Reformer languishes

More than a decade ago, Mikheil Saakashvili carried influence in Washington and Georgia, the former Soviet republic he led as president. He rose to power on the shoulders of the 2003 Rose Revolution, which swept aside a corrupt and stagnant regime. Mr. Saakashvili met with Joe Biden in Georgia when Mr. Biden was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later when he was vice president. In 2012, when seeing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Batumi, Mr. Saakashvili declared that “Georgia was closer than ever” to fulfilling its aspirations to join the European Union and NATO.

Now, Mr. Saakashvili is imprisoned in Georgia, his health deteriorating, and the goals of European integration are slipping away.

Mr. Saakashvili is a charismatic and polarizing figure, often intolerant of criticism. But he and a band of reformers modernized the economy, greatly reduced corruption and attracted billions in foreign investment. Georgia’s progress was disrupted when Russia launched an invasion in 2008, a punitive strike intended to blunt the small nation’s affinity for democracy and its desire to join NATO. But Mr. Saakashvili demonstrated a commitment to democratic values when he transferred power peacefully after his party lost an election in 2012.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his disdain for Mr. Saakashvili. As a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul noted recently in our pages, a successful democracy in Georgia or Ukraine was anathema to everything Mr. Putin stood for.

Mr. Saakashvili once greeted Mr. Biden in Georgia as “my dear friend.” Now is the moment for Mr. Biden to reciprocate and demand his release. Mr. Saakashvili should be allowed to seek medical help abroad. If he perishes in prison, it likely would also be a death knell of Georgia’s quest to join Europe — and a triumph for Mr. Putin, consigning Georgia’s population of 3.7 million to many more years of authoritarian rule.