My first reaction during this conflict was to take the Russian "side" because it was a giant spit into the face of the Bushies, who I loathe with all my being. Which is, for the most part, a kind of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thought, which is not necessarily the best way to think when it comes to the bigger picture.
.................
Ha!
That's right. As practically everyone was saying from the start, this jackass-y 'enemy of my enemy' business was precisely the *worst* reason. The 'best' (or at least, most reasonable) being the Georgian rockets falling on people's heads, which needed to be halted.
To the extent Moscow put a stop to that, things were within a 'okay, I can dig it' frame.
Everything outside of that -- regardless of how plausible or implausible -- including theories about pipelines and influence over petrol flows and so on -- may be fun to talk about in an amateur geopol pundit wanker way but was completely beside the point of most posters' original reaction: which was all about the rocket stopping.
Because you know, not being amnesiacs or children, we're all aware that Moscow, like every other government on this little rock, keeps its interests ever in mind. But, as Chris Doss said, our boddhi leaped from that mundane observation to the conclusion that the 'only reason the action was taken was to seize pipelines'.
Which negated the immediate chain of events (see: rockets, on people's heads falling).
But look! This is as boring as a novel about divorcees in New England or a San Francisco-based 20 something's blog.
Let's take a great leap forward to other concerns or, failing that, unearth new insights about this one.
.d.