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Cynthia Tucker

The Russians may help on Iran

6:59 am September 24, 2009, by ctucker

It’s much too early to suggest genuine progress on dealing with Iran, but there is a glimmer of hope from President Obama’s arm-twisting at the U.N. yesterday. For the first time, Russia has suggested it may be open to imposing tougher sanctions against Iran for its nuclear violations.
The New York Times reports, “I told His Excellency Mr. President that we believe we need to help Iran to take a right decision,” Mr. Medvedev said, adding that “sanctions rarely lead to productive results, but in some cases, sanctions are inevitable.” Previously, Russia has balked at new sanctions against Iran.
Medvedev’s hint of help reinforces the wisdom of Obama’s decision to reverse President Bush’s plan to stage missile defenses in Eastern Europe, a plan which had deeply angered the Russians. (While the Obama administration claims it didn’t make the decision to get Russia’s help on Iran, there’s clearly a connection.) After all, Russia is no longer the enemy. Iran is a much bigger threat to U.S. interests.

Some conservatives, however, are having trouble letting Russia go. You remember that old proverb: “Hold your friends close, but hold your enemies closer”? They’ve held Russia so close for so long they miss the old, reliable enemy.

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11 comments Add your comment

joe matarotz

September 24th, 2009
8:38 am

Leave it to you to miss the most important point, Cynthia. Your blog is the journalistic equivalent of shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic. (Seriously – you must have a relative in management at the ajc. I don’t know how they would pay you for this tripe otherwise.)

Reprinted from the NY Daily News:

Khadafy is whacky, but Iran thug Ahmadinejad is the real threat
BY Josh Greenman
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Long after the 98-minute fever dream of Libya’s Moammar Khadafy, with his warning of flu viruses cooked up in Western labs, came the main event of the UN General Assembly: the deadly serious diatribe of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.

The man’s been called crazy. Wrong word. He’s a canny leader with ambitions to dominate the Mideast. And he’s inching ever closer to the means to do it.

Wednesday night’s speech was vintage Ahmadinejad. Looking calm, he made a raging and radical argument:

That “the era of capitalist thinking and imposition of one’s thoughts on the international community” is over.

That the few ills that aren’t America’s fault can be blamed on a “Zionist regime” that portrays its “victims as terrorists.”

That Iran, which barraged peaceful protesters with clubs and bullets, is “one of the most democratic and progressive governments of the world.”

That his nation, which arms terrorists, “has been a main victim of terrorism.”

That a regime like Iran needs and deserves “equality” – wink wink, nuclear weapons – which, of course, it denies it’s pursuing.

Ahmadinejad is playing for time. And he is playing the world for fools.

As he bloviates, his scientists rush head-long toward developing nuclear capabilities. That would make an already dangerous regime that says it wants to wipe Israel off the map exponentially deadlier.

President Obama has yet to show that he knows how to stop him, or even make him think twice. Obama’s tough talk yesterday sounded perfunctory. Said he:

“If the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards; if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of their own people; if they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East – then they must be held accountable.”

If? We moved past “if” months ago. We’re on an express train to one big “when” – how to react when we wake up to an atomically emboldened Iran.

Remember when Obama offered an “open hand”? Months later, Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei crushed the crowds protesting rigged elections.

Just this week in Tehran, Iran’s nuclear program director boasted that new centrifuge technology will boost the country’s uranium “enrichment power tenfold.”

At this point, there are just two ways to make that Obama promise – to hold Iran “accountable” – mean anything: tighten sanctions, including on gasoline, or contemplate an air strike to take out its nuclear facilities.

Success on option one is a reach, given that Venezuela and Russia are likely to help Iran wriggle out of feeling real pain. Still, worth a try.

And if it doesn’t work, there is one tool left, probably for Israel to pick up.

A crazy guy muttering to himself like Khadafy is one thing. A vicious plotter with a loaded gun is something else.

Jimmy Pritchard

September 24th, 2009
8:45 am

That might happen. And one day, Cynthia Tucker might write a column that’s not a tongue-bath to Barack “The Savior” Obama.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for either one. It’s in the Russian autocracy’s interests for the Iranian autocracy to bedevil America, just like it’s in Cynthia’s interests to be a lapdog for The One.

We really are right back to the Jimmy Carter era: unemployment through the roof at home, and bending over for every anti-American dictatorship on the planet abroad.

Scott

September 24th, 2009
9:14 am

I believe that Neville Chamberlain had something like Ms. Tucker’s theory in mind when he met with Hitler and then declared “peace in our time.”

