***********.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4486297.ece
Part of the responsibility must lie with President Saakashvili. The US-educated Geogian leader has rightly been praised for turning around his country’s dire economy, transforming the Soviet-style army into a modern Western force and standing up to the Kremlin.
Georgia has been saddled for the best part of two decades with breakaway regions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both supported by Russia as part of the Kremlin’s strategy to weaken Tbilisi’s authority. Nevertheless, seeking to reintegrate the separatist provinces by force is a risky, some would say reckless, move that threatens to trigger an all-out war between Russia and Georgia.