Georgia - should we be surprised at the "Woes' Revolution"?

Actually, just about everyone was surprised that Saakashvili seemed to screw up as badly as he did last week. He may be able to salvage some of his legitimacy in the snap elections he's wisely called,* and the "revolution of tears"** now seems to be over, or at least taking a breather to stock up on Kleenex.

I hope to have time to do a more detailed roundup post in the next few days, but in the meantime you can read fascinating - at times moving - firsthand accounts from foreigners in Georgia here, here and here; from thoughtful Georgians here and here; this website should allow you to keep up with more official news sources; and you can follow the Russian media coverage here and here.

I continue to be struck by the way in which Saakashvili's initial justification for the crackdown - an all-powerful "external enemy" - mirrored the style of those in Putin's inner circle who are color-revolution-phobes and are doing all they can to promote anti-Western paranoia. At least one Russian blogger has seen the parallel between this element of Saakashvili's political persona and Putin (I hesitate to draw a broader parallel, but I think it's safe to say the "spy-mania" and search for external enemies may be rooted in the Soviet past that the two leaders share):

[image source / hat tip]***

In addition to several post facto commentary pieces to this effect, I ran across a couple of items in recent days that suggest we shouldn't have been so surprised either at the opposition's persistence in protesting or at Saakashvili's reaction.

First, from the National Interest Online (Nov. 5):

In discussing Georgia, what is most remarkable is that not a single one of the British, French or German foreign policy experts whom I encountered views Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as a democrat. On the contrary, the overwhelming consensus was that Saakashvili and his advisors have learned to repeat the key democratic mantras during their foreign trips but routinely ignore this rhetoric in governing the country. Observers noted Saakashvili’s skillful elimination of other political power centers and sources of alternative perspectives in the parliament and the media as well as the utter lack of independent courts.

With this in mind, the European analysts whom I met were deeply skeptical of the Bush Administration’s goal of bringing Georgia into NATO. They considered Georgia’s domestic conditions fundamentally different from those in many other new members of the alliance, which had more experience with democratic governance, different political cultures and—most important—leaders who were trying to empower democratic governments rather than themselves. And they were concerned that some prominent Americans, like aspiring Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, seem to be encouraging Saakashvili’s worst instincts by describing Georgia as a “test” of U.S.-Russian relations. And it was quite clear that Georgian-Russian tensions, temporarily fuelled this week by Saakashvili’s theatrical berating of a Russian peacekeeping officer in front of Georgian television cameras, make most Europeans less rather than more interested in a treaty commitment to defend Georgia.

As someone who thinks that accelerating Georgia's path into NATO (though it's obviously been dealt a huge setback by the violent dispersal of last week's protests) is at best a strange, military carrot to hold in front of a government to get it to make non-military reforms and at worst an irritant to US-Russian relations that is not worth the trouble it causes, I have to agree with much of the above passage.

Also interesting were these results from an April-May 2007 Gallup poll conducted in Georgia, which hopefully speak for themselves:

* perhaps with the encouragement of the "Washington Obkom" (вашингтонский обком) to use a favorite phrase of Russian bloggers (not to mention some journalists and at least one marginal leader) who like to overstate America's tendency to meddle in Russia's "near abroad."

** as it was called by a Russian commenter on the blog cyxymu - "революция слёз" rhymes with the Russian for Rose Revolution, so the wit could perhaps better be translated as "revolution of woes" or "woes' revolution."

***[update] I realize that I should spell this out a bit more for non-Russian-readers (are there any who come here?) - the text reads, "Saakashvili's Plan - Georgia's victory! It is a take-off on the "Putin's Plan - Russia's Victory!" billboards (see, e.g., here) which have created such a stir in Russia.