Gambler in Chief

The second Russia-Georgia war that President Saakashvili lost lasted only 30 minutes and allegedly took only two victims (both died of heart attacks). What was destroyed this time was not Georgia’s infrastructure, but the political credibility of its government.

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The facts on the ground are not contested. On March 13, the staunchly pro-government Imedi television channel aired a fake news report claiming that Russian tanks had crossed into Georgia and were headed toward Tbilisi. The “report” also said that Saakashvili had been killed and that some opposition leaders—including former parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze and former Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli—had betrayed their country and sided with Moscow. The report, which aimed to discredit the opposition two months ahead of the regional elections, caused widespread panic in Georgia, still jittery less than two years after Russian forces staged a real invasion of the country in August 2008. Cell-phone networks were overloaded as nervous residents attempted to reach family, and emergency services reported a rise in heart attacks. Sensing the public anger, most Georgian government officials have sharply criticized the Imedi program. But few doubted that it was President Saakashvili—and not Orson Welles—who was the inspiration behind it. Imedi television is owned by Saakashvili’s former economic minister and close ally, Giorgi Arveladze—and those knowledgeable about how government media relations work in Georgia today find it unthinkable that the president was not warned in advance about the release of a program of such political importance. The president’s opponents go as far as to assert that the very idea of the program is a product of Saakashvili’s “dark imagination.”

Unsurprisingly, Imedi officials declared themselves innocent, insisting that what they wanted was to show Georgians what “the worst day in their history would look like.” Instead, Georgians saw how manipulative their government was. Rather than helping those in power, the program hurt them.

Russia seized the opportunity and accused Tbilisi for an attempt to de-stabilize the region. Western ambassadors officially protested against the fact that their statements have been used in the program out of context. The opposition called for protests and impeachment of the president. The public was angry. The “invasion hoax” confirmed the worst fears that many Western politicians held against the Georgian leader and his version of democratic governance.

In portraying the opposition leaders (his former allies from the days of the Rose Revolution) as a bunch of Russian agents, whose only dream is to betray their country, Saakashvili does not look any different than his arch-enemy, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who, on the eve of the last parliamentary elections, accused Russia’s democratic opposition of being paid by Western embassies. It is sad to observe that while the protagonists of the democratic Rose Revolution are still in power in Tbilisi, Georgia’s democracy looks today even grimmer than Ukraine’s, where the Orange forces lost the presidential elections.

The West now is seriously concerned that in his ambition to reverse the outcomes of the 2008 war and to prevent the final loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, President Saakashvili is looking for a new crisis that can provoke a clash between Russia and the West in the Caucasus. Fear of normalization is becoming a major characteristic of Saakashvili’s politics, and many friends of Georgia are starting to worry that the trust of the West in the Georgian leadership has reached its lowest point.

A week after Imedi’s invasion report broadcasted, Saakashvili looks exactly as Moscow has always wanted him to look: ruthless, irresponsible, and paranoid. Not a Commander in Chief, but a Gambler in Chief.

And after March 13, there are fewer and fewer reasons for the West to continue working with Saakashvili, the primary one being to spoil Putin’s pleasure to have him “hanged by his balls.”

So, here is a lesson for the Gambler in Chief: While sometimes it makes sense to raise the stakes, never overplay your hand!