As the first anniversary of the Russia-Georgia war approaches, we can expect a heavy volley of accusations, finger pointing, and acerbic opinion articles regurgitating mostly information we are already familiar with.  My guess is that if you have been following all of this, you probably already have your mind made up … which means most people are just waiting for the “I told you so” bragging rights.

Much of this will be wrapped up in the conclusions of the EU fact finding report headed up by Uwe Schramm.  Back when we blogged about the early leaked version of the report, which pointed some blame toward Georgia, a rare but heated exchange took over our usually sparse comment board.  At the end of July, we heard the news that the presentation of the report would be delayed until the end of September, as the researchers reviewed dozens of new documents, many of which are likely to have been forged, alleging what was happening on both sides down to the final hours and minutes before the mortars started flying.

(As a side note, I will add that I was visiting Tbilisi on August 2-8, 2008, fortunately catching a flight out right as the invasion started.  From my experience, the political context behind this conflict is vastly more complex than is useful for anyone’s punditry.)

Today the Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the competing evidence picking apart the core disputes over the origins, responsibility, and purpose of this war.  Check out an excerpt after the jump.