Analysis: Georgia's decision to shell Tskhinvali could prove
'reckless'  President timed action to coincide with Olympics,
says academic  It has always been hard to work out who fired the
first shot in any of the many conflicts that had broken out in
the Caucasus.  Ever since June 1992, when the tiny mountain
enclave of South Ossetia won the first round of its bid to
detach itself from Georgia, the two sides have been
intermittently at war.  But the flare-ups in the last decade
have been skirmishes, and for a while it looked as though peace
had broken out.  The weapons used today — tanks, multiple rocket
launchers and fighter aircraft — made the fighting qualitatively
different.  Observers had little doubt that the operation to
take South Ossetia back under Georgian control bore the
hallmarks of a planned military offensive.  It was not the
result of a ceasefire that had broken down the night before - it
was more a fulfilment of the promise the Georgian president,
Mikhail Saakashvili, had made to recapture lo