Look in Russia's eyes

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the West chose to give a recumbent and dispirited Russia the Cold Shoulder.

One of the brutal lessons learned from the crisis in Georgia is the refusal of Russia to tolerate its economic and security interests being ignored or dismissed.

The cease-fire agreement signed Friday by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and awaiting Russia's endorsement, calls for the withdrawal of all Russian forces from Georgian territory. If Saakashvili assumes that includes the disputed South Ossetia and Abkhazia, he is sadly mistaken.

Last week he sent Georgian troops into regions with long-standing claims of autonomy, and he gambled the West would come to his aid if Russia responded. Russia did, viciously; its forces bulldozed farther into Georgian territory.

In this crisis, past bombastic Western rhetoric about its embrace for the democratic spirit of Georgia — the Russian-tweaking idea of Georgia — was no match for the actual conditions on the ground or the realpolitik of life along old Soviet fault lines.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the former president who switched jobs without apparently giving up power, carries a huge chip on his shoulder about the treatment of Russia after the Soviet empire fell apart.

Most recently he seethed over the West's support for an independent Kosovo and its desire for political autonomy from Serbia, a Russian ally. So he turned the tables with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He invoked the region's ethnic and cultural differences, the United Nation's blessing on the presence of Russian peacekeepers and made claims, however specious, of genocide.

Nothing about this crisis has the feeling of being resolved. Russia must pull back from Georgian territory; that is fundamental. Saakashvili must temper his language. The West has a practical stake in engaging Russia as a significant regional economic and military influence.

Russia did not go away with the end of the Cold War. Its capacity to cause trouble and its potential to help keep the peace have to be addressed.