Multiple choice answers

A U.S. diplomat says Russia plans to "test" the new Obama administration.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Russia has become more rigid in dealing with the United States on issues like the Bush administration’s plans for a missile shield in Europe, and it looks ready to test the administration of President-elect Barack Obama, a senior American diplomat said Wednesday.

The diplomat, John Rood, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, said that talks in Moscow this week had failed to narrow differences between Russia and the United States on the missile shield plan and suggested that Russia was pausing to take stock of the Obama team.

“They have paused with the election of a new administration in the United States, and they are looking carefully at the position of the new team,” Mr. Rood told reporters.

“My assessment is that the Russians intend to test the mettle of the new administration and the new president,” he said.

Russia’s stance on the missile shield and other issues was less flexible, Mr. Rood said, than it had been in previous talks.

Russia rejects the American position that it needs to place interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic to shield Europe and the United States from potential missile strikes from Iran.

Except...there has been no indication that Obama supports such a "missile shield," has there? Seems to me that it is Rood who is "testing" the incoming administration. Or, actually, trying to put Obama in a position in which he'll look like he's backing down from a bullying Russia if he fails to wholeheartedly support a missile shield which may or may not even work (seems the stuff of fantasy to me).