Well, the first returns are in from Maximum Leader's recent summit with his old soulmate, V. Putin. Russia and Iran have just inked a deal arranging for
Russia to provide nuclear fuel for Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant.
Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh and Russian Atomic Energy Agency chief Alexander Rumyantsev signed the agreement at the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The signing, which was delayed by a day, came after the two senior officials toured the $800 million complex.
"Today, a very important development occurred, and that was the protocol on returning nuclear fuel, which we signed together. In the next few weeks many Russian technicians will arrive in Bushehr" to finish the plant, Rumyantsev said after the signing.
The Bush administration continues to behave as though America's post-Cold War international hegemony remains intact. That very swagger, the notion that the rest of the world must comply with each American demand, regardless of the self-interest of other nations, is perhaps the most counterproductive course for maintaining just that hegemony. In the face of global bully-boy behavior, new alignments of resistance are inevitable. Some will be quiet, like the ASEAN Plus Three economic grouping that is developing in Asia. And some will represent a gauntlet tossed down, an unmistakable challenge.