Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Hillary Clinton Says Russia Recognizes Iranian Threat

The U.S. is now in sync with the rest of the world on diplomacy and frankly, that's a relief. Sometimes I get to thinking what John McCain, with Sarah Palin at his side, might be doing about Iran. I don't think McCain has the modern mind to tackle such issues. Palin just doesn't have the mind for such things as foreign policy. I'm sure many people don't appreciate just how delicate the task is to build international consensus on Iran.
Wrapping up a European tour in Moscow, Mrs Clinton said Russian leaders had in private said they were ready to act if Tehran did not meet its obligations.
But Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, on a visit to China, said it was too early to talk about sanctions on Iran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that threats of sanctions were counter-productive.
Iran denies allegations by the US, EU and Israel that it is trying to build the bomb under cover of a civilian nuclear energy programme.
Mrs Clinton told the BBC on Wednesday that Russia in the past six months had "moved tremendously" to acknowledge the threat of Iran's programme. BBC
Watch the video here.
Hillary also spoke to university students, and it's evident that Obama and the state department are on the same page:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday challenged Russians to open up their political system and embrace diversity and dissent, saying that Cold War-era thinking would limit their prosperity in the 21st century.

Clinton spoke to university students in Moscow and also in Kazan, the capital of Russia's religiously and ethnically diverse republic of Tatarstan. These informal meetings, which wrapped up a five-day tour of Europe, were aimed at helping redefine U.S.-Russia relations.

Clinton appeared taken with oil-rich Tatarstan, where a mosque and church stand side by side inside the Kazan Kremlin. She talked with students about how their republic, with a moderate Muslim majority, could be a model for promoting religious tolerance.

"The level of religious tolerance and interfaith connection, the economic progress, the stability, is very impressive, but it also speaks to how we transfer these lessons," she said. NPR


Hillary on Russian radio:

Reporting from Moscow University:

No new sanctions on Iran for now. The color analysis is.... interesting: