Russia Refuses New Iran Sanctions

By Cernig

The fallout from the new Iran NIE continues. First the credibility of the War Party's pundits disappeared, mostly due to their own pouty-lipped paranoid conspiracy theories as they demanded a do-over. Then Israel realised America wouldn't let the tail wag the dog. Now Bush's insistence on staying the course even when the course is the wrong one has been thrown into the trashcan.

Despite strong support from NATO allies in the wake of a new U.S. intelligence report that concludes Iran actually stopped atomic weapons development in 2003, the top U.S. diplomat was unable to persuade Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the urgency of fresh sanctions.

Rice said her talks with Lavrov were ``an extension of other conversations we have had,'' suggesting the two didn't see eye to eye.

``So it was a continuation of that discussion and a recommitment to our two-track approach,'' Rice said at a news conference, referring to sanctions and diplomacy.

...After seeing Rice at NATO, Lavrov told reporters: ``It fully confirms the information that we have: that there is no military element in their nuclear program. We hope very much that these negotiations with Iran will continue.''

You have to imagine that if both Russian and U.S. intelligence agree on something that had already been indicated by the IAEA, that constitutes a considerable preponderance of knowledgeable opinion. The Chinese seem to think so. last week they were all for new sanctions, now it looks like they will refuse to back any bid for a third U.N. Security Council resolution.