analogy occurs -- the speech that Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivered to the National Press Club in 1950 excluding South Korea from the U.S. defensive perimeter in Asia. Later that year, the North Koreans went over the 38th parallel and the Korean War began. Had the North Koreans been listening?

Both analogies -- Hungary and Korea -- are examples of the intense interest that foreign governments and other parties abroad show in the subtleties of American policy. In the case of Georgia, the body language of the Bush administration -- as well as of John McCain and others --suggested an affinity that was unconnected to America's national interest.