18. februar 2005

Putin says Iran is not making nukes One guy, at least, seems optimistic about Iran's nuclear ambitions: President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was convinced Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon and that Russia would press ahead with nuclear cooperation with the Islamic Republic. Putin's defense of Iran, where Russia is building a nuclear power plant, comes in the face of U.S. concerns that Tehran could be using Russian know-how to covertly build a nuclear weapon. "The latest steps by Iran convince Russia that Iran indeed does not intend to produce nuclear weapons and we will continue to develop relations in all sectors, including peaceful atomic energy," Putin told Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani. "We hope Iran will strictly stick to all agreements with Russia or the international community," Putin said at the start of talks with Rohani at the Kremlin. Russia's hope-based foreign policy. I just can't believe it's in Putin's and Russia's interest to have a nuclear-armed Iran, even if they want to be a counterbalance to US influence in the Middle East. Russia has at least as dire problems with Islamofascists as the west, and Iran is a massive exporter of terrorism. So is Putin really convinced of the Mullah's good intentions, or does he believe Russia would have enough leverage to prevent the Mullahs from using nuclear technology to make weapons? I don't understand Putin's game here at all. Some things do not change. As Winston Churchill famously said in 1939: "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia.  It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But lesser known is what Churchill said next: "But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." In this case, however, I just don't see how it is in Russia's national interest to aid Iran go nuclear. That is where the riddle, mystery and enigma come in, presumably. 6:36:53 PM    comment []  trackback []

Beating the crap out of Greenpeace Via VodkaPundit: Priceless indeed! 6:38:21 AM    comment []  trackback []

Pajamas blogging, Al-Jazeera and Syria Omar of Iraq the Model discovers the power of pajamas: I was talking to Mohammed an hour ago and we both were feeling depressed because of the declining quality and quantity of posts on our blog and the deficiency of ideas for good posts that we're currently suffering from. I don't know whether you agree with us but we here can feel it. Then he suddenly said laughing "go wear your pajamas, maybe this will inspire you to write something"! Well, frankly speaking it did and once I went into my pajamas I felt a strange motivation for writing; writing anything, at least it encouraged me to write this stupid conversation between two bored brothers drinking tea and smoking cigarettes in the afternoon. I'm not claiming that my pajamas have magic in them but you know what? They do make a change! With new-found pajamas blogging power, Omar goes on to lambast al-Jazeera for a quite revealing online poll asking who is responsible for the assassination of Hariri: The list of choices included the following: Israeli agents, American agents, Lebanese rebels, Syrian rebels and "others".What's new! The 1st two choices are characteristic of Al_Jazeera and conspiracy theorists and of course it's not in any of these countries interest to kill a man who's somehow in support of their vision about the Syrian role in Lebanon but the next two choices make no sense at all, that's at least how I see it. Why would "Syrian rebels" (who by definition are supposed to be opposing their government) kill the man who's against the Syrian policies and the Syrian presence in Lebanon!? And why would the "Lebanese rebels" target a man who's currently not in power and considered himself part of the opposition!? So, there remains one choice which is "others" that I have no idea to whom Al-Jazeera was trying to refer to, maybe the Iraqi intelligence? The point I want to say here is that Al-Jazeera has omitted the only party that has the strong motives to perform such an attack which is the Syrian government and their allied terror groups of course. I personally strongly believe that Syria is involved in performing the attack or hiring some group to do it. Too cowardly to include the obvious culprits. For what it's worth, currently the result of the poll has Israeli agents at 19%, Syrian rebels 66%, US agents 7%, Lebanese rebels 4% and others 4%. The Lebanese people seems to be pretty certain that Syria was behind the killing, though. 1:43:32 AM    comment []  trackback []

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