Posted on 06/03/2008 4:55:52 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
There are three reasons. First, Russia has a longstanding, close relationship with Iran and regards itself as Iran's protector. Second, the Russian economy benefits from its relationship with Iran by several billion dollars a year. Third and most important is leverage. Mr. Putin is an old-fashioned nationalist who seeks to regain the power and greatness Russia had before the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia's relationship with Iran is a key point of leverage over the West that he will not relinquish easily.
To bring Putin's Russia on board we must make it an offer it cannot refuse. The offer has three parts.
First, we must treat Russia as an equal partner when it comes to policy in the Caspian Sea region, recognizing Russia's traditional role in the region. Second, we must offer to make Russia whole if it joins in our Iranian boycott and forgoes trade revenues with Iran. That will cost the U.S. roughly $2 billion to $3 billion a year, about what we spend in Iraq each week. Third, we should tell Mr. Putin we will cease building the ineffective antinuclear missile defense sites in Eastern Europe in return for him joining the boycott.
Two years ago, under NATO auspices, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania agreed to build an antimissile defense site to thwart the threat of a nuclear missile attack by Iran. The threat is hypothetical and remote, and the Bush administration's emphasis on pursuing the antimissile system, without Russia's cooperation, still baffles many national security experts.
It also drives Mr. Putin to apoplexy. The antimissile system strengthens the relationship between Eastern Europe and NATO, with real troops and equipment on the ground. It mocks Mr. Putin's dream of eventually restoring Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Russia has a strong presence in Iran. Russia will be involved, and has been.
Is he out of his cotton pickin mind? Russia has a long way to go before it can be trusted to walk the dog, much less be given any real international role.
How ineffective is it? He asserts its ineffective. If its ineffective, why would Russia complain about it? Is she concerned we might be throwing good money away and wasting America's hard-earned tax dollars?
the Bush administration's emphasis on pursuing the antimissile system, without Russia's cooperation, still baffles many national security experts.
I wonder where we find these national security experts that can't figure out the value of an anti-missile system...
The antimissile system strengthens the relationship between Eastern Europe and NATO, with real troops and equipment on the ground. It mocks Mr. Putin's dream of eventually restoring Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe.
... when even the dull and witless Mr. Schumer can see the value of it. He doesn't oppose it because its ineffective, on the contrary, he sees great value in it, as does Mr. Putin, and it is for that reason he wants smother it in its crib.
Appease, appease, appease. Chuckie is forming Obama's foreign policy for him. The surrender and disarm policies of the RATs will destroy our economic system, almost as assuredly as their Cap & Tax schemes regarding the carbon footprint koolaid scam they are now poised to foist upon us.
Giving Russia veto power over the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea will escalate the current $125/oil into a runaway profit mechanism. Putin will indeed find that one an offer that he will laugh all the way to the bank with.
Russia may have had a presence in Iran in the past, but the Tudeh (Iranian Communist Party) was just about decimated by the Assahollahs and their mullah-thugs when the Jimmy Carter condoned revolution took place in that godforsaken country.
At the present time, the Tudeh’s ‘central committee’ operates in exile and is hardly of any consequence.
Russia’s relations with Iran are based solely on self-interest, i.e., Iran wants to buy nuclear fuel, Russia is stupid enough to sell it to them, on the basis that by making nice-nice with Tehran, it may gain them some leverage with Islamofascist factions operating in Chechnya and elsewhere in the old Soviet territories.
Only fools, knaves, cowards and ostriches would endorse any approach which increases the influence of Moscow in Iran, or in the surrounding region(s).
What is ironic is that before Iran was plummeted into it’s one-way journey back to the insane 9th century delusions embraced by it’s leadership, Iran was a modern secular nation, no threat to the region, the Shah was a force for stability, women were not treated as property in Iranian society, and as I recall, the Shah never so much as hinted, let alone uttered a threat against Israel. The fact is, Iran and Israel had cordial relations.
The old Soviet Union worked mightily to undermine the Shah via their stooges in the Tudeh Party, but it wasn’t until Jimmy Carter stabbed our ally in the back that Iran began to lose stability and once the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power, terrorists had accomplished a literal first: they were now in control of a modern, relatively technologically advanced country, they were no longer forced to operate out of backrooms and alleys in Third World cesspools throughout the region, once they took control in Iran they had all the advantages of a modern (U.S. built and trained) military, advanced communications systems, a reliable infrastructure, a trusted banking system, and it took them no time at all to turn each and every one of those sociological benefits to the purpose of state-sponsored terrorism which continues to this very day.
As I have said in the past and will say again, there are yet fools in this world who think that there is no urgency, no true threat from Iran, no need to engage in hostilities, and just like the appeasers and pacifists of the last century, these latter day Chamberlains will seek to indulge and accommodate Herr Ahmadinejad until they see the fruit of their efforts, which will be a nuclear detonation over Israel, U.S. assets or territory, and then these empty-headed twits will ask “but WHY would they DO this to US?!?!”
The answer?
That’s what terrorists do. If you have rattlesnakes near your house, you better kill the damn things before they kill you or your loved ones. If you delay, if you make excuses not to take action, when innocent blood is spilled, that blood will be on YOUR hands as well as the hands of the perpetrators.
That’s the bottom line.
“Wow! Senator Schumer has a lot of great ideas. All we have to do to stop Iran is to give Russia a veto in the Caspian, bribe them with 2-3 billion a year and surrender Eastern Europe to Russian control. Do we help him reestablish the USSR too? What an idiot. “
I honestly thought Chucky was going to get Russia on board by telling them that we are going to take the wheat we send them every year and use it to trade with oil producing countries.
hehe.. sometimes I knock myself out.
We did too, before President Jimmy Carter tried to shake them down for cheap oil for his cronies and then deserted Iran when they declined the shakedown.
Schmucky wants to deal Russia back into Great Power status. Does he want to return to the Cold War, too? How about we just allow the Russian Army to march up to the old Inner German Boarder? Do you think that would make Vladimir happy?
How about we play a little heads-up poker, Chuck. I’m sure that I can bluff you off any hand. What a P...y.
The Democratic left just can’t get over the fact that their socialist motherland is no more and is trying to figure out how to recreate it.
Carter set Iran and the US up for war - what an idiot.
I thought is simple proposition was beyond naive, beyond riciculous, beyond credulous, beyond stupid.
I saw "Wall Street Journal" and thought, could it have been a joke?
Then I saw "Schumer" and it all made sense. It's the communist talking points.
That is bible prophecy.
Chuckie Cheese and He is my Senator, guess who the other one is? I am stuck with true weiners./Just Asking - seoul62.......
Remember, Putin likes Obama.
BTTT
Putin likes Obama.
Yeah....like Hitler liked Neville
Well put.
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