Cheney goes ballistic on Russia:
Topic: Bush Administraiton
This administration has a funny way of running its diplomacy. While the president and secretary of state are trying to get the U.N. Security Council to go along with issuing a Chapter IV resolution that would call for Iran to immediately cease its uranium enrichment program --- under pain of sanctions or worse --- Dick Cheney is in Lithuania firing broadsides at Vladimir Putin. I thought we sort of needed the Russians to go along with our plans for Iran (call me crazy!). Telling them that they're using their energy resources as "tools of intimidation or blackmail" against their neighbors isn't the way I would have gone about wooing them on to our side. [AP]

Of course, they are using their oil and gas for blackmail and Vladimir Putin does fancy himself a modern day Czar, but going into his backyard and telling him that isn't going to exactly get him to change his behavior. Once again we have this weird situation where the president is doing one thing and the other president is doing another thing. After all, it's W. that has to go to Petersburg in two months for the G-8 summit, not Cheney. And the Russians were already saying 'nix' to the sanctions plan, to even discussing Iran in the Security Council, so what do you think they're going to do now?

If the initial reaction by Mikhail Gorbachev, not a Putin guy, is any indication things are about to get more chilly between us. Gorby said, "Cheney's speech looks like a provocation and interference in Russia's internal affairs in terms of its content, form and place." Hmmm...does he really think so?

What I always wonder about is: does Cheney ever run any of this stuff by anyone in the president's office before he goes out and blurts it out? I'm not surprised that the administration's tone is getting more negative when it comes to Russia; I've been writing for months that W. & CO. appear to have gotten over the idea of the Russians being of any use in the Iran standoff, but actually coming out and lecturing Vlad in front of a bunch of leaders of Russia's former satellites really going that extra mile to be offensive.