South Ossetia or New York City: it's a difficult choice for the Bush administration

Is the White House willing to trade New York City for South Ossetia? It would seem so. AP reports:

A key civil nuclear agreement between Russia and the U.S. looks likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest amid mounting tensions over the fate of Georgia's breakaway republics.

The nuclear pact — signed last May — set the framework to give the U.S. access to Russian state-of-the-art nuclear technologies, while helping Russia establish an international nuclear fuel storage facility for spent fuel. Russia cannot achieve that goal without the deal, since the U.S. controls the vast majority of the world's nuclear fuel.

. . . the Bush administration . . . has backed the bill as a key part of its efforts to secure nuclear materials.

It would appear as if a top priority of the US government is no longer to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. Rather, having a futile Cold War with Rusisa over Georgia's borders takes precedence.

If Russia's nuclear materials are not secured, eventually terrorists will get them.