You don't have to assume that to conclude that Saak acts like "another Balkan nutter." Quite a few of the Balkan nutters were probably involved with the UK and US... Doesn't make it any less nuts, though. If they keep up like this, the Russians are going to kick the Georgians all the way out of South Ossetia, and there's damn all anybody can or will do about it.

As for what happens after that... I wouldn't care to place any expensive bets. But I'm pretty sure it's going to be less pleasant for Georgia than the status quo ante.

Unless somebody has decided that Georgia's entry into NATO would be expedited by a declaration of autonomy and/or Russian occupation of South Ossetia and that a few hundred Russian and Georgian soldiers and a couple of thousand Ossetians is an acceptable price to pay for bringing Georgia into the fold. But that idea comes a bit too close to tin-foil-hat territory for my taste. And it also assumes that Georgia believes that they do not have a long-term future in Ossetia anyway, which I'm not sure is a realistic assumption...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.