President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met Tuesday with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Putin is said to have offered a way past the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. Mikhail Klimentyev/Ria Novosti, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWNU Editor: When it became known in the past few weeks that the White House was approaching the Russians to assist the West in stopping the Iranian nuclear program, long time readers of this blog understood immediately on why I said this was going to fail.
I am Russian by background, and I am fortunate to have many relatives in positions of influence in both Russia and the Ukraine .... and they have educated me well. As a result, I have a good idea on knowing what they are thinking most of the time.
So when the Russians leaked out President Obama's "secret letter" .... I just laughed because I could imagine both Russian PM Putin and President Medvedev laughing when they had received this "ultra superduper secret letter".
The reason why is simple. The Russians know that they have zero influence with Iran. Any Russian who reads and/or watches the Russian news knows that the Iranians are a pain to do business with. That they have never paid their bills to Russia on time, and that once a deal had been reached, renegotiation and discussion to change the deal had always followed.
What is incredulous to the Russians is that they see President Obama and his foreign policy team believing that the they have the power to influence a bunch of mullahs in Tehran. That a bunch of old religious zealots would actually listen to what President Medvedev may have to say about their nuclear program. Putin tried this in 2007, and it failed completely.
Sigh .... the reality is that the Russians do not want to touch the Iranian nuclear issue with a ten foot pole. And who would blame them.
The problem is that President Obama and his team have not figured this out.
Update: Krauthammer commented on this issue from last night's All Stars. These comments are worth repeating.
This is smart diplomacy? This is a debacle. The Russians dismissed it contemptuously.
Look, if we could get the Iranian nuclear program stopped with Russian's helping us in return for selling out the Poles and the Czechs on missile defense, I'm enough of a cynic and a realist to say we would do it the same way that Kissinger agreed to delegitimize and de-recognize Taiwan in return for a large strategic opening with China.
But Kissinger had it done. He had it wired. What happened here is it was leaked. The Russians have dismissed it. We end up being humiliated. We look weak in front of the Iranians, and we have left the Poles and Czechs out to dry in return for nothing.
The Czechs and the Poles went out on a limb, exposed themselves to Russian pressure, and we have shown that Eastern Europe is not as sovereign as it appears if the Russian influence is there, and we will acquiesce in what they consider their own sphere of influence.
This administration has prided itself, flattered itself on deploying smart diplomacy. "Smart diplomacy" is a meaningless idea, but if it has any meaning at all, it is not ever doing something as humiliating, amateurish, and stupid as this.