How’s that reset workin’ out, Mr. President?
The Russians say there’s no proof and the “sanctions have gone way too far.” “We must push harder on the negotiating track,” says Sergei Ryabkov, Don Putin’s deputy foreign minister. Maybe once Sheikh Qaradawi finishes straightening out this Taliban thing, he can carve out some time between the “destroy America” sermons and the “kill all the Jews” sermons to help Obama reshape our Iran policy.
The lesson here is that Russia always and everywhere will be America's enemy. Why we try to negotiate with enemies is beyond me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Culture triumphs over Strategy" rule of thumb when dealing with other Nations. Something the Diplomat Class continually fails to acknowledge.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat does Qaradawi have to do with Putin's usual 'poke-in-the-eye' foreign policy pronouncements?
Chris - don't confuse the government with the people.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen it comes to the Russian government has the people ever mattered? I hope that Russia has something akin to the Arab Spring if that election goes awry. Something tells me that Putin will be quick to quell any rebellion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd the reason we should take Russia's word for it is?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePerhaps the Russians mean that the Iranians have their bombs and don't need the program any more.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd Obama sold out Poland, one of our strongest allies, for this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbsolutely correct on a point too often overlooked.
Our betrayal of Poland in an attempt to convince the Russian leadership that doesn't exist -- the nice, shy, pacifists who just wish to goodness Americans weren't so mean all the time! -- only showed us the Russian leadership everybody who doesn't live in Never Never Land knew. That would be the one that shortly thereafter sold Iran mobile launchers designed to be placed in cargo containers on board a ship, eliminating the need for advanced missile technology to nuke any harbor city in the world. And in exchange for stabbing out ally in the back, then watching Russia give Iran the ability to do what it will once they get a nuke past Israeli hackers, we got ..... well, one less ally and the very real possibility that property values in New York or Los Angeles may be very seriously depressed one afternoon in the near future.
And the cost of our betrayal will reverberate throughout a generation in which Poland is poised to rise as an influential regional player, not just because we chopped them off at the knees to leave them vulnerable to a hated aggressive neighbor, but also because it is now burned into the much older and more experienced Polish diplomatic tradition that American diplomacy can be so childlike as to stand in front of a rushing freight train and assume it won't hit you because, gosh, you're smiling really hard and you've got a Compelling Personal Narrative you are willing to share and share again. And again. And again ... Thing is, the Poles? They've learned a little something about being oppressed themselves in the last few centuries. And how to avoid false friends willing to whistle and point your way when the Cossacks come galloping in. And given that this Compelling Personal Narrator is the fourth best president ever, by his own admission, what can they possibly expect from us in the future?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGiven the ease with which Russia can provide Iran not only with nuclear weapons technology but with nuclear weapons themselves, don't we need to convince Russia that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and that its development of those weapons is a threat to Russia as a precondition for doing anything meaningful to prevent Iran from developing such weapons?
Almost any "Stop them by any means necessary!" proposal seems to be made as if Russia doesn't exist, doesn't share a border with Iran and doesn't have nuclear weapons of its own.
Which is why, I think, Mr. Obama is the 6th President in a row (Carter, Reagan, both Bushes and Clinton) who doesn't have a meaningful way to prevent Iran from doing what it wants to do and why, when it comes to Iran, it doesn't matter who wins the 2012 election.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf, as Mr. Ryabkov asserts, the Iranians have no nuclear program, then what does he think we have to negotiate? He's a little contradictory, but then, he works for Putin, the "autocratic democrat."
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