Bush's role in the Georgia-Russia Conflict

I noted earlier Brendan O'Neil's observations on how Bush's insane policies helped trigger this crisis. It will be a while before such analysis will be openly presented in the US--after all, people have been called unpatriotic for ordering "french fries" instead of "freedom fries" :-)

Here is Fred Kaplan, one of the best analysts around:
Regardless of what happens next, it is worth asking what the Bush people were thinking when they egged on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's young, Western-educated president, to apply for NATO membership, send 2,000 of his troops to Iraq as a full-fledged U.S. ally, and receive tactical training and weapons from our military. Did they really think Putin would sit by and see another border state (and former province of the Russian empire) slip away to the West? If they thought that Putin might not, what did they plan to do about it, and how firmly did they warn Saakashvili not to get too brash or provoke an outburst?