It appears Russia has decided to take the vanguard to make an end run around the latest round of economic sanctions on Iran. The Jamestown Foundation reports:

On July 14 in Moscow, Russian Energy Minister, Sergei Shmatko, and Iran’s Oil Minister, Masoud Mirkazemi, announced ambitious plans for bilateral cooperation, short-term and long-term. If implemented, these would circumvent two sets of sanctions imposed (outside the UN Security Council) by the United States and other Western countries: sanctions against companies that supply gasoline and other refined oil products to Iran and against those that invest in Iran’s energy sector.

Moscow hosted the Iranian delegation barely two weeks after the enactment of sanctions by the US, EU, and other Western governments against deliveries of oil products (most critically, gasoline) to Iran. The companies Shell, BP, and Total have already stopped such sales, with other Western companies certain to follow suit.

Shmatko, however, announced the opposite intention at the joint news conference with Mirkazemi in Moscow: “Russian companies are prepared to perform deliveries of petroleum products to Iran….The sanctions in no way affect cooperation between Russia and Iran” (Interfax, July 14).

These calculated words signal to Washington (as the main interested party) that Moscow reserves a free hand on this issue. Russia would decide for itself whether, or when and on what conditions, to comply with this set of sanctions or not.

Somebody in Washington has got to wake up to the fact that all these sanction regimes serve to do is limit the economic opportunities of the US and like-minded nations and create opportunities for adversaries. And, in a world where other major powers are emerging and many perceive the US to be on the decline, the incentives for sanction busting are merely increased.

Inspiring and unsettling at the same time:

My intuition tells me Iran has reached a tipping point, but which way it will tip is still not known. Either it will tip towards more freedom (though not necessarily objectively free or democratic by Western standards) or it will tip towards something more like a Taliban-style authoritarian theocracy. Pray the Iranians get the former and not the latter.

Secretary Gates offered some opinions on striking Iran to prevent Tehran from getting the bomb:

Using U.S. military might to coerce Iran to halt its nuclear program would yield only temporary results, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday, adding that sanctions make more sense.

The only way to eliminate Iran’s determination to have nuclear weapons is for Tehran to make that decision itself, Gates told Senate appropriators.

“Even a military attack will only buy us time and send the program deeper and more covert,” he said.

Instead, he said that the United States and its allies must convince Iran that its nuclear ambitions will spark an arms race that will leave the country less secure.

Since we’re in no position to go heavy in another war of counter-proliferation, Secretary Gates is right. Strikes would temporarily delay Tehran’s march toward the bomb, but it wouldn’t stop it. Given Iran’s fanatical world view, the only reliable answer is probably forcible regime change, and no one is prepared to go there (and rightly so).

I don’t believe that the threat of an arms race scares anyone in the region, especially Tehran. Iran clearly wants nuclear weapons to boost their regional and international prestige and leverage over Israel. As far as prestige is concerned, this is pure fantasy because going nuclear has done little for Pakistan’s international image and has arguably increase international pressure on Lahore.

Talk to your enemies and ignore your friends.

Well, it is change.

US military speeding help to Mexico: admiral

The United States is working to rush assistance to Mexico as it fights violent drug cartels, including equipment to help authorities track the narcotics mafia, the top US military officer said.

“We’re all working very hard to move the capabilities that are desirable to Mexico as quickly as we can,” Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters late Friday from his aircraft after holding talks in Mexico.

“We all have a sense of urgency about this,” he said.

During his meetings with the country’s military leadership, Mullen said he discussed how Washington could help in the battle against the powerful cartels, citing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) as a crucial element.

“ISR, that kind of capability is certainly a big part of it,” Mullen said, using a term that can refer to unmanned drones.

He said the emphasis would be on sharing intelligence “but in recognition that there are additional assets that could be brought to bear across the full ISR spectrum.”

With last year’s death toll from drug-related violence at 5,300 as well-financed cartels orchestrate a campaign of intimidation and kidnappings, the crisis over the border has become a serious national security concern for the United States.

U.S. says Chinese vessels harassed Navy ship

The United States on Monday urged China to observe international maritime rules after the Pentagon said five Chinese ships, including a naval vessel, harassed a U.S. Navy ship in international waters.

The Chinese vessels “shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity” to the USNS Impeccable on Sunday, with one vessel coming within 25 feet of the U.S. ship, a Defense Department statement said.

The American ship, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel with a crew of civilian contractors, was conducting routine operations in the South China Sea 75 miles south of Hainan Island, the Pentagon said.

“Our ships operate fairly regularly in international waters where these incidents took place,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a news conference.

