Well, consider the distance between the administration and the senior staff at both the State Department and Langley.

Like Mr. Bush, it’s believable that Putin suspected, but, again like the president, there was little he could do but stay focused on his own priorities.

Similar to blaming the government of Saudi Arabia for not having police-state-like insight into the finances and communications of their people (family) and not being able to instantly stop their funding of extremists when asked. It takes time and brutality to get your fingers in every pot.

If your enemy is a scorpion, you don’t have to read Clausewicz to know you have to stomp it to death when it’s down. Otherwise it rises up to threaten you another day.

What was George Walker thinking about when he sent all those American advisors to teach the Russians how to establish civilized institutions and a modern economy and to take off their mitts before sitting down to eat with their hands? What he should have sent were B-52s carrying a thousand points of light.

Who are these Cro Magnon spoilers and their rat-faced Chekist landlord of Lubyanka? What have they ever contributed to the commonweal? Can you name a healing drug, a diagnostic tool, a surgical technique, a prosthetic device? What did they ever build that wasn’t from plans stolen from someone else? They have been imitating the inventions of others ever since Peter the Great invited German engineers to teach his Russian subjects how to use graph paper and walk on their hind legs.

The greatest Russian innovation of the Twentieth Century is the Kalashnikov whose brilliance is rooted in a counter-intuitive throwing out of centuries of technological refinement in celebration of loose fit and shoddy workmanship. Never mind that it clatters and rattles when you shake it says Russia’s premiere gunsmith. The important thing is a bullet comes out the front.

Space stations with pull-chain toilets; hi-energy Polish pork fat enriched horse sausage cosmonaut food; reactor components for Iranians while the ground under Chernobyl cooks and bubbles hotter than ever–Russia continues to enrich the world with bleeding edge scientific and technical breakthroughs.

Small wonder the Russians get along so well with the Arabs. Both woke up at about the same time early in the Twentieth Century after a similarly long snooze. The Arabs, who had taken to their beds in the Twelfth Century, were rudely brought awake by American and British engineers with noisy drilling equipment. The Russians, who were as dismally feudal and backward as they had been since before the black plague, were rousted out of bed by Japanese Naval guns and Reds in the streets.

Both need to be put back to sleep. Permanently if possible.

Having close political connections with the Iranians is important to the Russians as another major oil producing state, just as you will notice the Iranians are becoming good friends with Hugo Chavez. Together they make a very formidable chunk of the market. Maybe they haven’t quite figured out how they will use these mutual connections, but my point was this: The Russians have many reasons (a lot of them connected to the oil business) to be chummy with the Iranians, and a diminishing list of reasons to cooperate with us. Therefore, to think we can use the decrepit institution of the Security Council in the face of these realities is foolish indeed.

I believe, on the contrary, the Russians and the Iranians would like to drive oil up; we would rather not, and therein lies the rub. We are in a new world, and we need to ask ourselves some hard questions. What do we have to offer the Russians more attractive than the increased power they would have in the region if they play ball with Iran? Is it not also possible that the Russians can play at detente? Are they not also capable of appeasement in the face of threats from Iran? Are not the Iranians in a good position to provide benefits to Russia in exchange for a veto in the Council? If the Russians believe the Iranians will get the bomb in any event, what is the most self-interested thing for them to do?

The thing for us to do is to watch facts as they unfold, and the fact is that the Russians and Chinese are not supporting our efforts in the Security Council. I believe it is because they have more interests in common with Iran than they do with us.

The UN is not helping.
We need to find allies that are real allies.

Roger,

Now with Saddam’s docs being released and revelations in Iraqi Gen Sada’s new book, Saddam’s Secrets, about the inner workings of the Saddam Regime, there is little doubt what was going on. You’re right on the money with the UN Oil for Food multi billion dollar con game.

Any good economic crimes investigator knows to, follow the money. In order of money received the French were first followed by the Russians and then the Chinese. Go Figure all permenant members of the UN Security Council! Does anyone see a stacked deck!

RBT has long maintained Saddam’s WMD went to Syria with Russian help. See below why this is the worst kept secret in the Blogos. You’d think the LL and the MSM would be all over this like stink on poop but of course this would negate their favorite meme, “Bush Lied. People Died.”

See this excerpt and other links re this position:

IRAQ – God Lied, People Died?
There is an excellent discussion underway at Winds of Change in a thread by Armed Liberal:

My dear Mr. Watson there is a bigger game afoot!

There is a growing consensus in some corners of the Blogos that Saddam’s WMD went to Syria with Russian assistance before GWII.

