The far right has been frothing at the mouth over the Russia-Georgia situation, as Josh Marshall has been cataloguing. The latest comes from Bill O’Reilly:

But the message is sent: I, Vladimir Putin, and Russia can do whatever we want to do, and you can’t stop us because we have the oil. Now, its the same thing with Iran. Who props up Iran? Russia. Why? Because Russia wants the United States weakened. And Russia knows that Iran wants to dominate the oil in the Gulf. So Russia sells Iran weapons, blocks any sanctions against them, and he’s playing the double game. Putin is a real villain. Now, this is World War III on the horizon, ladies and gentlemen.

Is it?

Is this what the right wants? Of course Russia wants the United States weakened - just as the United States has wanted Russia weakened. This is great power politics. But the real question is: With what forces could the U.S. possibly thwart Russian intentions, whatever they are?

We are tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan. So how should we respond to the Russian “challenge,” if in fact it amounts to something more than a regional conflict, which we ought to stay out of?

Pulling troops from Iraq or Afghanistan?

Draft?

Well, no one’s saying that. But we see, today, that the Russians appear to have violated the cease-fire, and are rolling further into Georgia. John McCain says yesterday that Putin “wants to restore the old Russian empire.” That’s probably hyperbole - but what if it were true?

Here was always the danger of getting bogged down in Iraq, of wars on spec. It ties us down; and should there be a situation necessitating an American response elsewhere, it becomes far more difficult to manage that response.

No one, of course, initially believed we’d be in Iraq this long, with this many troops. And let me be clear that I do not believe the United States has any business protecting, militarily, either Georgia or the Ukraine - or any other former Soviet satellite, for that matter. But this is another example of how neoconservatism and the Bush years have weakened this country.