"Moscow Not Ready to Back Iran Strategy"
Moscow is not ready to back sanctions against Iran for pursuing nuclear weapons.
This is not the same as saying Moscow is not backing an Iran strategy. It is a sign that Moscow is not willing to back our Iran strategy.
Do not become confused (as one of my old drill sergeants loved to say). Moscow has an Iran strategy. It consists of complicating our life and ensnaring us in legalities to ensure that threats to us develop. The Russians pine for their glory days and anything that could harm us still unfortunately resonates in their soul.
So cut the Gordian Knot and bypass the UN on this problem:
The UN was supposed to be a tool to enhance collective security against threats to the peace--not a shield to prevent collective security against those threats. The thugs of the world use the rules to entangle us in legal knots so we cannot use our power to stop them.
The Russians (and Chinese) will not cry for long or with much feeling if we are hit with an Iranian-built nuke.
Cut the Gordian Knot and deal with Iran outside the UN. Nobody else will fight for our interests and safety.
UPDATE: Russia's strategy is a "two-stage" plan according to this. If I may summarize, in stage one the IAEA will have debate about referring this to the UNSC, but without actually voting to refer to the UNSC. The second part of their strategy is quite literally the "two-stage" part when Iran announces it has intermediate-range ballistic missiles loaded with nukes. At that stage the esteeemed diplomats of the international community commend themselves for a really splendid job of trying, say talks are pointless and action impossible (what with the nutjobs having nukes, don't you know?), and then get hard at work on writing the multi-volume cloth-bound report festooned with bright ribbons and lots of official wax seals to go in Kofi Annan's personal library.
