GEORGIA:The Georgian president's bid to restore control over Moscow-backed rebel regions has turned into a nightmare, writes Daniel McLaughlin.
MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI, the charismatic but clumsy Georgian leader who is the West's main ally in the Caucasus, appears to have scored a tragic own goal with his bid to reclaim separatist territory.
The US-educated lawyer (40) has made his nation dream of joining Nato and the European Union, and of shrugging off centuries of Russian domination, but his bid to restore Tbilisi's control over Moscow-backed rebel regions has turned into a nightmare.
The immediate victims are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in South Ossetia and neighbouring areas of Georgia proper, but the long-term casualties may be Saakashvili's already-fraying reputation as a trustworthy leader in a volatile area, and his hopes of taking his country fully into the western military and political fold.
"Countries like Germany and France were already resistant to the idea of giving a Nato security guarantee to a country with an open dispute with Russia," said Dominic Fean, of the French Institute of International Affairs, referring to the refusal of Berlin and Paris to agree to formally invite Georgia to join Nato at its summit in April.
"I can't see how they can get the consensus of 26 (member) states anytime soon," he added.
Whether the battle for South Ossetia was started by a Georgian assault on the area or an influx of Russian tanks, Saakashvili's troops are now retreating from Kremlin forces that are making the most of a chance to show him who is still the boss in the Caucasus, while the West looks on askance at the rash behaviour of Tbilisi's often-impetuous leader.
The United States, the European Union and Nato have all urged Russia to stop attacking military bases and civilian targets in Georgia, but there has been no offer to come to Tbilisi's aid with anything more than rhetoric and peace envoys.
Western powers have criticised Moscow in recent months for provoking clashes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist province of Georgia.
The western powers agree with Tbilisi's argument that the Kremlin is trying to maintain a strategic foothold in the Caucasus and undermine Tbilisi's bid to join Nato.
But by launching what appears to have been a largely indiscriminate assault on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, Saakashvili has lost any ethical high ground he may have enjoyed over Russia and its separatist allies.
Saakashvili will never again be able to pledge with any credibility that he has no intention of retaking the breakaway regions by force.
Instead, the hawks around Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin - who has shown himself to be still the country's true leader in recent days - are revelling in a show of military might and moral authority.
The Russian operation in South Ossetia is a humanitarian one, they claim, intended to stop Georgian ethnic cleansing and even genocide, and to avert a looming refugee crisis.
It is no coincidence that the rhetoric is almost identical to that which Nato used when bombing Serb forces out of Kosovo in 1999 - paving the way for the region's declaration of independence from Serbia earlier this year, which infuriated Putin and his allies.
Some Russian officials are even suggesting that criminal charges be brought against Georgian leaders, a nod to the UN war crimes for former Yugoslavia, which Moscow calls a biased, anti-Serb institution that should be shut down as soon as possible.
Saakashvili claims that only Nato membership will stop Russia bullying Georgia.
But he took flak from western capitals last autumn for using riot troops to crush opposition protests and closing down a television station that criticised him.
And now, whether for provoking Russia or for rising to Russian bait, many Nato members are surely relieved that such a loose cannon is not already part of their club.