Thursday, November 16, 2006
Putin and Bush: Did they strike a deal on Iran?
George W. Bush and Vladamir Putin had a breakfast yesterday of herring, beets, tongue and caviar in Moscow yesterday, and emerged with our president agreeing to support Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization. The question is, what price did George Bush extract? It certainly appears that he secured Russian support on Iran, at least up to a point:
US President George W. Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin confirmed at an airport meeting today their plan to sign a bilateral deal next week for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the presidents confirmed that they would sign a protocol paving the way for Russia to join the WTO on the sidelines of an Asian economic summit in Hanoi next week.
Bush and Putin also discussed Iran and its nuclear programme during an "extraordinarily positive and friendly" meeting, Peskov added without giving further details.
Russia, of course, has at least implied it would veto any United Nations Security Council resolution that targets Iran's civilian nuclear program, in which Russia has a stake. Moscow also benefits from the distraction of the United States on Iran (and, obviously, Iraq), because that crowds out our ability to whack Russia upside the head on the various issues that trouble Washington (including Russia's eroding respect for its own democracy, its abuse of Western intellectual property, its willingness to trade weapons and nuclear technology with every dirtbag in the world, and its attempts to use energy assets to gain political leverage over Europe). The WTO is a big carrot, though, and if Bush traded it for concrete support from Moscow on Iran we should count that as progress.
Not surprisingly, the New York Times coverage does not admit of the possibility of a deal on Iran, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that we will see a softening of Russia's position in the next round of Security Council negotiations.
3 Comments:
By 
Final Historian, at
Thu Nov 16, 12:28:00 PM:
By 
, at
Thu Nov 16, 01:48:00 PM:
I've tried twice to comment, and each time the software looses it.
No bad language, just reasoned comment.
So whats to loose?
Fuck it
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Nov 16, 07:30:00 PM:
I'm amazed to see a positive and friendly anything with Russia after the dirty shit they've pulled on us the last few years.
Power politics does always win out in the end I guess.
