Some things are not obvious until they become so. And I believe the October surprise has become obvious now. Except that it arrived a little earlier, in the middle of August.
I am talking, of course, about the Georgia-Russia war. In my opinion there is now a clear picture emerging. Here it is:
- Step one. Condi Rice and the neocons reassure the idiotic and pro-Bush president of Georgia that he has the support of the US and the west and his country may be admitted to NATO.
- Step two. The idiotic president of Georgia perceives this as a green light and attacks Ossetian separatists. He does that in a brutal way to intimidate the population there and the Georgian forces randomly kill civilians.
- Step three. That creates an expected over-reaction by the Russians who get in Georgia and brutally counter-attack. More bloodshed.
- Step four. We have now a serious international crisis. McCain declares that we "are all Georgians" and we need to defend Georgia (I dont think that was another confusion-state of McCain. I doubt he really believed he was georgian for a minute).
- Step five. McCain and the neocons hope that such instability will help them win the US election, allowing the neocon regime to stay in power.
- Step six. The instability in the region will be constantly used over the next few months as a reason for which we need a president with experience, emphasizing that Obama is not qualified because he lacks experience etc. etc.
There is no question that the Russians share responsibility for what is going on there. They have been brutal and have over-reacted big time. But the problem did not start with them. It was started by the actions of the president of Georgia who considers himself a friend of Bush. The neocons and McCain probably like this situation, because they believe it will help them. Did they deliberately prompt the Georgian president to start that disaster? Hard to know. Would I be surprised if they did? Absolutely not. The neoconservatives are sensing their upcoming November defeat and they desperately need any surprises that would help McCain. And if you dont believe that they are capable of things like that, I would only remind you of another neocon-generated disaster. It is called the Iraq war.