Curious development.
No honor among thieves.
rwood
Must have been late with a payment..................
???
So what did the insane Mullahs of Iran do to po Mother Russia?
Popcorn, anyone?
Am I the only one who thought there might have been a back room deal for Russia to help stabilize the Syria against Iran if the U.S. got out and stopped trying for Assad?
Sounds good to me.
Really I think we need to start a random mid-east bombing program. Just dispense with excuses or reasons. Just pick a random group, nation, or city and occasionally drop a load. Realistically, we will never be wrong.
I thought they were allies.
I’m thinking Russia now sees Iran as a regional competitor.
Maybe things are returning back to normal in Syria. I don’t think Iran was in Syria before before ISIS existed. Russia maybe telling them “it’s time for you to go”.
Note that Netanyahu and Putin have scheduled yet another meeting for Feb 21 in Moscow. They’re saying up front that the subject is Iran.
Also note that the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset is the son of Russian Christians, Yuli Edelstein. He’s also the #2 guy in the Likud.
WOW! Progress!!!
super duper!!
maybe Putin has finally realized how dangerous (and just plain troublesome) having Iranian army in Syria... really is.
From a purely Russian perspective, it will be FAR better to have the Russian bases on the coast and friendly-Assad in Damascus, WITHOUT any other strong foreign armies there (and especially not aggressively-oriented foreign forces like the Iranian dictatorship’s troops...they just create more and more troubles, problems..for Russia)
I think the Russians and Israelis have an understanding about the threat from Iran.
Fog of war. I have a tough time believing this.
The ayatollahs ain’t gonna like this.
F’em.
5.56mm
FYI
Very interesting. A lot of tension over there between the US, Israel, Syria, Russia and Iran; plus the Kurdish Independence Forces, and the Turks massed on the border.
Syria’s Bashar Assad has a mutual defense pact with Iran but he also invited 50,000 Russian personnel to help defeat the opposition forces. I had a suspicion that Russia wants a ‘clean’ deal with Syria and Iran separately, but doesn’t want Iran inside Syria - it makes dealing with Syria more difficult.
I also wonder how much of this is the result of pressure from Israel and the US alliance, or whether Iran is double dealing and threatening Russian forces in some ways. Certainly because Israel has been attacking Iranian positions in Syria, that is an indirect threat to Russia who already lost at least one plane in a case of mistaken identity.
I also figure if Russia allows the precedent of Iranian forces, then Turkey is going to be emboldened and the last thing Russia needs are all these countries pushing inward. It would be a good thing if Iran could be shut down - they are making a mess of the whole region; of course they are supporting Hezbullah in Lebanon but they are also the people who trained and deployed the IEDs in Iraq that have killed and maimed thousands of US servicepeople. Obama was such a schmuck for making a deal with them - and made it worse by giving them all the bribe cash and then making the deal a secret, making side deals that nullify aspects of the secret deal...
And over it all, the future of Syria and Assad to consider - what kind of price Assad pays to stay in power? Having his country a laundry-mat for Iranian smuggling; split in pieces by Kurdish independence, occupied by Turkey, defended (sort of) by Russia (who can’t attack Turkey without risking a NATO response), and Israeli and all the armed militias. At some point Assad has to make a choice. Iran? Russia? Deal with Israel?
Head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh criticized Moscow, saying, “If the S-300 systems in Syria operated correctly, the Israeli military would be unable to easily conduct airstrikes on Syria.” He went on to speculate that there seems to be coordination between the attacks and Russian-provided air defenses deployed in Syria.
Iranian public opinion, which has always been sensitive toward Tehran’s ties with Moscow, was further alarmed when Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in a Jan. 26 interview that Israel’s security is a top priority for Russia, adding that he doesn’t see Iran and Russia as allies in Syria.