The clash in the Caucasus, prompted by Georgia's sending troops into South Ossetia and Russia's strong riposte, calls for a careful response by the United States, one that should be informed by history.

Some of what the Bush administration has said so far is painful in its lack of self-awareness. For example, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated Wednesday, presumably not with tongue in cheek, that "this is not 1968, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can invade its neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

For the record, it was the Soviet Union in 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia was by Warsaw Pact forces from five countries.

Is Ms. Rice unaware of the parallels the rest of the world sees between what Russia did in Georgia and what the United States did and continues to do in Iraq? Are the American invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989 erased from history, at least in Ms. Rice's mind?

Another question is the possible impact of events in the Caucasus on the U.S. presidential campaign. The firm of Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was a lobbyist for Georgia from 2003 until earlier this year. It is an easy jump from that fact to the idea that Republicans may have prompted Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to send forces into South Ossetia to produce a war that would point up the claimed difference in foreign affairs experience between Mr. McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

It seems unlikely that Republicans would be so irresponsible as to urge Mr. Saakashvili to pit Georgia's meager military forces against Russia's, given the almost certain outcome of the resulting conflict. But it was a Republican administration that launched a war in Iraq while using the ploys of weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi ties to al-Qaida.

The other aspect of the situation in the Caucasus is the involvement of U.S. oil companies Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil in oil and natural gas pipelines, operated by BP, that cross Georgia. Just as it appears that U.S. oil companies' interest in Iraq is one element in that picture, the question also arises with respect to Georgia.

The best U.S. policy in the region continues to be to let the Europeans, in the form of the European Union, take the lead and for the United States to work instead on improving the quality of its dialogue with Russia. Comparisons of Soviet and Warsaw Pact actions in 1968 -- 40 years ago -- with post-Cold War Russian moves in 2008 don't help much, unless there is a desire to revive that unpleasant, dangerous, expensive contest.