I need to recount the story of how (fairly recently) Secretaries Rice and Gates went to Moscow to meet Putin. They were kept waiting 45 minutes (this is a snub in some cultures) and the next day Putin flew to Tehran to sign a deal to not allow US forces to attack Iran from any Caspian Sea nation.
Maybe I am being dumb this afternoon. I do not even know what I can Google to find an authoritative news report of this incident. Maybe you all can help? I am going to bed.
Hrupmph!
This’ll get you started on the Moscow side.
When the United States transmitted its proposals on missile defense in writing in November, however, Russian officials promptly rejected them. From Moscow’s perspective, the formal U.S. proposals retracted the compromise positions discussed during the Gates-Rice visit and returned the negotiations to square one. Specifically, Moscow objected to the U.S. proposals on the grounds that the proposals overstated the Iranian threat and failed to give adequate recognition to Russia’s concern that the missile defense system is actually directed at Russia’s strategic missiles.
That’s diplomatese for “Fuck off”.
Not a great cite , but it discusses Putin’s Tehran trip:
The visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tehran this week has underscored the deepening gulf between Moscow and Washington on a range of issues, in particular the Bush administration’s threat of war against Iran over its nuclear programs.
Putin ignored pressure from the US to call off the trip—the first by a Russian or Soviet leader since Stalin’s wartime conference with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943. The decision amounted to a diplomatic slap in the face to the Bush administration, which has been pressing for the UN Security Council to adopt a third resolution imposing tougher sanctions aimed at further isolating Iran.
Nominally Putin was in Tehran to attend a meeting of the five Caspian Sea states—Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. The Russian president used the platform, however, to oppose military aggression against Iran. “Not only should we reject the use of force, but also the mention of force as a possibility. This is very important. We must not submit to other states in the case of aggression or some other kind of military action directed against one of the Caspian countries,” he said.
THank you both.
My internet is down, so you folks may not hear from me for a while. Not to worry.