Word: russia
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...Priority No. 2 for Rasmussen is Russia, which has always seen NATO's post-Cold War expansion as a threat to its own security. Rasmussen concedes that NATO needs to get better at explaining its intentions and convincing Moscow that there are areas of common interest - Afghanistan, ending the spread of weapons of mass destruction, piracy - on which the former adversaries can work together. In the long term he imagines a "true strategic partnership" between Russia and NATO. But he insists that the organization will remain open to new members - which potentially means Ukraine and Georgia, both of whom have...
...Persuading non-Americans that it is in their interest to do more in Afghanistan; finding common ground with Russia while conceding nothing to its neo-imperial ambitions - these are challenges that would daunt any politician. A keen runner and cyclist, Rasmussen has been known to invite Facebook friends (he has 34,636 of them) to exercise with him. He has remade his Facebook page in English, and says he wants to use it to give NATO a human face. There's nothing wrong with that. But his new job requires him to do a lot more than be friendly...
...considerable pressure to show that engagement with Iran produces results - but there may not be any by this fall, the unofficial deadline set by the Administration. If that prompts Obama to seek further sanctions via the U.N. or impose them unilaterally, however, the resulting divide between the West and Russia and China will work to Iran's advantage. New sanctions would also end immediate prospects for a diplomatic solution, because Iran has long declared that it won't negotiate in response to ultimatums. And a continuing stalemate would leave Obama facing either the possibility of an Israeli air strike...
...talks that included nonproliferation of nuclear weapons but omitted any mention of Iran's uranium-enrichment efforts, which have been the focus of Western anxiety. It's hardly the response Obama hoped for, but the U.S. and its five partners in the P5+1 negotiating group (France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China) went ahead and asked for a meeting with Tehran anyway - if for no other reason than to "test the proposition" that Iran is ready for dialogue, as State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley put it. (Read "How Obama Hopes to Restart Mideast Peace Talks...
...that even if Iran is ready to engage in a serious negotiating process, its ideas on everything from the agenda and time frame to the outline of an acceptable compromise will be markedly different from those of the U.S. and its allies. And this week's statements from Russia and China opposing any new sanctions highlight the international differences of opinion on Iran that will only make things harder. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin drove home that point in comments reported Friday, stressing that Moscow had no reason to doubt the peaceful intent of Iran's nuclear program...