Letting your enemies go | AnnotatedOpinions.com

September 24th, 2009
9:25 am

[...] the full opinion HERE. Tags: Iran, Russia Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment [...]

jconservative

September 24th, 2009
9:27 am

I do not for a minute believe the Russians give a hoot about defensive missiles in Poland, etc. The fear is that we will sneak in offensive missiles. We would have the same reaction to Russian defensive missiles in Nicaragua. See the cfr website. You see nothing coming out of the NSC re Russian appreciation for the East European missile decision. That is just idle speculation. The Russians are reacting to their need for US & European economic activity.

We will only handle the Russians through money & trade. And if oil gets back up to $140 a barrel we will not handle them at all. Until that happens they will be of some assistance on Iran. Not much, just some.

bob

September 24th, 2009
9:31 am

You better hope the Russians help, because that coward of a President we have now won’t do anything about Iran. Or the economy. Or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or Gitmo. Or health care. Or the Georgia flood victims….

jconservative

September 24th, 2009
9:44 am

BY Josh Greenman
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
“…the deadly serious diatribe of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran…
The man’s been called crazy. Wrong word. He’s a canny leader with ambitions to dominate the Mideast.”

This guy is dead wrong. Ahmaddinejad is just a puppet to the ruling
“religious junta”. He will do what he is told. Any negotiations
with Ahmadinejad with just be for show. The serious negotiations will be with Ahmadinejad not in the room.

Donovan

September 24th, 2009
10:18 am

…and pigs fly. Here we have another reason to discount Comrade Tucker’s brilliant observation on Russia and everything else. When was the last time Russia helped us with anything? Was it World War II, or the Manhatten Project, or Korea, or the Six Day War, or Viet Nam, or Gulf I, or Gulf II? The Berlin Wall came down and communism was dismantled in the USSR, but ex-KGB Putin and his boys still run the same game in another cloak. Our little commie still writing for the AJC still lives in a Disney world. She thinks that Russia will help the U.S. with the Iranian problem now that her darling inept Obama has appeased the Putin Boys with dismantling the missle defense shield in Poland. There is no reason for Russia to go against Iran when they are helping build nuclear reactors or supplying intergrated air defense systems to the Iranian. Russia’s sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf is only strenghened with the cozy relataionship of Iran. Comrade Tucker can add yet another column to the waste paper basket of lunacy and pipe dreams. Please, Comrade, resign your position and go away.

Jack

September 24th, 2009
10:51 am

If the Russians help on Iran, it won’t be because of anything Obama said. They can read tea leaves as well as we do.

mike

September 24th, 2009
12:09 pm

Jack –

“If the Russians help on Iran, it won’t be because of anything Obama said. They can read tea leaves as well as we do.”

This is what is so amusing about liberals. For all of their talk of respect for other countries’s sovereign rights, they all seem to think that other countries make their decisions based on whether they like the guy in the White House.

The naivety is laughable.

Tom Middleton

September 24th, 2009
3:48 pm

September 24, 2009

The right-wing has trouble letting go of everything, Ms. Tucker, and to a mentality which somehow equates elitist wealth and social isolation with national power, holding onto Russia as a bitter enemy is a good thing. Why try to make friends and improve relationships when you think you can control them as enemies?

It’s just another stark example of the paranoid right’s line-of-crap that always tries to obstruct when we find a better way. And since President Obama’s administration is all about finding a better way, the right will continue throwing hissy fits with almost everything he does.

I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but right-wing thinking has come to represent almost everything ineffective and wrong in the political world today. But we’ve tried their way over and over, and the two things we’ve learned for sure, and are reminded of every time they get into power, is that it’s always the same and it never works very well for any but them.

Now that we have a leader who’s not a simple-minded, self-serving power monger, but who seeks to empower all mankind with the rights, direction, and support they need to become sovereign and free, it’s time for right-wingers to step out of the way, hopefully once and for all. (Maybe they can go into their think tanks and figure out how to live without violence and greed before coming back out again, PLEASE!)

They’ve repeatedly had their turn at the helm and have blown it, and now it’s time for those to lead who have a clue how best to represent America, defend our interests, and stand up to our enemies, while building a future the whole world can live without fear of self-destruction.

You and I grew up fearing a third world war, Ms. Tucker. Remember the Cuba blockade when we all thought we were goners? But with people like President Obama leading us, children will be able to grow up fearing nothing but a return to the right’s line-of-thinking, and won’t that be nice?

It’ll be child’s play, even though we have our work cut out for us now and some difficult days ahead. At least we’ll be rapidly moving forward for a change, not just spinning paranoid wheels and going nowhere good at all!