While our President sees virtue in extending the hand of friendship to tyrants galore, soldier-author Ralph Peters sees a Putin power play in the West's negotiations with Iran over Iran's nuclear program. Peters writes:
This is one macro-region for energy, the zone of ultimate control. Putin gets it, even if we don't. Here's Czar Vladimir's strategic trifecta:
* For now, Russia profits wonderfully from its trade, both legal and illicit, with Iran, while the West talks itself to death. Life is good.
* But life could get even better: If Iran's nuclear quest isn't blocked, a nuclear arsenal will give Iran de facto control of all Persian Gulf oil. Putin envisions a Moscow-Tehran axis, an energy cartel that dramatically increases the value of his oil and gas -- the only economic props keeping the corpse of Russia upright.
* If Israel's driven to a forlorn-hope attack on Iran's nuke program, Iran will respond by striking Gulf Arab oil fields and facilities, while closing the Strait of Hormuz. The US military will be in it, like it or not. Oil and gas prices will soar unimaginably -- and the bear will have its paws on the golden tap.
So the worst outcome for Putin -- more of the same -- is still good. A bad outcome for everybody else is even better in Putin's strategy to renew Russia's superpower status.
Why on earth would this guy help us stop Iran? When he hates us, anyway? (It isn't you, Barack. It's just business.)
For all his viciousness, Putin's a serious strategist. We don't have any high-level strategists. Not one. On either side of the Potomac.
The Times Online reports that yesterday in Geneva Iran agreed to do two things: (a) allow inspection of its Qom uranium enrichment plant (the one revealed to the public last week) before the second meeting of negotiators; (b) ship 1200 kg of low-enriched uranium to Russia & Fance for enrichment to 20 percent, for medical applications (maybe). Estimates are that Iran has 1600 kg of LEU--but this does not include any unknown, undiscovered facilities and their output; it is reasonable to assume that Iran has several of these. A Wall Street Journal story adds detail on enrichment arrangements; inspectors are prepping to visit the Qom plant; the US is ramping up enforcement of existing sanctions; but Iranian opposition leaders are skeptical. Proliferation expert Henry Sokolski explains in a nutshell why the West blinked and thus Iran won the first round of the latest talks.
The WSJ editors see "Springtime for Mullahs"in Geneva, with the West conferring legitimacy on Iran's tyranny:
Consider the Iranian offers in turn. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency won't find anything incriminating at the Qom facility. Having lied about it for years, the Iranians now have plenty of time to clean the place out. Iran's experience with the IAEA goes back to the first inspections starting in 1992, which somehow prevented the world from learning about Iran's bomb program for a decade and then only from an Iranian dissident group. A freeze on enrichment used to be the U.S. precondition for talks with Iran. Now the U.S. and Europeans say that in exchange merely for this enrichment promise, they'll freeze any additional sanctions.
Iran has timed its olive branch well. The Europeans are more frustrated with past Iranian stalling than is Washington and have started to hanker for tougher measures. Those demands will now be muted. For years, Iran has talked with the Europeans, using the time and diplomatic cover to make nuclear progress. The Obama ascendency offers the mullahs another chance, with an even more eager partner, to repeat the exercise with a far bigger potential payoff. Expect Iran to follow the North Korean model, stringing the West along, lying and wheedling, striking deals only to renege and start over. In the end, North Korea tested a nuclear device.
On long evidence, the regime has no intention of stopping a nuclear program that would give it new power in the region, and new leverage against America. The Qom news reveals a more extensive, sophisticated and covert nuclear complex than many people, including the CIA, were willing to recognize. The facility is located on a Revolutionary Guard base, partly hidden underground and protected by air-defense missiles. Its capacity of 3,000 centrifuges is too small for civilian use but not for a weapons program. It's a good bet an archipelago of such small covert facilities is scattered around Iran.
Charles Krauthammer smells naivete & appeasement:
You see? The Obama magic. Engagement works. Russia is on board. Except that, as The Washington Post inconveniently pointed out, President Dmitry Medvedev said the same thing a week earlier, and the real power in Russia, Vladimir Putin, had changed not at all in his opposition to additional sanctions. And just to make things clear, when Iran then brazenly test-fired offensive missiles, Russia reacted by declaring that this newest provocation did not warrant the imposition of tougher sanctions.
Do the tally. In return for selling out Poland and the Czech Republic by unilaterally abrogating a missile-defense security arrangement that Russia had demanded be abrogated, we get from Russia ... what? An oblique hint, of possible support, for unspecified sanctions, grudgingly offered and of dubious authority -- and, in any case, leading nowhere because the Chinese have remained resolute against any Security Council sanctions.
Meanwhile, Alan Dershowitz, Havard law prof & ace on Israel, calls for disavowal of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that when issued undercut the Bush administration's hardliner Iran faction. AD, who called the NIE "stupid" at the time (he was right), now adds "dishonest" to the list (right again): The 2007 NIE was issued when intelligence officials knew about Iran's secret Qom uranium enrichment plant! That is, the NIE's authors lied to promote a dovish policy they favored, concealing knowledge that would, if known publicly, have discredited the NIE's conclusion that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program.
As for the American public, it is ahead of Team Obama: a Sept. 29-30 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Americans well aware of the Iran menace: 71 percent of Americans are worried about a nuclear Iran, 69 percent feel Obama has not been tough enough on Iran, and 61 percent support military action to stop Iran going nuclear.
Bottom Line. Obama plays checkers in Geneva, while Vlad the Bad plays chess in Tehran.
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