Despite having announced an official deal with China last week, US officials today admitted that all the details on anti-Iran sanctions still haven’t been ironed out with the Chinese government, and that it will be one of the major topics of discussion in the high level talks coming up this week.
Indeed, one official said that China had only agreed in the most vague of ways, and that the two sides remain sharply at odds over the issue. The US still has “substantial work,” one official admitted, which would have to include convincing China of every single individual and company to be targeted.
Incredibly enough, though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the China “deal” on Tuesday there still has been virtually no public comment from China indicating any change in their long-standing position that diplomacy must come first and foremost. Now it seems that position hasn’t changed in any serious way and that the announcement, as widely publicized as it was, doesn’t mean nearly as much as it seemed.
The other major foreign policy topic will by North Korea, as the US is hoping to put forward some sort of UN Security Council resolution against them and will need Chinese support to do so. China, the only nation in the world with even moderately good relations with North Korea, is likely to be a tough sell on such a move, however, particularly since North Korea warned it could lead to war with the south.
It hasn't yet occured to the USof A that they seem like a bumbling, inept, bankrupt collosus stumbling from one threat to the next while the rest of the world snickers. It would be so much more productive if they would attempt to work coorperatively rather than issuing edicts that no one listens to anymore.
Joke 3455.
I can't believe you're still counting.
Typical: Hillary becoming exercised over an attack on a South Korean vessel, but still, after forty three years is silent, as is The Congress, about the Israeli attack on The USS Liberty. And of course we must sanction Iran while Israel is the only country with nuclear weapons in The Middle East. Hmm. Get the pattern?
Just shows what a good ethnic lobby can do.
What an astonishing roller-coaster of good and bad news in less than 10 days.
Now that Chinese have been showing their wiser sides, I doubt they'll follow the obvious folly of the harsh Sanctioning on Iran prescribed by short-sighted warmongers
I hope they'll stay on that course……I believe most of the conscientious people of the world hope same
The Chinese Communists will not sell Iran out to the US–it is not in their interest to do so.
They will also at some point happily invite the US out of both Afghanistan and Pakistan should it come to that.
The interesting aspect is that, behind the scenes, they are working to cooperate with India as well in that very project.
There is no way the Chinese mainlanders will allow a US and NATO dominated Afghanistan on their doorstep.
That is the bottom line.
For the Russians meanwhile the US in Afghanistan is a win-win, which is why they keep allowing supplies to the US and NATO through Russian territory, however bad their relations in other areas.
Soviet or post-Soviet, Russians are not considered the world's greatest chess players for no reason.