What we may be witnessing is a good ole game of Texas Hold’em. Pieces of this puzzle have been around for awhile but for obvious reasons and also a case of too blind to see, the LL and the MSM have not followed the leads to track down this story e.g. The Plame Affair, Bush Lied, People Died, Cheney Quailgate, the Iraqi “non” civil war a reverse case of Wag the Dog, The CIA Leaks (Gee the CIA is openly at war with the CNC), and now Katrinagate.

It may be expedient by the Bush Administration to allow the LL and the MSM to run with this rope while this trump card [Saddam's WMD with Russian and Chinese fingerprints] is in play in the back diplomatic channels to get the Russians and the Chinese to put pressure on the Iranian Mad Mullahs to play ball re nukes.

I think there is a little chance that President MAD and his religious mentor Yazdi will be likely detered by pressure from the Russians and/or Chinese in their quest to acquire nuke weapons.

After all from their warped sense of reality they truly believe in the return of the 12th Imman. And they won’t hesitate to use nuclear weapons if they believe it will hasten the 12th Imman to emerge from the Iraqi water well sooner. This is completely logical to them unlike the MAD policy of the Cold War that detered the Russians.

For further and links to Kobayashi Maru’s Part IV summary of the recent Intel Summit where the Saddam Tapes, WMD, papers, and the revelations in Iraqi Gen. Sada new book, Saddam’s Secrets,see:

Intelligence Summit, Part IV – WMD to Syria With Russia’s Help

[...]

Read it All

Russia has ample energy supplies and is a net exporter. Hence trouble in the Persian Gulf enhances their international position and makes them a lot of money.

Putin actually wrote in shis thesis about using Russia’s energy supplies as a strategic asset for regaining its former power.

Notice that the US invasion has taken 2m bbl/day of oil off the market (as a result of the sabotage by the “insurgents”).

Hence the game the Russians are playing with Iran is likely to be deeper than simply trying to secure energy supplies for themselves. Likewise with Iraq.

Also, given the strange state of Russia today, it is entirely possible that there are substantial rogue elements (or perhaps just “unofficial” elements) in action. I don’t believe Putin has anywhere near the degree of totalitarian control exercised in the Soviet Union, although he does have the power to use KGB tactics when he needs to.

Russia has recently been involved in two incidents that are probably part of the Putin “doctrine” of using energy as a weapon:

1) The sudden tripling of natural gas prices to the Ukraine, resulting in a pipeline shutdown that also prevented supplies from reaching western Europe.

2) The sabotage of energy in transit to Georgia – blamed, of course, on Islamofascists, but entirely consistent with Russia playing the energy card.

The sad fact is that even when this multi-lateral failure is combined with the rest of the multi-lateral failures of the last few decades it will not stop the constant howls for its use. The U.N. has been impotent even against the most minor despots yet the west keeps going back to dry well time and time again. It has become a way for the West to pretend that they have a spine when the fact is a large segment of the world community prefers to wait for the catastrophe to happen before action is taken. Thats why small and relativly weak(in comparison to the combined strength of the E.U. or America) states like Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, ect, ect, have felt free to tell these “mighty powers” to go stuff themselves. I thought I read that Jack Straw,correct me if I am wrong, of the U.K. already announced that there will be no military actions regarding Iran. Whether there should be is an open question but by removing the one factor that might actually scare the Mullahs off the Mullahbomb path is stupid. It has made them more aggressive, not less. Suprise, Suprise, the Iranian oligharchy has taken that statement as another sign of the paper tiger nature of the west. “peace in our times.’ I can’t wait till that chestnut is brought out of retirement.

I agree with the above comments that the present diplomatic efforts (oh so multi-lateral) are actually an encumbrance to a solution. Thus, we will be able to tell when our policy has grown serious by how unilateral it has become. Soon, I hope. Recently the “President of Iran” Ahmadinejad said pressure from Washington and its allies would not force Iran to abandon its drive to produce nuclear fuel:

“They should know that through propaganda, political pressures and games they play nowadays such as issuing statements, making angry gestures, (they) can’t prevent the Iranian nation from pursuing its path.”

How foolish we are to think that diplomacy of any sort can deal with this regime, much less playing around with nations that have no interest in resolving our problem. The UN, under these circumstances, can only make the divisions between the members of the Security Council more evident. This may actually be useful as an excuse for unilateral action–but the mere fact that we think we need cover in this way is a sign of our enfeeblement. It is merely one more step toward the complete breakdown of the unexamined, outdated and crippling post- WWII order. We need to come to our senses and ally ourselves with those states that actually share a common interest with us–that is if they can wake up and come to our side in time.

Someone was on a tare.

It does seem like the Russians can not get out of their own way. They can be both brilliant and stupid at the same time.