According to an AFP dispatch:
Russia warned Iran Monday to expect delays in launching the country's first atomic power station, adding to mounting pressure on Tehran to compromise with the international community over its controversial nuclear programme.
Amid signs of frustration in Moscow over Iran's combative stance, state contractor Atomstroiexport announced that Iranian financial problems mean a probable set-back in completing the power station at Bushehr in southern Iran. …
Russian engineers are close to finishing Bushehr, jewel in the crown of Iran's nuclear programme, but have repeatedly postponed delivery of atomic fuel and the start-up of the reactor. …
Under the latest timetable, fuel had been expected this month, with the reactor launch in September. ...
The three main Russian news agencies quoted an unnamed source close to the authorities accusing Iran of "abusing our constructive relations."
"We absolutely do not need Iran getting a nuclear bomb or the potential to make one," the "informed source" was quoted as saying. "We will not play any kind of anti-American games with them."
Let me add this: If the U.S. has skillful diplomats on the payroll, now is the time to send them into the game. The focus should be on Russia: Whatever Putin’s faults (and they are many and they are serious) surely he can be made to see that Russia’s future should not be as the junior, infidel partner to an aggressive, expansionist, radical Islamist, nuclear-armed Iran.
And Europeans need to be persuaded that if they want to prevent America and/or Israel from resorting to military measures against Iran later, the best thing they can do is ratchet up sanctions on Iran now, rather than take the view -- reminiscent of Chamberlain at Munich -- that a nuclear jihad would be no problem for them. Could Iran go nuclear without Russian aid? Yes, almost certainly. But anything that can be done to slow their progress toward the end zone is useful.
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