“We are going to continue to operate in those international waters and we expect the Chinese to observe international laws around them.”

The U.S. embassy in Beijing lodged a weekend protest with the Chinese government, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. U.S. defense policy officials on Monday also reiterated the protest to China’s defense attache in Washington.

Russians push for global disarmament talks

Russia’s foreign minister called Saturday for an end to a decade of failure in global disarmament talks, seeking to build on an upbeat meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sergey Lavrov said a stalemate at the Conference on Disarmament on issues from atomic bombs to space weapons can be broken now that the U.S. administration is “in favor of multilateral approaches to the maintenance of international security and disarmament.”

“The right moment has come today, for the first time after the end of the Cold War, for making real progress in resuming the global disarmament process on a broad agenda,” Lavrov told the 65-nation body.

The conference has failed to produce anything of substance since completing the nuclear weapons test-ban treaty in the mid-1990s. Confidence in the body was shattered in the early years of George W. Bush’s administration, when the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and from six years of talks on a biological weapons ban.

Lavrov’s tone was markedly different from his last appearance here a year ago, when Russia joined China in challenging the U.S. to eliminate space arms, including defensive shields, and largely ignored Washington’s call for all countries to halt production on the fissile material needed for making atomic bombs.

Neither proposal gained much headway, with the diplomatic game largely reflecting the poor understanding between the two superpowers during the last years of the Bush administration.

The United States has labeled the space weapons offer a political ploy to gain a military advantage because it would prohibit an American missile interceptor system from being installed in the Czech Republic and Poland. Meanwhile, Chinese and Russian ground-based missiles that can fire into space would not be covered in the plan, which also says nothing of normal satellites that can be used as weapons against other satellites.

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Mullen on Iran: Nuke weapon capability exists

The top U.S. military official said Sunday that Iran has sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon, declaring it would be a “very, very bad outcome” should Tehran move forward with a bomb.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered the assessment when questioned in a broadcast interview about a recent report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog on the state of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which can create nuclear fuel and may be sufficiently advanced to produce the core of warheads.

Mullen was asked if Iran now had enough fissile material to make a bomb. He responded, “We think they do, quite frankly. And Iran having a nuclear weapon I’ve believed for a long time is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world.”

State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said Sunday that it was not possible say how much fissile material Iran has accumulated.

Mullen, Gates confident in pullout process

The top U.S. uniformed military official says he’s comfortable with the president’s decision on a troop pullout timetable from Iraq.

And Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he thinks it is “fairly remote” that conditions in Iraq will change enough to alter significantly President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” Adm. Mike Mullen says he was able to offer his best military advice to President Barack Obama. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman is reluctant to talk about “winning and losing” in Iraq. But he says the conditions are in place for the Baghdad government to successfully take control of the country.

Mullen says Obama listened extensively to the American military leadership and U.S. commanders in Iraq before announcing last week that the combat mission would end on Aug. 31, 2010.

JCS Chairman: North Korea watched closely

The U.S. is watching North Korea even more closely these days because of reports the North plans to test-fire a long-range missile.

The top U.S. military official says it’s an area of great concern. Adm. Mike Mullen says he would hope that North Korea would not be “provocative.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman notes that the North has launched missiles before. He says neither he nor Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made a recommendation about what to do if there is a launch. Mullen says any recommendations and policy decisions will come based on the timing and what the North does.

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So says Hans Blix:

Should we be worried? The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that the Iranians’ uranium enrichment programme is proceeding, though perhaps at a slower pace. Iran is not answering questions raised by western intelligence. The IAEA cannot exclude the possibility that the Iranian programme has military aspects. So, yes, there should be concern, but there is even more reason to be distressed that this has been going on for years in full view, yet has not been met with effective diplomacy.

The demands that Iran should accept ever more inspection are meaningless. They are not made to help Iran show its lack of weapons intentions but in the hope that convincing incriminating evidence will be found. However, if such evidence is not found it will – rightly – be said that even if there were no intention today to move to bomb-making, Iran could change its mind next year. The key point at issue is not Iran’s intentions but its development of an industrial-scale capability to enrich uranium. Once such capability exists – whether in Iran, Egypt, Turkey or Indonesia – the country would be a shorter time away from a bomb if it wanted to make one. The further countries in sensitive regions are from that capability the better.

Years have been lost to ineffective approaches. Europeans and backseat- driving Americans have demanded that Iran must suspend its enrichment programme before they are ready to dignify the country with direct negotiations. As Iran has simply continued to develop the programme it is Europe, not Iran, that has become eager for negotiations.

