At the request of my boy Buckeyenewshawk (who you should be reading, despite his being a few big steps to the left of this blog), here are some thoughts on US/Russia relations. I don't often agree with Matt Yglesias, but focusing on the things we can do, like nuclear disarmament, is probably a good goal for this meeting. Christian Brose at the indispensible Shadow Government agrees, but strikes a more thoughtful note:
That said, let’s be honest about what that means for our interests: It means that Obama has just invested a lot of time and effort to secure an agreement to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles to a level that could still annihilate the world several times over. This may be an achievable goal, but it is hardly a pressing one -- not when Iran is speeding toward a weapon of its own, and the United States and Russia cannot seem to find much agreement on how to proceed on that.
The post continues to talk about the reasons why agreement on Iran is going to be difficult to reach, and it comes down to gas:
Right now, Moscow benefits from Iran’s isolation from the West. Not only are Iran’s formidable gas reserves not accessible to European users, preserving Russia as the Continent’s major supplier, but alternate routes for Central Asian energy that could traverse Iran are also not possible.
There are a lot of wheels turning here, but it's important not to get too excited about nuclear disarmament. There's a lot of other stuff to worry about.
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