Vladimir Putin is in Iran. And events there are going to make the Bomb Iran Contingent’s heads explode.
The leaders of the five countries that border the Caspian Sea pledged at a conference in Tehran Tuesday not to allow their territory to be used for attacks on any of the others, a declaration that signals the opposition of Iran’s neighbors to any military action by the United States or its allies over that country’s nuclear program.
“The parties underline that under no circumstances would they allow other nations to use their territory for waging aggression or other military action against any of the parties,” stated the declaration by the leaders of Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
As Scooby-Doo would say, “Ruh-roh.”
The five countries also declared that any country that is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty can “carry out research and can use nuclear energy for peaceful means without discrimination.”
That’s what the treaty says anyway.
The Russian president has said there is no evidence Iran’s nuclear program has a military dimension.
This isn’t exactly what Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Joe Lieberman, and Dick Cheney want to hear. I’m ususally optimistic but I think this is going to make these people desperate and make it more likely that Israel will attack Iran (rather than the U.S.).
I’m not sure Israel is that crazy. They’d be wiped off the map and the US would be in no position to do a thing about it.
Who is going to wipe them off the map?
good question. I mean, if worst came to worst, Israel could nuke any challengers.
jeez, i’ve done it again, eh? I’m probably on ANOTHER watch list for writing that.
I wouldn’t worry about it, I’ve had an FBI file for 29 years. I started young.
🙂
Russia, if any of the Russian advisors on the ground end up being killed by an Israeli attack. Israel has long been a major pain in the ass for the Russians and remains so today, and there is no Russian Israel lobby buying members of the Duma. The Russian arsenal is more than capable of wiping us off the map, to say nothing of a geographic flyspeck like the State of Israel, and obliterating Israel would instantly make Russia the favorite nation of the oil-bearing Arab world. We would be left with the choice of either ending the world or getting used to filling up our gas tanks at the Gazprom station on the corner.
The Russians are going out of their way to make clear that Iran is part of their sphere of interest. That message may not be clear to our idiot president, but the cold war veterans he is surrounded by can read that signal loud and clear. If Cheney wants to pound Iran, he is going to have to do it quickly before Russo-Iranian cooperation leads to the presence of substantial Russian assets on the ground. And if Cheney does pound Iran, the Russians will undoubtedly pour a lot of resources into rebuilding Iran and maintaining a friendly client state there.
Russia wouldn’t attack Israel. That’s ridiculous.
But Iran is capable of attacking Israel. Israelis from all political parties beating the drum for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities need a history lesson.
Persian mathematicians invented algebra.
Both the US and Israel misunderestimate the consequences of an attack on Iran if their rhetoric is matched by stupid actions. Except for some stupid action, neither the US nor Israel will attack Iran. On the other hand, stupid actions is what the US-Israel relationship has been all about, isn’t it?
Iran might attack Israel with missiles. If they do, they will do it once and be deeply sorry. No. They will use proxies to retaliate. And they will get the better of that war.
Is it? Who would stop them? And if an unprovoked attack by Israel on Iran killed Russian nationals, destroyed Russian assets, and threatened Russian interests, who could gainsay them? It would be an act of war, pure and simple, and neither Israel nor Israel’s only ally has the strength to counter the Russian Federation.
The only countries playing games here are the US and Israel. Everyone else is deadly serious about breaking US hegemony and establishing their own. Russian support of the Security Council resolution authorizing this war is incomprehensible unless they were hoping we would burn ourselves out in Iraq. It is plain that Putin wants to reassert Russia’s traditional control over its southern flank, and Bush has handed him the opportunity of a lifetime.
And yes, it probably is far-fetched to expect a direct Russian attack on Israel. However, the Russians are now the world’s greatest military power, and it is not at all far-fetched to expect that Israeli F-16s and F-15s could be met by Russian MiG-33s and air defense units operating on behalf of their Iranian ally. The Russians would have to stand by if the Americans attacked Iran, but they don’t have to take that crap from Israel.
The strategic disaster foisted on the United States by the Neocon Bush-Cheney clique is rapidly careering to the end-game, in which for the time being, the United States is pushed out of the Middle East, or pushed back to its defensive perimeter states in the lower Gulf. It was predictable from the start that the American imperial effort would be countered by Russia and China. As the region is in Russia’s back yard, the Russian response was always going to be more rapid and complete.
