In a recent interview, the eminent geo-strategist Ian Bremmer suggested that a “nuclear-armed Iran” is inevitable because, in an emerging “G-Zero World” where no single bloc of countries can dominate international affairs, the emerging powers can frustrate the West’s efforts to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. But recent years have given lie to this argument.
There’s few prices short of war the Kremlin will not pay to keep from losing its sole remaining Arab ally.
The Obama administration’s opposition to the alleged Russian arms sale is the result reflects a desire to weaken the Syrian regime’s ability to combat rebels armed by U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Russia’s recent solicitation of ExxonMobil and Norway’s Statoil to develop a field of oil shale in Siberia follows a pattern of President Putin.
In the chorus of condemnation that resounded after the massacre, Russia’s voice stood out for its glaring ambiguity.
That NATO missile defense in Europe as protection from Iran, not Russia, is a tough sell.
A world power equips a dictatorship that kills, tortures, and imprisons unarmed protesters. No, it’s not only Russia’s relationship to Syria. It’s also the United States when it comes to Bahrain. Two days after a U.S. coalition of national groups asked the Obama administration to publicly call for Bahrain to release a human rights defender on hunger strike, the White House issued a press statement expressing “concern for the well-being of jailed activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja.”
Determined to lift the economic siege and avoid a potential conflict, Iran has shown an increasing interest in reviving talks. Not only has Iran welcomed successive rounds of IAEA visit to its nuclear facilities, but it has also shown interest in engaging in substantive talks, with Turkey and Russia acting as primary interlocutors. It is high time for the West to rethink the sanctions track and craft a real strategy by finally giving true diplomacy a chance. This might be our last opportunity to avoid tragedy.
In September 2011, Vladimir Putin announced a program to begin offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Russian Arctic. Putin is also interested in creating new sea terminals, which he said would rival the Suez and Panama Canals. In 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas lay beneath the Arctic Seas. The United States, Canada, Norway, Greenland, and Russia, which make up the Arctic 5, are each interested in tapping these Arctic energy reserves.
Despite the widespread international denunciation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the government in Damascus continues to crack down hard on the country’s growing domestic opposition. “They are moving in a direction that completely shows that they are absolutely out of touch,” says Yasser Tabbara, the secretary general of the Syrian National Council (SNC), a government opposition group. Other countries in the region have experienced revolutions, but Syria remains in a state of uncertainty. At the UN, China and Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government’s actions, making a coordinated international response even more difficult.