China joins Russia in Bitch-slapping Obama over Iran Sanctions

Iran, if it chooses, will become a holder of nuclear weapons.

The Chinese and Russians are not impressed with weakness.

Bush frittered away the US military in an absurd misapplication of resources through the disproportionate wasting of assets against illusory threats. Bush stood flat-footed while Congress looted the US Treasury and Wall Street decapitalized the World banking system.

Obama and the Democrats often bemoan what they inherited from Bush and the despicable Republicans. They inherited nothing, they won the Presidency and Congress at an auction. The Obama Administration would not exist were it not for the disgust, exasperation and contempt of the American people for what Republicanism, as practiced, not preached, did to reduce the welfare of the American State.

Obama, a naive visionary, honestly believed that smooth cool and agile activism would softly persuade the hardcore men in the mean political streets of World politics. That ain't happening baby.

The Russians and the Chinese know that there will not be a third US war in Asia. Not even the Americans could be that reckless, but if they were to be, the Chinese and Russians know that would end America as the great hegemonic.

No miracle is coming to the White House. The Chinese and Russians know that if Obama answers the bell, he is a punched out contender. He can finish a few more rounds, but cannot win the fight.

Russia and China beat the capitalists at their own game.

Be you on the far right or extreme left, take no glee. Make no mirth. History will be justifiably cruel in judging the fools and knaves that set the stage, the enabling stage hands, the supporters, the silent majority, the cheer leaders, that collectively and massively produced the current debacle of an American folly.

_________________________


In Face of Sanctions, China Premier Warms to Iran

By MARK LANDLER and EDWARD WONG NY Times
Published: October 15, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s effort to marshal global support for new sanctions against Iran hit another snag on Thursday, when China said it was seeking to increase cooperation and high-level exchanges with Iran, suggesting that it would not support additional punitive measures over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The comments by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao came a day after Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, said that sanctions were “premature” and two days after its foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said that threatening Iran while talks were under way would be “counterproductive.”

China and Russia are crucial to a muscular sanctions campaign, analysts said, because of their geopolitical and commercial links to Iran and because they have historically resisted sanctions in the United Nations Security Council, where each holds a veto.

But China has a deepening reliance on Iran for energy, and in a meeting with Iran’s first vice president, Mohammed Reza Rahimi, in the Great Hall of the People, Mr. Wen emphasized cooperation between the countries in energy and trade and greater coordination in international affairs, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Obama administration officials said they had long viewed China as being even more reluctant than Russia to act against Iran. China and Russia often act in unison, the officials said, with China typically following Russia’s lead in Security Council deliberations.

Still, the administration pointed to a recent statement signed by the two countries, as well as the United States, Britain, France and Germany, that threatened Iran with “consequences” if it did not negotiate over its nuclear program. Those countries presented the same message to Iran at talks in Geneva on Oct. 1.

Speaking of the Iranians, Ben Rhodes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said, “They’ve heard directly in those meetings in Geneva that all the parties involved expect them to take action.”

The administration was also buoyed by what it viewed as a shift in Russia’s position when President Dmitri A. Medvedev said after a meeting with President Obama at the United Nations last month that “sanctions rarely lead to positive results, but sometimes, sanctions are inevitable.” He reiterated his views to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Moscow on Tuesday, American officials said.

Yet some analysts said the administration should pay more attention to the first part of Mr. Medvedev’s statement than to the second. Russia has always had little faith in the value of sanctions, and his statement reaffirmed that skepticism.

“The administration overreacted to Medvedev’s comments,” said David J. Kramer, a trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “Putin’s comments are the ones to focus on. And I would bet that Lavrov made sure his comments were in sync with Putin’s.”

The latest statements from Russia and China appear to expose a rift with the United States about how to press Iran in the negotiations. The United States wants to back up diplomacy with a credible threat of sanctions; Russia and China believe such an approach would backfire by pushing Iran into a corner.

China will continue to play a “constructive role” in finding a peaceful solution, according to Xinhua. Russia says the focus should be solely on diplomacy.

On Monday, Iranian officials will meet in Vienna with officials of several countries to discuss details of an accord reached in Geneva to ship most of Iran’s publicly declared stockpile of lightly enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further enriched. It would then be returned to Iran, where it would fuel a research reactor in Tehran.

Iranian officials were in Beijing to attend a meeting of a regional security group that includes China and Russia. China has used the group to strengthen its ties.

This week, Mr. Wen and Mr. Putin attended the signing of a framework agreement by a state-run Chinese energy company and Gazprom of Russia to potentially build two pipelines carrying natural gas from Siberia to China.

China’s rapid growth has forced it to look at many foreign nations for energy. It sees Iran as a large provider of oil, and has ignored Western calls for sanctions or withdrawing business from other resource-rich nations.

It imports half its oil from the Middle East, and those shipping routes are secured by the United States. It will have to balance its desire to lock up energy supplies with its interest in ensuring those supplies can be shipped to China.

“The question is whether they can do this skillfully, because they haven’t been playing this global game for decades,” said Jon B. Alterman, the Middle East program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Edward Wong from Beijin