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ARTICLE: "Iran to Be Reported To Security Council: U.S. Wins Backing Of Russia, China," by Kevin Sullivan and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, 31 January 2006, p. A1.
It seems that Russia and China wanted Iran basically signed up to Moscow's proposal to enrich uranium for Tehran before they agreed to report Iran to the UN Security Council--and then pushing that referral back to March.
What I see Beijing and Moscow saying by this: this is our best deal, take it or we'll go along with the Americans and elevate this to the UN, and you know where that ends up going, so let's end it here and keep this package largely managed by the Russians instead of the West.
Pretty slick by the Russians and Chinese, and very reminiscent of how the Chinese team played the "New Map" wargame back in June of 2005: when presented with a problem, they kept it from being their problem alone and they prevented it from being America's problem alone, and so by keeping it sort of everybody's problem, the end result was that China seemed to get its way over time. Here, my definition of that would be: no isolation of Iran, Iran gets to pursue nuclear energy and Russia's mostly in charge of that, and China's energy ties to Iran are preserved.
From our perspective, what Russia and China are doing is just fine, because it keeps the situation from being ours to own at a time when the military option is truly unrealistic. That will change in 2-3 years.
Then again, so will a lot of things.
Full article found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013000295.html
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