U.S.-Russia Summit: Warmer Temperatures in Moscow
The chief takeaway of the U.S.-Russia summit is that it's been all upside, and no downside, for the leaders of both countries: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev got to tally up respect points from hanging out and negotiating nuclear arms reductions with President Barack Obama; and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin got to stare fiercely at the American president (video). From Obama's side, he got to take down the temperature with Moscow, Washington's loudest European critic.
Yet nothing that happened in Moscow shifts the shape of world events as they were when Obama arrived there. For instance, the two sides could do nothing to change the direction of events just south of Russia, in Iran.
The State Department has denied that Vice President Joe Biden has given Israel the go-ahead to fly over Iraq and attack Iran. That's not what Biden meant when he said in an interview Sunday that the U.S. won't stand in Israel's way were it to attack Iran, the State Department asserts. In the closing weeks of his presidency, George W. Bush refused to grant such permission. An Iranian official replies that Tehran will mount a "real and decisive" response to any such attack.
This could be mere brinksmanship. Israel itself is pushing the U.S. to put together a fresh set of "crippling sanctions," according to Michael Crowley at The Plank.
Ria Misra at Inside Politics suggests that an ideological split that's just become public in the religious center of Qom "may be the critical leverage that finally forces not only the overturning of the [June 12 presidential] election results, but maybe of the ayatollah as well." She is talking about a critical statement issued Sunday by a reformist clerical group called the Association of Scholars and Researchers of Qom Seminary. Kathy Kattenburg at The Moderate Voice is also impressed with the development.
This could be another bout of getting carried away, as pundits and the media did leading up to the Iranian election. In fact, as Najmeh Bozorgmehr reports in the Financial Times, the most powerful clerical group in Qom, the Society of Scholars of Qom Seminary, issued a simultaneous statement congratulating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his official re-election.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Mir Hosein Mousavi's outspoken appearance yesterday in public -- the first time he has been publicly cited in three weeks -- is bound to stir up more turbulence. That will offer up a chance for Obama and Medvedev to exercise their new-found camaraderie.
Yet nothing that happened in Moscow shifts the shape of world events as they were when Obama arrived there. For instance, the two sides could do nothing to change the direction of events just south of Russia, in Iran.
The State Department has denied that Vice President Joe Biden has given Israel the go-ahead to fly over Iraq and attack Iran. That's not what Biden meant when he said in an interview Sunday that the U.S. won't stand in Israel's way were it to attack Iran, the State Department asserts. In the closing weeks of his presidency, George W. Bush refused to grant such permission. An Iranian official replies that Tehran will mount a "real and decisive" response to any such attack.
This could be mere brinksmanship. Israel itself is pushing the U.S. to put together a fresh set of "crippling sanctions," according to Michael Crowley at The Plank.
Ria Misra at Inside Politics suggests that an ideological split that's just become public in the religious center of Qom "may be the critical leverage that finally forces not only the overturning of the [June 12 presidential] election results, but maybe of the ayatollah as well." She is talking about a critical statement issued Sunday by a reformist clerical group called the Association of Scholars and Researchers of Qom Seminary. Kathy Kattenburg at The Moderate Voice is also impressed with the development.
This could be another bout of getting carried away, as pundits and the media did leading up to the Iranian election. In fact, as Najmeh Bozorgmehr reports in the Financial Times, the most powerful clerical group in Qom, the Society of Scholars of Qom Seminary, issued a simultaneous statement congratulating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his official re-election.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Mir Hosein Mousavi's outspoken appearance yesterday in public -- the first time he has been publicly cited in three weeks -- is bound to stir up more turbulence. That will offer up a chance for Obama and Medvedev to exercise their new-found camaraderie.
Labels: ahmadinejad, medvedev, mousavi, moussavi, obama, Putin, qom, u.s.-russia summit
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