As in the days of Noah....
Russia jilts six-power sanctions front against Iran’s nuclear defiance
Moscow’s actions spoke louder than the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic, anti-American rantings at the UN General Assembly Tuesday, Sept. 23 - despite the applause he won in the chamber.A foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said that Russia will not attend the meeting called for Thursday of the five UN Security Council permanent members’ foreign ministers plus Germany to approve more sanctions against Iran for its nuclear defiance. Using blunt, undiplomatic words, the ministry said: “We do not see any fire that requires us to toss everything aside and meet to discuss Iran's nuclear program in the middle of a packed week at the United Nations General Assembly.”Reflecting the post-Georgian conflict frictions besetting Russian-US relations, the statement harshly criticized Washington, saying: “It would be very desirable for Washington to finally decide what it wants in its relations with Moscow. If it wants to punish Russia, this is one thing. If it agrees we have common interests… that is another. To use the words of Condoleezza Rice, you can’t have it both ways.”DEBKAfile’s political sources report that Moscow’s action has buried the hopes publicly entertained by President George W. Bush and Israel’s Shimon Peres that a joint international diplomatic front would persuade Iran to give up its military nuclear aspirations and obey UN resolutions.The Russians are consistent in their new policy of promoting their influence in the anti-American sector of the Middle East. Saturday, Sept. 19, official spokesmen did not rule out the sale to Iran of advanced S-300 anti-air missiles, having just completed the delivery to Iran of 29 Tor-M1 missile batteries for deployment at its nuclear sites.Early Wednesday, Ahmadinejad proclaimed at the UN General Assembly: “The Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse” and “The American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road.”The Iranian president delivered his outrageous speech to the world, safe in the knowledge that his Islamic regime is backed by Russia.At the opposite end of the moral spectrum stood Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who demanded in her UN speech that Iran extradite five ex-officials to stand trial for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The attack killed 85 people, left 150 injured. Among the terrorists accused of the violent attack are ex-president Hashem Rafsanjani and a member of the Lebanese Hizballah, a group which Tehran uses for its anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish terrorist operations.