Yevgenia Yuvcief (ph) of the Moscow Carnegie Center says even if Moscow is motivated by showing up the west, its dialogue with Iran is more practical than western attempts to isolate it.

NPR: Iran Refuses Key Condition in Russia Nuclear Talks

By starting a dialogue with the West, it hopes to ease the intense international pressure it's under.

BBC: High stakes game at Iran nuclear talks

It might, depending on diplomatic manoeuvring, open a channel of dialogue with the West, perhaps to European governments if not to the United States.

ECONOMIST: The Palestinians

Those who want a dialogue with the West say it will be far easier to do so under the umbrella of the region's Islamist regimes, with whom the Obama administration is now engaged, than via the Palestinian Authority over which Mr Abbas presides in the West Bank.

ECONOMIST: The Palestinians

The report, Islam and the West: Annual Report on the State of Dialogue, includes a comprehensive media study that found the media in both Muslim majority countries and non-Muslim majority countries are more neutral about their own side than about the other side.

FORBES: Islam And The West -- What About The 'Other'?