Guest editorial: Georgia on our minds

Sadly, Georgia almost immediately lapsed into civil war. There was momentary hope when Eduard Shevardnadze returned home from Russia to assume the presidency in 1992, a post he held until his resignation Sunday.

In an irony of history, Shevardnadze was forced from office by the same kind of peaceful, mass revolt in the old Iron Curtain countries that he presided over as the last Soviet foreign minister. His patience and restraint were key reasons that the dissolution of the Soviet empire was largely peaceful.

But his tenure as president of Georgia was hardly a success. The economy is moribund; corruption is endemic. He lost control of one region, Abkhazia, and fought separatists in several other provinces. The Russians meddled constantly. And he survived three assassination attempts.

When Nov. 2 parliamentary elections were blatantly rigged, the public's patience ran out and the people took to the streets in a peaceful protest that one official compared to Czechoslovakia's "velvet revolution." When the military and security services deserted him, Shevardnadze's position became untenable. In a final irony, his departure was negotiated by a lineal successor, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

New elections are to be held within 45 days. The immediate favorite is U.S.-educated -- Columbia law school graduate -- Mikhail Saakashvili, 35, a onetime ally who broke with Shevardnadze and went into opposition.

Aside from wanting to see a pro-Western former Soviet republic succeed as a democracy, the United States has a strategic interest in Georgia. It is the only feasible outlet for Caspian oil that doesn't pass through Russia or Iran, and even now a pipeline to Turkey is under construction.

Analysts of the region see Georgia poised at a crossroads: Either it will continue on a pro-Western path or it will lapse into a Russian dependency. On only one of those paths will the Georgians see their energy and enterprise at last rewarded.