No one has a reason to back down yet. You will start to see the pressure increase more now.

-DA 

I agree.  At this rate, we should get sanctions in about 2025.

 

 

Your sarcasm is noted but this issue has a particularly short half life.

 

-DA

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,564927,00.html

 

[quote]

Putin described Russian-Chinese cooperation as "the most important" element of global stability.

"Our consolidated view on certain issues, our ability to coordinate our stance on key international developments often help calm the situation and play a stabilizing role," he earlier told a group of Chinese reporters. "A shared stance of Russia and China on certain issues helps restrain some of our more hotheaded colleagues."

[unquote]

You're absolutely right, DA, and I withdraw my statement.

 

2012, then. 

 

 I see what you did there, nuke funny. Ha ha.

 

Though about the only short term in question is the Iranians getting the nukes, not the West doing anything about it. Given that the Russians have been actively aiding them, expecting any help from that quarter is pure idiocy. 

If that was true we would be at war.

-DA 

www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/6272529/US-Russia-missile-saga-The-pact-between-Dmitry-Medvedev-and-Barack-Obama.html

 

[quote]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently thanked US President Barack Obama for shelving missile defence plans in a restrained but almost friendly way, calling the move a ?step in the right direction?.

Official propaganda reacted more imaginatively, suggesting that the Americans had ?yielded?, and all thanks to our aggressiveness now that we have got off our knees and learnt to be stern.

A majority of analysts close to the Kremlin have made it fairly clear that as far as they are concerned the Russians don?t owe the Americans anything. The Russians especially shouldn?t give up anything in Iran. Only two weeks ago the prime minister himself expressed the opinion that Iran?s nuclear programme poses no military threat ? either to America or to Russia.

[unquote]

Some Ruskies didn't know anything about Qom facility until Obama's revelation:

 

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8305953.stm

 

[quote]

 

It was read in Washington as a direct reaction to revelations about the covert facility.

Iran has agreed to allow IAEA inspectors into the facility at Qom

"Qom was a giant surprise for the Russians," said one senior administration official.

Asked if they were angry when they were told by President Barack Obama about the facility during a meeting in New York last month, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he said that would be an appropriate word to describe the reaction.

It is unclear why the Russians did not have any intelligence of their own about Qom.

"The people who were in the room [with Mr Obama] did not know about it, but I don't know about other Russians."

[unquote]

 

And some very good analysis:

 

[quote]

Stalling

The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt recently wrote that the Russians had "consistently dangled the possibility of co-operation with the United States while simultaneously undermining alliance unity and maintaining their connections to the Iranian regime".

He listed quotes from successive American officials over the years who made public statements about their belief that Russia was finally starting to see eye with America on Iran.

He warned that the smartest policy for the Russians was similar to what they were currently doing - "to hold out hope to the Obama administration that they can be brought along - thereby continuing to win US concessions on other matters for as long as possible - while seeking a privileged position in Tehran for the day when Iran goes nuclear".

Russia and Iran also share some interests in the region, so Moscow is not necessarily eager to alienate Tehran too much.

It can also give the impression it is willing to play along, because it knows China is not ready for sanctions yet and could do all the stalling.

 

[unquote]

From a purely economic POV and in acting in Putin's best interests, I can see why the Russians are doing what they're doing.  They need the money.  Russia's economy has always been rickety, and it's getting worse with the recession.  If that means you sell nuclear technology and S-300s to Iran, you do that.  The Russians don't give a rat's can about Israel, so if Israel and Iran decide to nuke each other, well, that's not Russia's problem.

 

Maybe it's a win-win for Russia.  Iran gets the nukes, Russia gets the cash; since the Iranians will be needing new fighters and SAMs to defend their newly-won nukes, that just makes them better customers.  If the Iranians get their ass beat by Israel, then Russia can sell them replacements.  If Teheran gets turned into glass, well...the resulting power vacuum might allow Putin to finally be the Russian ruler who gets that warm-water port.

 

I'm really not seeing a downside to this, if I'm Russia.  Of course, Stalin didn't see much downside to signing a nonaggression treaty with a genocidal nut either.

Is that so?

 

h--p://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091005_two_leaks_and_deepening_iran_crisis

 

Sounds to me like the Russians are helping.  We mobilizing yet?

There is no need to mobilize as in the past. The systems necessary for the strike are in place or within "days" to weeks of being there. Everything is transpiring as has been posted. We haven't reached critical mass yet.

-DA