Two weeks ago I wrote:

The Russians are doing what the Soviets did over, and over, and over, and over again during the cold war.

Step 1: Create rebellion.
Step 2: Use the rebellion as an excuse to intervene.
Step 3: Set up a pro-Russian government in areas under Russian military control.

Step one? Check. Step two? Check. Step three? In progress.

Yesterday, the Russian parliament passed a non-binding resolution requesting that Medvedev declare to two provinces under conflict in the region as independent countries.

The western powers “strongly urged” Medvedev not to do so.

Strongly urged? For once, I find myself hoping that Cheney really is a Sith Lord, because unless that “strongly urging” is anything short of a Jedi mind trick the Russians are just going to laugh their asses off at that.

It is eerie to watch an inexorable thing. Seeing Russia in Georgia is like watching a car crash in slow motion. You know what’s going to happen, you see the car hit the wall, and you watch as the glass flies and the steel twists frame, by frame, by frame. And as the dummy’s head lurches forward, inches from the windshield, you know it’s going to go flying through. But there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s already in motion. It’s already happened. You know, before you see it, the outcome.

Inexorable.

I like that word.