Timing is everything.

President Bush has talked tough about Georgia, demanding that Russia respect Georgia's territorial sovereignty, including the disputed regions of Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"There's no room for debate on this matter," Bush said after getting a briefing from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Earlier, in a taped radio address, Bush said that Russia "has put its aspirations" for integration into the West's diplomatic, political, economic and security institutions "at risk" with its drive into Georgia.

But Moscow has already made its territorial gains. And in the aftermath of the fighting, a growing number of commentators are suggesting that the Russians chose this moment to act because of a gap in U.S. politics between an old president and a new.

The center-left German newspaper Suddeutsche Zietung wrote this week:

The admonition of the outgoing American president won't have much impact in Moscow. Firstly, the Russian leadership doesn't see itself as morally accountable to the Iraq warrior Bush. Secondly it's waiting to see who will be moving into the White House: Republican hawk John McCain, who wants to throw Russia out of the G8 group of leading industrial nations, or the young Democrat Barack Obama, who has made more moderate noises.

Back in the U.S.A., the Intelligencer Journal in Lancaster, Pa., editorialized about the invasion after meeting with the state's Republican U.S. senator, Arlen Specter.

Russia attacked Georgia, it said, "at a time when the United States has a lame-duck president and neither party's presidential candidate has the power to do more than issue statements condemning Russia's actions." The paper quoted Specter as saying that Russia "has injected itself into the American presidential race."

And the Wall Street Journal noted that Russia may not be the only country waiting out the end of the Bush administration -- with serious consequences. In May, Hezbollah launched a military assault on Lebanon's democratically elected government. Pro-democracy movements in Myanmar and Zimbabwe have been crushed by government forces this year. And Iran makes regular threats against U.S. ally Israel.

From the Caucasus Mountains to the Middle East and South Asia, U.S. diplomats and strategists say historical U.S. adversaries, such as Moscow and Tehran, appear to be exploiting Washington's impending political transition, and the White House's fixation on Iraq, to pursue international actions that might otherwise spark a more robust response from Washington and its allies.

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