The former Soviet state Georgia has a street named after George W. Bush. It’s an honor Bush shares with Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, both of whom have avenues named after them in Paris. The two American presidents were recognized for rescuing France from authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

Bush petitioned NATO hard to admit Georgia, as well as the Ukraine and Macedonia in April 2008. An ambivalent Europe rejected the bids, fearing the Russian reaction to NATO nations on its border.

Their fears were prescient. The Russia-Georgia border ignited last Friday, just as the Olympics were starting. The death toll has not been independently verified, but human rights groups estimate more than 100,000 have been displaced. There is war by sea, air and land.

Georgia faces military suicide against Russia. Leaders hoped their American patron saint would send military back-up. Instead, President Bush had other ideas: he rode the Olympic mountain bike trail in Beijing and rhapsodized the beauty of religious freedom to Chinese leaders.

A primer:

Bush’s interest in Georgia goes beyond goodwill. Georgia is America’s strongest ally in a region where American interests are slim, but oil pipelines are plenty. Georgia is a transit country where the greatest natural resources are its pipelines. Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is a strong advocate of American and Western values, and, for years, has been a persistent thorn in the Russian rear.

What are his crimes? Saakashvili is less a criminal, than he is a bad gambler. Georgian officials sought to annex the Georgian separatist province of South Ossetia while the world’s eyes were on the unparalleled opening ceremonies in Beijing. Saakashvili had previously made it a presidential priority to reclaim territories that violently won de facto autonomy in the early 1990s.

The Georgians made the first move, and the Russians are making them pay.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov warned American and European diplomats in a December 2007 meeting in Brussels that recognizing Kosovo’s independence would set a dangerous precedent. Six months later, independece was endorsed foreshadowing an eventual Russian intervention and escalation in South Ossetia.

South Ossetia is the epicenter of the current conflict. It has since boiled over into another disputed, pro-Russian and semi-autonomous region of Abkhazia and the Kodori Gorge, a small militarily strategic mountainous area in Abkhazia, which Georgia reclaimed by force in 2006.

For years, Saakashvili has requested admission into NATO, an alliance where an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members. NATO has expanded since the end of the Cold War, admitting former Soviet-sphere states like Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic in 1999 and Croatia and Albania in 2008. Further aggravating the Russians, the U.S. convinced European allies to deploy a Star Wars-style missile defense system in Czech Republic and Poland.

The Russians felt increasingly claustrophobic and depressed. Russia’s former enemies and former territories were on the verge of surrounding the once great world power. They were bound to erupt eventually.

George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis and intelligence company told the New York Times: “What the Russians just did is, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have taken a decisive military action and imposed a military reality,” he continued. “They’ve done it unilaterally, and all of the countries that have been looking to the West to intimidate the Russians are now forced into a position to consider what just happened.”

Russia has begun a real invasion—military forces have crossed into Georgia proper, with some reports indicating Russian armored vehicles split the country in two. Russian bombers have already bombed military targets and airports outside the conflict zones South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The skirmish proved Russia could blitz its neighbors to the ground whenever it chooses and could resume its historical role as kingmaker of the region.

President Medvedev announced that Russian objectives had been achieved on Aug. 12. In no uncertain terms, his language reveals the Russian sentiment and resentment. “The aggressor has been punished.”

The losers are NATO nations and wanna-be NATO members, as Saakashvili told James Traub of the New York Times two months ago, “If Georgia fails, it will send a message to everyone that this path doesn’t work.”

If the Georgian-Russian conflict had happened in another administration, American response might have been different. For one thing: that the American military would have been available and bogged down elsewhere. American military would have deterred Russian escalation. American leverage just ain’t what it used to be and we really have to start getting used to that.

There would’ve been a difference in leadership, too. Good leaders do not play beach volleyball when major crises happen. Compare Bush to Truman during the Berlin Blockade in 1948-1949, or Kennedy and the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962: Each time, the president was among the cooler heads that prevailed. Even on a less grand scale, California Governor Pat Brown returned from vacation to personally restore order when Watts, CA erupted in riots in 1965.

But our president isn’t even in the room. Of course, we’ve seen this before: In 2005, when Bush chose to clear brush in Crawford when New Orleans had been underwater for days. Instead, he’s upstaged (as usual) by his vice president and would-be GOP successor, John McCain.

Throughout the conflict, Putin has revealed who’s really the boss. He, not President Medvedev oversaw the military efforts from the front lines outside South Ossetia. For the record: Putin left the Olympics on Saturday. It Putin who has the power to redraw maps and change the way the world does business in the region.

You would hope a President Obama or McCain would have left the Olympics to do something; whether it was return to Washington and get on the red line to Moscow and South Ossetia, or fly to New York to help rally nations around sanctions and a way forward. Bush’s Olympic attendance was historic—he was the first U.S. president to attend a Games on foreign soil, but leadership is more than lip service. He should have left.

Back from beach volleyball, Bush addressed the press from the safe confines of the Rose Garden yesterday, calling the invasion, “unacceptable in the 21st Century.” Such rhetoric only makes Western dithering more hypocritical. America cannot build up an ally, forge a military relationship, and inspire political enlightenment, then turn around and surrender that country to the wolves. That’s exactly what the Bush Administration has done in Georgia.