Weakness Breeds Agression

Since he became president, Obama has bent over backwards to appease the Russians, most notably by cancelling our Eastern European missile defense plans -- which Russia strenuously opposed -- without demanding or receiving any compensation. Right through to the latest nuclear agreement, the administration's dealings with Russia have projected U.S. weakness, and once again we see the results.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States and other Western nations on Thursday against imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program ... Countries facing Security Council sanctions "cannot under any circumstances be the subject of one-sided sanctions imposed by one or other government bypassing the Security Council", Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

Russia feels confident that it can tell the U.S. directly what it can and cannot do. It can assist a rogue state in obtaining nuclear weapons, in direct opposition to U.S. and European policy, and it can openly block anything from being done about it.

Moscow has indicated it could support broader sanctions but has stressed they must not harm the Iranian people.

I seriously doubt that the government of Russia would care even slightly if every single Iranian suddenly dropped dead. But it has no hesitation in using Iran as a weapon against U.S. interests. By "broader sanctions," it means completely ineffective sanctions that won't change anything. It doesn't even feel the need to tread lightly. And why should it, with Obama in charge of U.S. foreign policy?

Despite his criticism, Lavrov said that relations with the United States had shown clear signs of improvement, specifically with the signing of a nuclear-disarmament treaty that would reduce their deployed nuclear warheads by about 30 percent.

By "relations," Lavrov means Russia's strategic position vis-a-vis the U.S. With an inexperienced foreign policy incompetent in charge in the U.S., whose first instinct is appeasement, advancing Russia's interests at the expense of the U.S. became much easier. That's great for Russia, but not so great for us.