Another Victory for the US State Department. Civil war was avoided in Georgia recently because the US State Department stuck to it's guns, convinced the Russian government to do the same and politically forced the former Soviet President of Georgia, who was voted out, out of the port city of Ajaria. The former president, Abashidze, had a small loyalist army there and had set up a small "fiefdom" in that part of Georgia. The Russians and Americans finally convinced him to defect and the Georgian government re took the port city. No civil war. The Argus has a great commentary as well as a step by step what happened with links to the stories at each point.