To my chagrin, I had no idea this was going on. Did anyone else?

In one hour, Georgia went from, in the words of the Telegraph, the brink of civil war to jubilation.

Those are the headlines anyway.

President Saakashvili did move his forces to the border. He flexed. He showed Aslan Abashidze that he was serious. Abashidze mined the port of Batumi, holding one of Georgia's most important economic facilities hostage so that he could maintain his fiefdom.

Why wasn't there war? Look back through my Caucasus archives. Yes, there were committed protesters, but there were also violent paramilitaries and soldiers willing to keep Abashidze in power.

Thank God for the Russian-American friendship. Because of it, a close US ally (Georgia is the second largest recipient of US aid and just quintupled its troop commitment to Iraq) was never nearly as close to civil war as the press, and certainly on some occasions, I, would have had you believe.

We hear plenty about conflicts between the US and pretty much everyone else between pages A1 & B1 of most daily newspapers. That is just not true. The world is made up of plenty of backwaters where partnership between the US and its [sarcasm quotes]allies[/sarcasm quotes], or just Americans because they are the only foreigners there (may I mention again that Peace Corps Volunteers are about the only foreigners Uzbeks will ever meet that speak their language?).

Twice in six months, the United States and Russia have told corrupt, authoritarian, Soviet dinosaurs that it's their time to shuffle off into the sunset. Each time it was against Russia's better interests. Each time, the United States was firm in its commitment and made this commitment clear to Russia, the world, and Georgian leaders who insisted on holding back their people for personal gain. With the Ajaria situation, we also had a Georgian leader that took the world to task for its willingness to sell short Ajarian human rights and dignity for the sake of stability.

Say what you will about the Bush administration. Tell me it's all about oil. Tell me it's a plot to substitute fine Georgian wine with Coke. Tell me Saakashvili, a US-trained lawyer, was groomed for this role by the CIA.

I don't care.

Bottom line: half a million people are free tonight that weren't free this morning. Why? The Bush administration, the State Department in particular, did a fantastic job of sticking to its values and convincing Russia to stand by our side to bring freedom to Ajaria.

If that's unilateralism and cynical manipulation in pursuit of profits, pass it on down, I want some more.