Israel Media Report - With Russian and Chinese backing, Iran continues to play tough

The two countries do not seem to be budging in their opposition to any intervention in Syria, despite the daily reports of new massacres. Iran seems to be betting on receiving the same level of backing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arriving in Beijing. 

Iran is certainly acting very confident all of a sudden. Yesterday it's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency was accusing the IAEA of being a subcontractor for the CIA and Mossad, today they are accusing the august personage of the European Union's foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton of being a ditherer. No less.

The charge was contained in a letter by Iran’s National Security Council head and chief negotiator Saeed Jalili to Ashton (which was promptly leaked to the media) in which he said that “the other side’s delay in holding meetings between deputies and experts put into question their determination to hold positive negotiations in Moscow.” The nub of Jalili's complaint was that Ashton's staff apparently disputed the need for holding preliminary talks on the protocol and agenda of the third round of P5+1 talks scheduled to take place in ten days time in Moscow. But his veiled threat to cancel the talks, which are to take place only thirteen days before much more damaging EU sanctions on the export of Iranian oil come into effect, is supreme brinkmanship.

Backing up Jalili was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said yesterday that "following the Baghdad talks and based on the agreement reached there,” his government had "pursued and requested the continuation of negotiations at the level of Ashton’s deputies and the secretary of our country’s Supreme National Security Council, and no result has yielded. We believe that the West is after concocting excuses and wasting time.”

Only a couple of weeks ago, just before the previous round of talks in Baghdad, and following IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano’s surprise visit to Tehran, both the Iranians and their international interlocutors were predicting a breakthrough, a deal on limiting uranium enrichment and a new expanded protocol for IAEA inspection at Iran's nuclear development centers. Now the talks are in jeopardy and the understandings on the inspectors have come to nothing. Do the Iranians believe their own propaganda about how their economy is flourishing despite the sanctions?

Tomorrow, as the IAEA and the Iranians get down to serious talks in Vienna, we will see whether this is just bluster that precedes a humbling diplomatic climb-down, to be replicated again in Moscow later this month. That could be the case, but it is interesting to note where Ahmadinejad was when he castigated Ashton – at a regional summit in Beijing where he met both Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave him assurances that Russia would defend Iran's right to continue enriching uranium.

With two powers, both wielding veto rights in the UN Security Council, embracing Ahmadinejad and resolutely defending the survival of Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus (another of Iran's strategic assets), there may be grounds to believe that China and Russia can face down the West. The two countries do not seem to be budging in their opposition to any foreign intervention in Syria, despite the daily reports of new massacres being carried out by Assad's goons. Iran seems to be betting on receiving the same level of backing.