Mikheil Saakashvili: West has double standards, they have this attitude which I think might be a remnant of colonialism
Mikheil Saakashvili: West has double standards, they have this attitude which I think might be a remnant of colonialism

West has double standards, they have this attitude which I think might be a remnant of colonialism, – the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili said in an interview with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting  (IWPR).

“The thing is, the West is motivated by several instincts and one of the main instincts is appeasement. They always want to delay the problem, they always want to refer to the past, to the future, anything but the present. Nobody wants trouble and the [Western] politicians’ basic instinct is to keep trouble away, to ignore it or to pretend they don’t see it and that it’s not real”, – Saakashvili said.

He added that West genuinely think that the smaller newcomers at the table are not supposed to succeed.

“Henry Kissinger told Sarah Palin once in a private conversation that made its way to me, that ‘Saakashvili is like a small-time player that comes to the table with big players with no cards in his pocket to play poker”. In a way, Yes, but look, we had cards; the thing is they didn’t want to acknowledge the cards we had; we were the biggest soft power in this huge area of world: Eurasia. That’s the point; that’s what they never realised”. – he added.

In an interview, Mikheil Saakashvili speaks about the West’s unwillingness to hear the uncomfortable truth about Russia’s foreign policy aspirations.

“So, the strategy is that Russia goes to the places where the West wants to engage but not fully, and then they engage fully and that’s how they outsmart the West every time. If Russia attacks non-NATO member Scandinavian countries, what will the West will do? Not much. Not even attack back. They don’t want to attack because it’s risky”, – He added.