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The U.S. and Russia still disagree where it counts
Dan Drezner agrees with this from Matt Yglesias about President Obama’s goals in his visit to Moscow:
It makes a lot more sense to focus a visit on something like the nuclear issue, where U.S. and Russian interests are roughly in alignment and some high-level discussions stand a decent chance of bearing fruit.
I’m all for “de-linkage” in U.S.-Russia relations -- working together where our interests converge, agreeing to disagree where our interests conflict, and preventing those disagreements from impeding constructive cooperation. In short, what Bush and Putin spelled out last April in Sochi.
That said, let’s be honest about what that means for our interests: It means that Obama has just invested a lot of time and effort to secure an agreement to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles to a level that could still annihilate the world several times over. This may be an achievable goal, but it is hardly a pressing one -- not when Iran is speeding toward a weapon of its own, and the United States and Russia cannot seem to find much agreement on how to proceed on that.
Indeed, the question of Iran is illustrative, because Russia has solid national interests in never, ever wanting to see Iran open to the world -- the critical carrot that the West holds out in every diplomatic gambit it has conceived on the Iranian nuclear question. The reason? Gas. Nick Gvosdev explains:
One potential concern for Russia is that if it joins in putting real pressure on Tehran, Iran could eventually negotiate a Libya-style settlement with the West, clearing the way for major new Western investments in Iran’s energy sector.
Right now, Moscow benefits from Iran’s isolation from the West. Not only are Iran’s formidable gas reserves not accessible to European users, preserving Russia as the Continent’s major supplier, but alternate routes for Central Asian energy that could traverse Iran are also not possible.
Yet resolution of the nuclear issue could open up the vast reserves of Iranian natural gas for use through the Nabucco line, the major pipeline on the drawing boards for getting energy to Europe without going through Russia. The project is currently nearly moribund because there isn’t enough supply to justify the huge investments. Iran would be a game-changer.
So color me skeptical that Russian interests will ever lead it to be an effective partner in pressuring Iran on its nuclear weapons ambitions. And what's more, anyone who thinks the U.S.-Russian nuclear reductions that Obama just won will help to halt the Iranian nuclear program needs to refrain from operating heavy machinery. Something tells me that Iran’s rulers will be none too persuaded to give up their nuclear aspirations simply because the United States and Russia have now agreed to retain a couple thousand fewer nukes apiece between them.
As for the other accomplishment of Obama’s trip -- Russia’s offer to open its airspace for U.S. military re-supply of the war in Afghanistan -- I’m of two minds: Given the uncertainty still surrounding Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan and the insecurity of supply routes through Pakistan, it’s nice to have another option; but we are now directly at the mercy of Russia for a service that they can use against us as a political weapon if they see fit. Just ask Ukrainians with gas-heated homes how that’s working out for them.
All of this should raise a fundamental question for those who harbor high hopes for hitting that reset button with Russia: How good should we feel about a U.S.-Russia relationship where we can make progress on many issues of questionable importance while we disagree over most of the important stuff?
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Heavy Machinery
I'll steer clear of the heavy machinery, but please show awareness in future posts that Iran is entitled to develop peaceful nuclear technology under the NNPT, and the US and Russia are obligated to continue to reduce their arsenals.
In my view the people who really should leave the backhoe keys at home are those who thought that any NNPT signatory would accede to demands to completely abandon a nuclear program while the US was talking about building a new generation of warheads. At least now we are moving in the right direction.
Based on what exactly?
"when Iran is speeding toward a weapon of its own"
You are obviously privy to some information that the IAEA, NIE and others are not, please do share.
Re: Based on what exactly?
This, for starters:
U.N. Atomic Energy Chief Says Iran Wants Bomb Technology
By ALAN COWELL
Published: June 17, 2009, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/world/18nuke.html?em
PARIS — Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, said it was his “gut feeling” that Iran’s leaders wanted the technology to build nuclear weapons “to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world: ‘Don’t mess with us.’”
He spoke in a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday and Wednesday as protesters took to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, demanding that last Friday’s disputed election result be overturned and confronting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the leadership’s biggest domestic challenge since the Islamic Revolution three decades ago.
Dr. ElBaradei has made similar points in the past, officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which he is director general, said Wednesday, but his latest remarks were less hedged with diplomatic caveats than previously.
Dr. ElBaradei, whose term of office is to expire in November, said in the interview that countries in possession of nuclear weapons were treated differently from others, citing the example of North Korea, which was invited to negotiations while Iraq under Saddam Hussein — which did not have a nuclear capacity — was “pulverized.”
“It is my gut feeling that Iran would like to have the technology to enable it to have nuclear weapons,” Dr. ElBaradei said in the interview at the organization’s headquarters in Vienna.
“They want to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world, ‘Don’t mess with us,’ ” he said, urging outside powers to engage with Iran to remove the incentive for making a bomb.
He said he believed that Iran’s “ultimate aim” was to be “recognized as a major power in the Middle East.”
Nuclear weapons technology, he said, was “the road to get that recognition, to get that power and prestige.
“It is also an insurance policy against what they have heard in the past about regime change.”
Granted, the new IAEA chief has staked out a different position, but considering how uncooperative Iran has been with the IAEA and the rest of the world and how non-transparent its nuclear program is, I'd say I'm with ElBaradei on this one.
"Gut Feeling"!
Oh, yeah, we've seen how well a leader (Bush) does when relying on gut feelings.
Lots of gut feelings going around...
Obama's July 7 Moscow speech:
"...That's why we should be united in opposing North Korea's efforts to become a nuclear power, and opposing Iran's efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon..."
Sooner or later you and your talking points will have to come to grips with the fact that Bush is no longer in office.
Facts not indegestion
Christian firstly thanks for taking the time to reply.
I have a lot of time for El Baradei and if international nuclear proliferation policy was to be based on anyone’s gut feelings I would trust his more than most. I wish he and Blix had been listened to a little more before the invasion of Iraq.
I would fully agree with his other comments and if I were an Iranian leader I would definitely be looking to become a nuclear power as the only affordable protection against the US & Israel. However even his very expert gut feeling is not enough to justify this continuous drip of comments like yours that lead readers who are un aware that there is NO evidence to support this wide spread American view and those who know better should not keep parroting it as if it were fact.
My, significantly less expert, gut feeling is Iran would like to have all the technology and manufacturing capacity in place to quickly go nuclear if some paranoid and aggressive state – read Israel or the US – looked like they might get violent. I personally think both have already behaved in a manner that would lead Iran and many other states to view a nuclear deterrent as an essential.
Agreed
American-Russian interests don't converge nearly as much as general opinion would have us believe.
These agreements are either symbolic or impotent. Personally, I think reducing the nuclear weapons is more in Russian interest than ours and this makes the entire effort something of a giveaway with limited if any tangible benefit.
No other aspiring nuclear power will be dissuaded by these moves and all we have done is lower our numbers and limited our flexibility (even if it seems the "limited" flexibility is superficial due to the numbers remaining after implementation).
Why bother?
Ukraine Gas
The Russian-Ukrainian gas issues are primarily of the nature of commercial disputes, though there are certainly political elements in play. If you get into a commercial dispute about debts or property taken without payment with your gas utility, or any other business with whom you transact, you will probably find that it doesn't work so well for you, either.
Given the uncertainty still
Given the uncertainty still surrounding Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan and the insecurity of supply routes through Pakistan, it’s nice to have another option; but we are now directly at the mercy of Russia
We've got to wrap up our afghan military program as fast as we can and get out of there.
We can't very well turn down the russian offer because all our other routes are too unreliable. Depending on russia after what we did to them in afghanistan....
Pull out while we can.