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The National Interest
Reporter-at-Large: Trouble in Tbilisi
by Whit Mason
. . .On the eastern shore of the Black Sea, in the wine-soaked country where Jason and his Argonauts sought the Golden Fleece and Stalin felt his first dark impulses, a stark battle between the forces of good and evil has entered its second year. On one side, a charismatic young lawyer leads a government of idealistic young people committed to ending their country's age-old domination by an unholy alliance of criminals and corrupt officials. On the other side, a cabal, for whom their chosen ends justify any means, including violations of virtually every precept of the rule of law, controls all levers of power. It is a classically Manichean struggle in which both the United States and Europe have committed enormous resources to help the heroes prevail. But alas, there's an unhappy catch: In this drama the heroes and villains are the same people, and the forces of light and of darkness are two sides of the same crusade.
Mikheil Saakashvili was lifted to the presidency of Georgia in January 2004 on a tide of frustration with the status quo under Eduard Shevardnadze. Since the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, networks of crime and corruption permeating every level of society had kept most of the country's 5.4 million people unhappily toeing the brink of penury. Saakashvili announced that his administration would focus on two priorities: restoring Georgia's territorial integrity (by reasserting government control over three break-away regions) and establishing the rule of law. . . . .