By disrupting Iraqi oil supplies and generally fostering uncertainty in the Gulf region, the United States invasion drove up the price of oil, putting Russia’s finances back in order and providing the wherewithal to restore its formidable military. Russian supply lines are short. To add insult to injury, the United States has damaged its relations with Turkey (by not suppressing the PKK and allowing the Genocide vote in Congress), and has caused consternations among the Saudi’s by installing a Shi’ite government in Iraq.
The land force is tied down there, providing ample degrees of freedom for Russian intervention should the need arise. Iran has for the time being accepted Russia as its immediate protector against the United States. This could have been avoided, since the two nations are competitive in Central Asia. The Saudi’s are a wild card.
From a strategic and diplomatic point of view, it is hard to imagine a more difficult scenario. Bush screwed the pooch.
You choose: Russia, Pakistan, any other Muslim coalition. I’m assuming here that an attack by Israel would be the only kind that they could imagine making a difference: something that would make “Shock and Awe” look like firecrackers. Nothing short of that would affect anything.
An attack of the necessary size would provide all the excuse needed for an all-out counterattack on Israel, probably with nukes. Yes, there would be consequences, but remember Sept 11? Consequences are not always a primary consideration.
After reading this and Armando’s piece over at Docudarma I have to wonder if I woke up in 1960.
But I didn’t. It’s 2007 and the Cold War is over. If anything, Putin’s manuevers are keeping us from going to war with Iran, not making it more likely.
yeah, it’s making it less likely that we will go to war with Iran. Which might make it more likely that Israel will do so.
If Israel does, are we not obliged to stop by and join in the fun?
no. Because it will just be a bombing raid. It will probably start a fairly high level war of asymmetry and we’ll get involved with that, but it won’t mean that we are openly at war. Of course, a lot depends on how Iran reacts.
Iranian ambassador to Charlie Rose, around 2003 or 4.
“WE WILL DEFEND OURSELVES!”
Does anyone really believe that the Iranians are just going to sit there and allow their country to be bombed? Israel is within range of Iranian medium range missiles.
Arrogance. It is just arrogance.
Considering how Iran reacted when Iraq tried to invade back in the 80s, anyone who thinks that Iran is just going to sit there and get bombed is an idiot.
Israel attacking Iran, though – the more I think about it the less likely it seems. If the US were to attack Iran, Iran would have very little capability to hit back directly. They could mess with us in Iraq, they could mess with us in Afghanistan, but they couldn’t really hit our population centers. They COULD attack Israel as a proxy, but that would probably do them more harm than help in the area of world opinion (Jordan, among others, would probably not look to kindly on Iran lobbing bombs at Israel if Israel wasn’t the instigator. And even China would probably have a tough time defending Iran from UN involvment if they attacked Israel unprovoked).
OTOH – if Israel were to attack Iran directly, that all goes away. It becomes a regional war where everyone in the Middle East is expected to “pick a side”. And don’t worry about the US, because Russia will keep the US in check for a good long while (they still CAN hit our major population centers, after all). We’re back to MAD, but 21st century style MAD.
Thinking about it – it really was a much bigger mistake than I thought originally for Bush to go around spouting off about building missile defense systems in Eastern Europe before asking Putin what he thought about the idea. A really, really big mistake. I mean, I knew it was a lousy idea, but it’s shaping up to be well within the top five worst ideas that Bush has had while in office. Depending on how things turn out, it may even end up cracking into the top two or three (Iraq will probably be numero uno, though, unless he does something REALLY stupid in the next year).
Israel just bombed Syria and no one said a thing. They bombed Iraq in 1981 and nothing happened. Russia won’t do shit.
So you’re saying you don’t think Iran will hit back? ‘Cause thats the only reason nothing has happened right now in Syria and nothing happened in Iraq in ’81 – neither of them hit back.
That may be the case. If Iran thinks that Russia won’t do shit they may not hit back. On the other hand, the dynamic of the Middle East is looking a whole lot different than it did in ’81. And Syria didn’t have anyone saying they were watching their back when they got hit by Israel the other week.
I can understand why Syria isn’t hitting back – they’ve got a weak hand and they know it. Iran – I’m not so sure anymore. Time will tell, I suppose.
Iran will strike back. Count on it. They haven’t been buying all those advanced anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems from the Russians and the Chinese just so they can throw up their hands and let them be bombed before they are used.
