.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4509692.ece

This report seems much more accurate than what we are reading in the New York Times. The Russians are not going to leave. Georgia will have a new Russian friendly government and Russia will be positioned to close the oil and gas pipelines to Turkey and to Europe in the event of a concerted attack on Iran.

The Russian military is not particularly competent so I really wonder about our own competence. We're stuck in Iraq and at risk of our own retreat in disarray should the Shia rise up and cut our supply lines from the south. Afghanistan by itself is approaching the size of our failed effort in Vietnam before President Johnson got the bright idea that by placing 500,000 soldiers in an area as small as New Jersey is wide he could accomplish something. Pakistan is becoming even more unstable than it has been and we even are accusing the Pakistanis of supporting al-Queda. We don't seem to understand that the Pakistani ISI run their country, even though some in the US think our own CIA runs ours.

Meanwhile we are steaming with an armada toward the Persian Gulf which has the potential to become a deathtrap for our sailors and their ships.