In what I think is quite a balanced article in the New Statesman, Misha Glenny looks at the influence of the reality-free thinking of the Dick Cheney faction on the lead up to the Georgian conflict, without minimising the autocratic and bellicose behaviour of the Putin regime. At Open Democracy, Donald Rayfield looks at the realistic options Georgia has, and some of the background to the war, while Neal Ascherson similarly examines how Georgia could progress beyond this war. Both write as avowed friends of Georgia, but both don’t think inflammatory rhetoric from Washington helps at all – they believe that it in fact hinders any positive outcome. This isn’t to adopt some deracinated Kissingerian realism, but rather to argue that the Manichean language of good and evil does anything but achieve the objectives it ostensibly sets out. As Ascherson powerfully demonstrates, there’s evil enough to go around on both sides of this conflict, with atrocities committed at least since the fall of the Soviet Union. A recognition of that – rather than positioning one side as a plucky sovereign democracy and the other as the incarnation of Satan – might actually provide a basis for realistic and peaceful progress.

Meanwhile, on the American campaign front, McCain is being praised by his supporters for his “muscular” response. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings is worth reading on what McCain’s rhetoric says about his suitability for the Presidency. And on the application of the “Cold War frame” to the reporting of the conflict, see Ronda Jambe at Ambit Gambit.