The Russians don’t give a damn about Syria. It has no strategic significance in the post-Soviet era, much as Israel is irrelevant to US interests now (though Washington seems to be slower to catch on to Israel’s irrelevance than Moscow has been to recognize Syria’s irrelevance.) Iraq was never much more than an military customer. Iran is central to Russian ambitions in the region. The same could be said of China, to a somewhat lesser degree, and it would not be the first time that Russia and China set aside their mutual antipathy to close ranks in the face of the United States.
The really dangerous misconception that I think a lot of Americans have is that this war is primarily an American concern, when it is in fact a major concern for the other three great powers: Russia, China, and the EU. All of them stand to profit hugely from an American defeat, and the Russians in particular are becoming increasingly bold about exploiting the collapse of American alliances and military and economic power.
More likely that Israel will attack Iran? Or more likely that Israel will calm the heck down once they know that Russia has Iran’s back the way that the US has Israel’s back?
It could go either way. On the one hand, this may scare the crap out of the leadership in Israel and make them do something really stupid. On the other hand, this is basically another iteration of MAD. Israel hasn’t had another power in the region with as much firepower or with as good connections. Now they do. This might be enough to get the Israeli leadership to back the hell down and start thinking of diplomatic possibilities in the region instead of just breaking out their military whenever they feel threatened. Iran is alsready checked by US military might to some degree – now Israel will feel a similar pinch from potential Russian forces.
Funny, I have to admire the guy. He may even be worthy of a Nobel, what? Preventing war is usually a good thing, unless it’s our war… Too bad he’s just a thug in power. No wonder Bush could ‘see into his soul’. Actually that’s just another failure on Bushs part.
What I think this shows, more than anything else, is the absolute failure of our very own Condi.
She failed in Russia over Iran. She failed to understand the reaction to the missile shield maneuver. She is failing today in her much touted (and now downplayed) mideast peace talks in Jerusalem. They (the State department) knew and abetted the recent Israeli attack against Syria, which we still no very little about, and now I hear Syria is not attending the so-called conference. Maybe there will some new shoes for her, but biscuit for the Palestinians.
Such a long list of failures. I bet Bush tells us she is doing a great job real soon.
Say, did you read about the threat against Putin’s life? Either to assassinate him or kidnap him (those really should be two different operations, guys)?
Lots of crap going down, and none of it real good…
I like Siberian Light’s take it:
http://www.siberianlight.net/2007/10/15/suicide-bombers-plan-to-assassinate-putin-in-iran/#comments
Putin can’t seriously think that his opinion on the matter would sway Bush? Considering how little influence even allies have on the administrations’ policies, he must realise that his words are not going to stop a war (however limited) with Iran.
So perhaps his words aren’t meant for Bush. After all, if the administration doesn’t attack Iran, he can claim to have had an influence, no? That would increase Russia’s stature in the region. But if the administration bombs Iran, he doesn’t lose anything for having tried to stop it. I’m sure he’ll be all indignant about it too.
But there is another possibility. The war in Iraq is a great boon to Russia – it ties down the US diplomatically and militarily, it continuously degrades US military power, saps international goodwill for the US and strains US budgets. Perhaps Russia is concerned that the US could still retreat to its military bases in the region (including perhaps some of the new ones in Iraq), and force-protect while the country falls apart. By bolstering Iran, the stakes in Iraq increase for the US. Perhaps he just seeks to make sure that the war in Iraq continues to be seen as vital to US interests.
And a last possibility is that he is actually waving a red flag in front of Cheney and the other hawks. Maybe he hopes that the US can be dared into bombing Iran. That would guarantee that the US would stay embroiled in wars all over the region for years to come.
Putin is an ex-spook. He knows how Realpolitik works. He has nothing to win by a swift end of the US war in Iraq, and much to lose. The best outcome for Russia is that the US will lose all credibility in Iraq, so that Russia can come in and offer assistance in the rebuilding of the country. They can point to Chechnya as an example of what they can accomplish. For this to work Iraqis must be truly fed up with the US, and either afraid or angry at Iran. What better way to accomplish all this by daring the US to bomb Iran.
Incidentally, I don’t think that Israel possesses weapons strong enough to destroy the bunkers that are supposed to house much of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The US develops special weapons for this kind of bombing. Their effect is tremendous, and I’m rather confident in predicting that Iran would claim that the weapons used were tactical nukes. It’s an open secret that the US military has sought nuclear bunker buster bombs. They’re not supposed to have them yet, but who is going to believe that?