While Mr. Blix seems to be edging towards realism in his views, he still thinks President Obama’s plan for direct talks can save the day.

Me, not so much.

Stung by criticism, Senator Obama veers away with hard rudder from his statement he’d meet with Ahmadinejad:

Hedging his much-discussed offer to meet personally with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — now the encounter would be with “the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing, if and only if, it can advance the interests of the United States” — Mr. Obama fully embraced the Bush administration’s view that “the danger from Iran is grave.” He said “we will use all elements of American power to pressure Iran,” and he pledged, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon — everything.”

So, what’s Obama’s new plan? Read on:

In essence, Mr. Obama promises an improved version of the Bush administration’s three-year-old strategy of offering, in conjunction with European allies and Russia, economic and political favors to Iran in exchange for an end to its nuclear program and threatening it with sanctions if it refuses. Mr. Obama would have the United States join the Europeans in having direct discussions with Tehran, and perhaps he would agree to bigger incentives. In exchange, he would seek European and U.N. Security Council support for far tougher sanctions than the Bush administration has obtained — such as a ban on Iranian gasoline imports, which is probably the strongest measure available short of war.

Never mind that Russia would probably block any sanctions with teeth, this new plan is still about the symptoms and ignores the big problem in Iran: the regime.

Aid-laden US ships give up on Burma

US warships laden with supplies for Burma’s cyclone victims will sail away after the junta refused their help, even after aid workers pleaded for more help to reach about a million survivors.

The US Navy said they would withdraw the four ships – carrying helicopters, amphibious vehicles and water purifying equipment – from off the coast after repeated attempts to convince the regime to let them in.

“But they have refused us each and every time. It is time for the USS Essex group to move on to its next mission,” Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of US Pacific Command, said in a statement.

“I am both saddened and frustrated to know that we have been in a position to help ease the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people and help mitigate further loss of life, but have been unable to do so because of the unrelenting position of the Burma military junta,” he added.

US-Iran naval contacts would be useful: US admiral

Contacts between the American and Iranian naval fleets would be useful once the Islamic Republic stopped backing violence in Iraq, the top US naval commander in the Middle East said in an interview published Wednesday.

Speaking to the Financial Times in Washington, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff said the United States and the Soviet Union had benefitted from naval contacts in the Cold War.

Asked whether the United States and Iran would benefit from such contacts, Cosgriff replied: “I think they would.”

He noted, however, that the United States could not have a “normal relationship” with Iran while the latter sponsored attacks on US forces in neighbouring Iraq.

Cosgriff said negotiations for a 1972 agreement between the United States and Soviet Union “created an opportunity for the two navies to talk … And then that led to other things — visits and those sorts of things.”

China says Japan navy ship to make breakthrough visit

China announced on Tuesday that it will host a visit by a Japanese navy ship this month as the two big Asian neighbours seek to ease tensions over military ambitions.

The visit will be the first by a vessel from Japan’s post-war Maritime Self-Defense Force, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news conference.

Japan’s 1947 constitution bans maintaining a military but has been held by successive governments to allow forces for self-defence alone.

“China and Japan should strive together to enhance exchanges between their two peoples to strengthen friendship,” Qin said. “This visit will help promote exchanges and cooperation between the two countries’ defence departments,” he added.

The two sides were still negotiating the date and other details of the ship visit, he said. A Chinese navy ship visited Japan in November.

I love polls, not because they’re all useful, but because it’s often thoroughly entertaining to examine the questions and methodology to divine the intent of the poll. Take, for example, the latest Gallup Poll broadcast under the headline, Americans Favor President Meeting With U.S. Enemies.

First, it’s amusingly transparent which presidential candidate this poll is intended to help and which it’s intended to hurt. But the best part is the questions.

15. Generally speaking, do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea for the president of the United States [sic] to meet with the president of Iran?

and

16. Generally speaking, do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea for the president of the United States [sic] to meet with leaders of countries that are considered enemies of the United States?

59% of respondents thought meeting with the president of Iran was a good idea and 67% thought meeting with unnamed leaders of enemies of the U.S. was a good idea. As an aside, a remarkably low 1-2% had no opinion, which is unheard of in most polling.

The issue is this: when the questions are presented this way, most respondents will fall back on the usually reasonable position that negotiation is preferable to posturing or, worse, war. However, the money question to ask that cuts to the real issue is: “Do you believe Iran can be persuaded through negotiation to permanently abandon its nuclear program, support for terrorist organzations and desire to destroy the state of Israel?”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for that question to get asked, though.