Last week, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran would push forward to build 10 additional uranium enrichment plants it can use to make fissile materials for nuclear weapons.  The international community has been pressuring Iran to allow inspections of its facilities and to send its low-enriched waste materials out of the country for disposal, threatening sanctions if Iran does not comply.  Russia has been obstructing this pressure for years by selling Iran the technology it needs to use nuclear power, the military weapons it needs to protect it from Israeli strikes, and by voting to block sanctions int he UN security council, telling the world Iran is a peaceful nation which will use Russian technology only for social purposes.

Now, the world can see that Russia was lying and, at last, the Russians are beginning to see the peril of their lies as well. When the latest secret enrichment facility was discovered in Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency moved to censure the rogue state for lying to the world, and this time Russia joined the vote and so did China.

Reuters quoted an anonymous Russian diplomat:  “We will be thinking about sanctions but this is not an issue of the next few hours or weeks. We would rather have Iran cooperating more openly and consistently with the IAEA and showing clear steps to lift concerns — which are gaining greater foundation — than introducing sanctions against Iran.If there is a consensus on Iran sanctions, we will not stand aside.”

Even now, Russian diplomats will not speak on the record. Even now, they qualify their statements with words like “consensus” (meaning Russia may not support sanctions unless China does too) and amorphous time periods.  And yet, things have become so terrifying in Iran that not even Russia can avoid the fear.  Russia borders Iran, a nation with crazed fundamentalist government now bristling with Russian weapons and technology.  Those weapons could be used against Russia.

We’ve previously reported on how Iranians have gone into the streets chanting “death to Russia!” because Putin’s support for Ahmadinejad’s murderous band of thugs.  And now, the Iranian regime itself is turning against Russia.   Responding, Ahmadinejad stated:  “Russia made a mistake by backing the anti-Iran resolution and we believe that their analysis in this regard was incorrect.”

This is, unquestionably, the greatest foreign policy disaster in Russian history.  Not only has Russia alienated the entire civilized world by helping Iran develop the capability to build weapons of mass destruction, it has now been caught with its pants down and forced to acknowledge that it cannot control its Frankenstein monster, which may well turn and ravage Russia.  Did Vladimir Putin really think his nation, which has mercilessly repressed and slaughtered Muslims in the Caucasus region, could continue to curry favor with Iran?

And worst of all, the people of Russia just don’t care. Reuters reported that when Vladimir Putin took phone questions from his countrymen last week “foreign affairs were barely mentioned in a session dominated by domestic issues.”  Russians are content, as they always have been, to ignore the fact that their government is terrorizing their neighbors and the globe, interested only in their own comfort. There is no such thing as civic activism in Russia where the main body of the population is concerned, no opposition politics, no criticism of Putin in the parliament, not even when he takes actions which directly threaten Russian security.

Source: La Russophobe