Bush Saves Saakashvili...

Well, sort of. According to this report from Charles Bremner in the Times:

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia, Mr Levitte [Sarko's chief diplomatic advisor] said.

"I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls," Mr Putin replied.

Mr Sarkozy responded: "Hang him?"

"Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein," said Mr Putin.

Mr Sarkozy replied, using the familiar "tu": "Yes but do you want to end up like (President) Bush?"

Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: "Ah, you have scored a point there."

...President Mikhail Saakashvili, who was in Paris to meet Mr Sarkozy today, laughed nervously when a French radio station read him the exchange. "I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It's funny, all the same," said the Georgian President.

So there you have it: George W Bush the Inadvertent Peacemaker. 

Alternative scenario: Putin is Marlo Stanfield while Sarkozy plays the part of Proposition Joe.

[Via Foreign Policy]

Comments

[Truth for Ossetia]

Putin’s comments may seem shocking, distasteful, or funny, depending on your point of view. They are certainly unworthy of the de facto leader of a great world power during a tragic crisis. But this should not distract us from the truth of how the Georgian government launched a sneak attack on South Ossetia, using internationally banned weapons against civilians. For a sampling of what Georgia’s U.S.-trained and equipped forces did to the South Ossetian people — with weapons, not words — see some of the many eyewitness accounts we have compiled.

[DLW]

I suppose this is why Nixon and Kissinger did not want to see the collapse of the Soviet Union in the sense that Reagan and the neoconservatives did.

Putin is why, that is.