A couple of small matters that were brewing while we were all preoccupied with the elections here in America ... let's start with Iran, okay?

Ali Larijani, Iran's Chief Nuclear Negotiator

During most of this month -- and it's only ten days old -- Russia has been trying to take out some key provisions included in the UN sanctions against Iran. And as of this afternoon, there were at least four and maybe five draft resolutions floating around with major differences from the draft resolution that I thought was "put to bed" with Russia's concurrence (or so I thought) a couple of days before our Midterm Elections.

I'd link you to the "latest" if I could identify which one was which at this stage. Be assured, I am working on that. Probably, this link to a compilation published a week ago will help.

But the Russian objections -- not to mention China's and, oh yes, Iran's -- are worth looking at. For that matter, the whole matter of sanctions against a country whose nuclear program has not been shown to be a "weapons program" is worth considering a lot closer now that "realists" are guiding Mr. Bush in his foreign policy.

The very fact that someone other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (still a worrisome and dangerous screwball) is sitting down and discussing the serious rationality of the whole issue with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov (left), should make all of the Western nations -- who are essentially trying to ward off a precipitous Israeli attack IMHO -- take serious note and maybe question the rationality of sanctions at this time themselves -- in particular, the US with half of its active military engaged next door to Iraq.

We threw sanctions on Iraq back in 1991 or so and backed them up with "no fly zones," UN inspections and harassment that didn't even permit Saddam Hussein to fly out of Baghdad ... and what did all of that buy us? Along came George Bush and invasion plans began to be thrown together in the Pentagon (long before 9/11, BTW) and those very restrictive sanctions are biting us in the ass right now as we are slowly learning that they didn't exactly win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people ... not to mention our bungled occupation since the invasion.

No, I believe that we're going to have to sit down and talk over the Iranian desire to have a nuclear program that includes (yes!) some level of enrichment of uranium and even think of coming up with a time-staged compromise that will have at least the UN Security Council in step with whatever is proposed for signature in 2007. Yes, I would want to carefully word any mention of the heavy water reactor at Arak. One of the more interesting by-products of heavy water reactors is ... uhh ... Plutonium.

But even the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (which Iran signed!) allows for that!

I'm not suggesting that we bend over and say "kick me!" ... only suggesting that during our preoccupation with politics, we have let Mr. Bolton and the neocons write a draft that, if signed, would put Iran in a tight corner. We can be tough and fair at the same time, can't we?

In the meantime, weren't Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's words today just a little familiar? He said something about our not being able "to do a damn thing on the nuclear issue" which reminds me of some things that the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said after our embassy staff was taken hostage back in 1979. Hmmm ... almost the same crazy words.

And the chants in the streets in Tehran sound familiar too, don't they? Have you heard "Death to America!" before?

I'm only suggesting that Americans put the elections behind us and begin to watch how the White House is dealing with the various aspects of a much larger problem.