"In 2008, Saakashvili became a political corpse"

Interviewed by Georgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi, exclusive to VK

Former Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia Vakhtang Rcheushvili spoke in an interview to VK about the global results of the five-day war.

- The conflict in 2008 was a milestone for Georgia and the wider world. First, the attempts for a quick entry of Georgia into the Euro-Atlantic community ended. This put an end to the implementation of our plans for rapid integration into Euro-Atlantic structures - both political and economic and security systems, including NATO. In 2008, Russia has proved that it would not allow Georgia to choose its foreign policy and partners on the world stage.

In 2004, shortly after his first meeting with Putin, Saakashvili emphasized the western direction and the Euro-Atlantic civilization choice. Everything was done in order to firmly establish the pace of becoming part of Europe. But, unfortunately, 2008 clearly demonstrated that the West and, above all, the United States is not ready and is not able to convince Russia to provide Georgia with freedom of choice. By the time America was faced with its own serious problems concerning the euphoria after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War with victory for the West. This euphoria caused damage to U.S. safety and the security of its allies.

"Washington consensus" and "Euro-Atlantic solidarity" were presented as alternatives to the bipolar Russian-American world. That is, the concept of a unipolar world led by the United States and Western civilization was firmly established. But even some of the strategic allies of the United States opposed this concept. For example, France was concerned about the preservation of the identity of its civilization. That is, the United States sowed suspicion even among its closest friends and allies. What to say about Russia and other great civilizations? Thus, America has turned the whole world against itself, and the dissatisfaction with the U.S. policy was the dominating factor in international life. In the end, the U.S. had to abandon the unipolar vision of the world, but this process hit Georgia. Believing in a unipolar world, Georgia has sent all of its efforts during the reign of Saakashvili to the integration into the Euro-Atlantic system. But taking the advantage of the weakening of America, including the global economic crisis, Russia stood up on its feet under Vladimir Putin and showed a powerful resistance to the American and Georgian plans.

Russia managed to prove in 2008 that the U.S. is no longer able to spread its influence further towards the East from the present borders of NATO, because it is associated with the risk of a direct military confrontation. Thus, the year of 2008 is the end of attempts to build a unipolar world. The victim of this particular attempt was Georgia.

Russia tried to regain the lost position in the world at the expense of Georgia. But it was a mistake by Moscow, because a great country claiming the status of the original Orthodox civilization cannot fight against the country of the same faith. Thus, Russia has destroyed the possibility of creating a unified Orthodox civilization. Abkhazia and South Ossetia were also affected, as, given the non-recognition by the international community, it will be difficult to protect them against totalitarianism and a closed society.

However, placing the responsibility for what happened only on Russia would be wrong: Russia took advantage of the chance, the "window of opportunity" to implement its own imperial ambitions. And the biggest mistake was made by the United States by placing its bets on the formation of a unipolar world instead of bipolar or multipolar one.


- How could Georgia avoid this tragedy?


- Being the author of the concept of "cross-shaped foreign policy" for our country, I think that, along with the Western direction, there must be a vector of the North; along with the West-East, there must be also North-South. We did not have to count on the rapid implementation of our Euro-Atlantic plans contrary to Russia. It was preferable to deepen the dialogue with Moscow to resolve sensitive issues.

There was a chance back in 2002 when we, as a Parliament, promoted the idea of holding an international conference with the participation of representatives of Georgia, the United States and Russia. But the opportunity was missed. Now we are at an impasse, and Russia puts us behind the scenes (like Ukraine) in front of a stark choice between the Eurasian Union and the European Union. However, the UN recognizes the borders of Georgia with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow cannot take us to the Eurasian Union in these boundaries. For its part, Georgia does not recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. So we have a very restricted room for maneuver with Russia. But as it is known, each deadlock has its exit. In politics, there are no desperate situations.


- What is the role of the personal decisions of President Saakashvili in the fact that Georgia finds itself in such an impasse?


- Mikhail Saakashvili could leave his mark as David the Builder (Georgian King David IV Bagrationi, uniting Georgia during his reign in 1089-1125., - Author’s Note) if the global crisis and the collapse of the concept of "unipolar world" had not occurred. But since 2008, Saakashvili was doomed to retire from politics, as it became clear that, in our region, important issues cannot be solved only with America’s participation. The exclusion of Russia destroyed Saakashvili's political prospects, and 2008 was not only the end of a unipolar world, but also the end of his personal career. After those events Saakashvili became a political corpse. He could not implement his program.

If at the Bucharest NATO summit, France and Germany had not blocked the provision of a "road map" to our country to join the alliance, we would live in a very different world. But things were different. In Saakashvili's own team, the confusion began. He is quite a talented politician; he was able to stretch out his formal end till 2013. However, Saakashvili’s time ended in 2008. All the talk about the fact that Georgia did not meet the standards of NATO and the European powers so we were blocked in Bucharest is no more than demagogy. Many countries did not meet these standards, but they were accepted, so it was a political decision not to aggravate relations with Russia.

Now Bidzina Ivanishvili is in power. He is able to conduct a dialogue with Russia as well as Europe and the United States. He is a smart and self-possessed man - such a huge capital cannot be not created by accident. Ivanishvili is a man of the age of a multipolar world!