Although Barack Obama will be setting the policy agenda in the United States next year, John McCain's defeat has set off a scramble to control the Republican Party's ideological soul. Republicans must learn from their mistakes, which seem to grow more obvious every day.
For instance, the embrace by both the Bush administration and Senator McCain of Georgia's unstable president, Mikheil Saakashvili, was especially foolish, as evidence continues to accumulate that Georgia was the aggressor.
Georgia has a convoluted history typical of Central Asia. There was no obvious reason to support either side when war with Russia erupted in August. True, Mr Saakashvili is American-educated and took power with US support. But he has exhibited a brutal edge.
Today Georgia is a 'semi-authoritarian' state, argues professor Lincoln Mitchell, of Columbia University. After being accused of murder in September 2007 by his former chief prosecutor (and later interior minister and defence minister) Irakli Okruashvili, Mr Saakashvili had Mr Okruashvili arrested and, many think, tortured, after which the latter recanted his charges. The Saakashvili government also targeted journalists, shutting down critical broadcasters.
Then came the war. It has become increasingly obvious that Georgia struck first in August, lighting 'a match in a roomful of gas fumes', as former secretary of state Colin Powell put it. The German publication Spiegel Online recently reported that Nato officers 'thought that the Georgians had started the conflict and that their actions were more calculated than pure self-defence or a response to Russian provocation'. Georgia's assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, had long been planned, admitted Mr Okruashvili. The attack would have been criminally irresponsible even if Mr Saakashvili had been truthful in claiming that Georgia acted only after separatists shelled Georgian villages.
While Mr Saakashvili was the most culpable party, his American backers were no less irresponsible. Yet they continue to press for Georgia's membership in Nato, which would commit the US to defend Georgia from Russia in any renewed conflict.