Hero of the Obama left - Sarkozy - messed up the cease fire agreement between Russia and Georgia

OK, Sarkozy is probably more widely seen as a willing Chimpy McBushitler Haliburton tool by the left, but he was singled out for praise, on his handling of the Georgia crisis, by Susan Rice, an Obama advisor. Specifically for arranging a cease fire between the Russians and Georgia.

The problem is the ceasefire he arranged allows Russia to continue operations at will:

It soon became clear that the six-point deal not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but it also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement. Mr. Sarkozy, according to a senior Georgian official who witnessed the negotiations, also failed to persuade the Russians to agree to any time limit on their military action.

...

The conditions were: no use of force; cease hostilities; open humanitarian corridors in the conflict areas; and Georgian and Russian troops withdraw to their pre-war positions.

In meetings in Moscow, the Russians insisted on two additional points, the Georgian official said, and Mr. Sarkozy carried these demands to Georgia, landing shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday and driving straight to the Parliament building to meet Mr. Saakashvili.

Negotiating from a position of strength, the Russians demanded the fifth point, allowing their troops to act in what was termed a peacekeeping role, even outside the boundaries of the separatist enclaves where the war began, with an understanding that later an international agreement might obviate this need.

The vague language of the fifth point allows Russian peacekeepers to “implement additional security measures” while awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.

...

In the sixth point, both sides agreed that the status of the contested separatist regions would be pursued the future.

A senior American official familiar with the talks also said that the Russians insisted on the fifth point about the so-called additional security measures. “I think it was presented as, ‘You need to sign on to this,’ ” the official said of Mr. Sarkozy’s appeal to the Georgians. “My guess is it was presented as, ‘This is the best I can get.’ ”

source

It may not be fair to actually lay this at Sarkozy's feet. If this is the best the Russians would agree to people had to make decisions on whether or not to keep fighting. The Georgians obviously agreed to stop. At least some of the blame actually lies at the feet of NATO. In 1950 the US mistakenly sent a signal that South Korea was not in our sphere of interest. Soon after Russian backed North Korea invaded. NATO sent the same signal when it refused membership to Georgia and the Ukraine. One of these days we will learn.