The Caucasus country of Georgia has had elections, and they did not go the way Western elites wanted. The governing Georgian Dream party, routinely derided in the West as “pro-Russian” and “anti-Western,” has won with 54% of the vote; an opposition alliance, extolled as “pro-Western” and in particular “pro-EU” has lost with less than 38%. The opposition alleges election irregularities big enough to invalidate the result; the government acknowledges some irregularities but points out that they happen everywhere and argues they are not significant enough to challenge its “landslide” win.

At the same time, Georgia sits on a classical geopolitical fault line between, for want of better words, East and West. In principle, that kind of situation could be managed, even exploited to a country’s benefit. In Georgia’s case, however, it was made much worse, as in the case of Ukraine, by the West’s, at best, reckless overreach enshrined in the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit decision to offer a vague yet explosive NATO perspective.

Think what you will of Georgian Dream’s billionaire founder and eminence grise Bidzina Ivanishvili, but he is right that this gratuitous and shortsighted NATO policy posed an enormous danger to both his country and Ukraine. In both cases, it contributed massively to the outbreak of war (in Georgia in 2008, in Ukraine in 2014). He may also be correct that it was motivated by something even worse than arrogant sloppiness; namely a cynical, premeditated Western strategy to sacrifice or at least risk these countries as expendable pawns on the grand chessboard of geopolitics.

Never mind that Georgian Dream is not actually against the EU, but just not unconditionally submissive toward it. In reality, it is the EU that has massively tried to interfere in the elections (via threats to Georgians’ visa privileges, among other things) and de facto suspended Georgia’s candidacy. And never mind also that Georgian Dream is not “pro-Russian” either. In reality, its signature style is to seek to maintain useful relationships with everyone. Its real sin, in the eyes of the West is that it is not anti-Russian, like the opposition. It is the West that is trying to impose an exclusive relationship on a country that is far better off with a foreign policy that works with and balances all relevant power centers, investors, and potential threats. Forcing Georgia to abandon this eminently sensible course is the real ambition of the West; and it will probably fail.

The upshot of all of the above is that now a “color revolution” coup attempt is in the air. So far, so dull. The Western “playbook” – to use a term beloved by those raging at Russia – is dog-eared, stained, and tattered with overuse. And yet, as one sign of insanity is obsessive repetition, here we are once more: The “pro-Western” opposition is now led, in effect, by a president, Salome Zourabichvili, originally parachuted in from the West, a literal foreign agent who still doesn’t speak native-level Georgian. She claims that Georgian Dream’s victory is so compromised by irregularities that it is fraudulent. And, more importantly, she asserts that – wait for it! – it is big bad Russia, once again, that is to blame. Most importantly, she has struck an extreme,........

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