Russian leader open to new Iran nukes sanctions

Source: AP

Giving some ground on a top priority of President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that sanctions are rarely productive but he opened the door to tougher ones to halt Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

"In some cases, sanctions are inevitable," the Russian leader said after he and Obama held talks on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings.

Negotiations are scheduled for Oct. 1 between Iran and a group of six nations, including the U.S. and Russia, over its nuclear ambitions. Obama wants to pursue tougher sanctions if those meetings yield nothing. And yet Russia, which has close economic ties with Tehran, has stood in the way of stronger action against Iran in the past.


That made Medvedev's admittedly muted support for sanctions bigger news, and something that pleased the White House.

"Unfortunately, Iran has been violating too many of its international commitments," Obama said. "What we've discussed is how we can move in a positive direction that can resolve a potential crisis."



Read more: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/topnews/story/859975.html

"Unfortunately, Iran has been violating too many of its international commitments," Obama said.

Hopefully, someone will ask Pres. Obama to cite which international committments Iran has violated and how it has violated them. News reporters generally exercise too much respect for presidents especially on foreign policy pronouncements, so they don't ask probing questions when presidents make generalized claims such as this one. President Bush was not asked probing questions when he was making wild claims that Iraq had WMDs and it was vilating its international committments, which led to the disatrous Iraq war. History seems to be repeating itself. Those who don't learn from past mistakes are ill-fated to repeat them.

Besides, it's not the governments that will suffer, but the people. I find it ridiculous that the Obama government would want impose sanctions on the same Iranians/reformists who he supported during recent elections there.