PRESIDENT PUTIN, HELP OBAMA DEAL WITH ROGUE STATE IRAN

As American patriots, but also objective scholars, we cannot hide that our president´s deep domestic troubles are affecting his foreign policymaking.  The unending string of scandals, above all the Obamacare fiasco, is preoccupying the energies of both our executive and legislative branches. Our deep concern is that Iran must not be permitted to take advantage of the situation.  Russia has reason to feel the same concern.

There is surely no advantage to allowing Iran to become a Middle East North Korea.  Pipeline plays and lucrative trade with Iran are less important than preventing the rise of a rogue state in a highly incendiary part of the world.  Iran has large ambitions. Her Sunni neighbors, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, know it, and a nuclear, Shiite Iran would almost surely result in nuclear proliferation.

A U.S.-Israeli war to destroy the development of nuclear bomb facilities could also result in a dangerous escalation.  As with the Syria reactor in 2007, the U.S. does not control what Israel may do.   Following the appeal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we ask Mr. Putin to put pressure on Teheran´s mullahs as he did on Syria´s Assad to relinquish his WMD.

Recall that Watergate injured not just our own foreign policy-making, but Russo-American relations and superpowers´ détente.  Moreover, those in the Kremlin who tried to take advantage of America´s Vietnam quagmire pushed Russia into adventures with Cuba that could not be sustained;. Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia and South Yemen.  Together with Afghanistan they helped to drain and impoverish Russia.

History teaches us that both America and Russia, two superpowers with a great cultural heritage and legacy of Judeao-Christian ethics, need each other to maintain world order.  We do not approve of some reversals of Russian democracy that thrived under Boris Yeltsin, or the oppression of dissidents.  As much as we abhor Chechen terrorism, we are also concerned about some unexplained deaths of Kremlin critics. Yet we do believe that Mr. Putin´s leadership in foreign affairs has been by and large wise. He has turned Russia back towards its Christian roots and is viewed even by some American conservatives as the protector of Christians in the Middle East.  We know Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lobbying in Moscow and we join that effort.  Mr. Putin likely recognizes their similar problem with Islamist terrorism. He also fears, as we do, new and linked terrorist attacks on American and Russian respective homelands as happened both in Boston and Volgograd.  One Boston attacker was trained in Dagestan.

Until now, Teheran has been  clearly following North Korea´s game plan.  The mullahs have supported terrorism both in the Middle East – Hezbollah -- and in the Americas with the help of Syrian and Russian weapons.  While the North Koreans took advantage of Bush´s preoccupation with Iraq, and the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, the Iranians are taking advantage of a president weakened by the various scandals.  Mr. Putin should not trust the mullahs.  A nuclear Iran might also threaten Russia´s Middle East interests as North Korea threatens them in the Far East.  The sanctions must not be reduced before a genuinely verifiable agreement is reached that Iran can never make a bomb.  Perhaps Moscow is beginning to understand, as she agreed to  sell a nuclear reactor to Turkey,  supposedly to be operated by Russian engineers.

 Consequently, we hope that former combat veteran, John Kerry, who has developed a good relationship with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Lavrov, will follow French and Israeli toughness on the rocky path to peace