KENNEBUNKPORT, Me., June 30 — President Bush, seeking to change the tone of an increasingly caustic, fraught relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, will urge him on Sunday to support a major escalation of pressure on Iran, administration officials said.
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From Steve: Russia's strongest suit in the post-Soviet period has been its embracement of figures and countries estranged from the major Western countries with which it seeks leverage.
At the height of his powers, contrary to Bush's domestic and international stature, Putin will go along with Bush only if he perceives a genuine nuclear threat to Russia from the south.
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Aleksandr Fomenko, member of Russian Duma, in an interview with the Moscow News gives some arguments as to why a nuclear-armed Iran would not be a threat:
- Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapons didn't result in a greater instability in the region.
- Iran is more stable and more predictable than Pakistan
- Iran doesn't have any territorial disputes with its neighbors, unlike Pakistan.
There is much more in the article:
http://www.mn.ru/issue.php?2006-42-22
It's an old article but Russian perception doesn't seem to have changed.
Aleksandr Fomenko,a member of the Russian Duma, in an interview with the Moscow News, outlined some arguments as to why a nuclear-armed Iran would not be a threat:
http://www.mn.ru/issue.php?2006-42-22
The article is from 2006 but, apparently, Russian views haven't changed.
The meeting between Bush and Putin was not only to merge idea's about other world energy powerrs, but to also converge an alliance based on Russia's Oil Boom. Here is an article about the companies involved in the production of oil in Russia, which the U.S. is strongly pushing for.
Russian Oil Production
Cheers!
Dan, your site is impressive, as is the article. But I draw the opposite conclusion from reading it: there is not going to be a convergence -- an alliance -- between the U.S. and Russia in oil. What could the U.S. be pushing for? To be given a soft landing on the way out?
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