So President Obama and the Russians have apparently struck a deal to reduce their nuclear weapons. Perhaps I am too wary, but it seems to me to be of little practical significance, but rather a cosmetic measure. Russia at present is in an aggressive mood, and Medvedev and his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, excel at playing hard cop, soft cop. They seek by various methods including the use of force and chicanery to reincorporate former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia into its sphere of control. The supply of gas is treated as a tool to dominate supine European customers. Unlike the cold and brutal Putin, Medvedev says he believes in the rule of law, but his election was flagrantly rigged, critics and Muslim dissidents have a way of being murdered, and the unfortunate former oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky has already served eight years in prison on trumped-up charges and looks likely to have the sentence indefinitely extended. Obama babbles that he and Medvedev together can aspire “to strengthen democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.” Oh please!

Nothing very positive can be achieved in talks about any of these issues. One thing matters at present, and only one thing, and that is Russia’s stance towards Iran and the nuclear program being developed in that country with Russian technological input and anti-aircraft weaponry to defend the sites involved. What counts is who has the nuclear weapon, not the numbers in the stockpile.We’re told that the Russians object to the missile shield against Iran that the United States would like to build in Poland and the Czech Republic on the grounds that it is aimed against Russia. This objection has no validity, and it is raised evidently for the Russians to be able to bargain about it and extract something they want. To give way on the missile shield is bad, but to leave the Russians in a position of supporting Iran is deadly.