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Russia as the New Power Broker in the Mideast
American Thinker ^ | September 18, 2016 | C. Hart

Posted on 09/18/2016 7:45:37 AM PDT by Kaslin

The massive ten-year U.S. military aid package successfully negotiated between the White House and Israel, proves America’s continued commitment to Israel’s security. It ensures Israel’s QME (Qualitative Military Edge) over its enemies. And, provides U.S President Barack Obama with an incentive that Israeli leaders are worried about… a way of leveling the Middle East playing field.

The Israelis are concerned that in Obama’s last days as president, after U.S. elections in November, and before the next American president enters the White House, he will align himself with those pushing the French Initiative -- a peace plan proposed this week that would require Israel to retreat to its pre-1967 borders. Another possibility is that Obama could decide to formulate an American paper, or come alongside a European country formulating such a paper, that would be presented to the UN Security Council setting definitive borders for a two-state solution. Adding a specific demand that Israel cease settlement expansion, in line with UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon’s rebuke of Israel recently, could result in limited maneuverability for the Jewish State within diplomatic circles.

Weighing options of how to move the peace process forward, without having to submit to American or European expectations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently agreed, in principle, to meet with Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow. If it actually happens, it will be the first direct meeting between the two leaders in six years.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Israel; Russia
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 09/18/2016 7:45:38 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Without the Russians Kerry would still be talking about pin-pricks.


2 posted on 09/18/2016 7:50:56 AM PDT by CMB_polarization
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To: Kaslin

They are now the preeminent military power in the world period.


3 posted on 09/18/2016 7:58:29 AM PDT by DarthVader (Politicians govern out of self interest, Statesmen govern for a Vision greater than themselves)
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To: Kaslin

They can’t afford it.

https://www.ft.com/content/f26b2d3c-63d3-11e6-8310-ecf0bddad227


4 posted on 09/18/2016 8:00:35 AM PDT by ameribbean expat
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To: ameribbean expat

But China can, and will benefit from doing so- see the ‘new silk road’.
Russia is acting as their agent.
Proof of China paying them will come along soon.

China is the only one with both money and a chance to make a profit in the Mideast. The West no longer has either.


5 posted on 09/18/2016 8:17:37 AM PDT by mrsmith (Dumb sluts: Lifeblood of the Media, Backbone of the Democrat/RINO Party!)
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To: Kaslin

Russia has been the power broker in the ME for years. It’s called....pipelines.


6 posted on 09/18/2016 8:17:53 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: mrsmith

China cannot afford it. India, with reforms— and I’m not saying they will happen— wins.


7 posted on 09/18/2016 8:42:33 AM PDT by ameribbean expat
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To: Kaslin

The basics of needs are the real power brokers. If you starve to death, you can’t hurt anyone. In the 1970’s, I was required to watch a film in a elevated level briefing about Russia who, at that time, were trying to make moves to expand their possibilities. It was an eye opener.

Here was a country that spoke over 180 different dialects, had nuclear weapons, and was trying to impress those around them when they couldn’t feed themselves, or even make a toilet seat thick enough not to break from the pressure of a mid-sized person’s weight. They were controlled by 13 men who lived in an archaic mode that was leaving reality behind, the Politburo.

Last year we sent them just under half a billion in just economic assistance money for free. But the funny thing is while we are sending them that amount earmarked for aid, we are also sending them over 60 billion in military assistance to their nuclear program. And we are sending their opponents in the Ukraine $5 billion in resistance money.

Russia a world power, perceived based upon the number of ICBM’s they supposedly have. But even that is perceived. They know they can’t launch or it’ll be time for the cockroaches to take over. I worry more about North Korea. Their leader is just nuts enough to launch. And thanks to Clinton, he can.

red


8 posted on 09/18/2016 8:43:01 AM PDT by Redwood71
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To: Kaslin
From Real Clear Politics, Sept 10, 2015...

"In a 2014 New Yorker interview, Obama said his goal was to create a 'new equilibrium' in the Middle East.

In the short run, at least, his signature diplomatic undertaking can be counted on to bring more violence to this volatile region.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the [Obama-Putin Iran deal] agreement is formally known, provides the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism an infusion of somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion of unfrozen assets and a great deal more of continuing revenues as businesses and governments around the world rush to profit from oil-and-gas-rich Iran's reintegration into the world economy.

The agreement relaxes the international isolation of the Islamic Republic and ratifies Tehran's status as a nuclear threshold state. And it relieves restrictions on Iran's acquisition of weapons, including ballistic missiles. ..."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/10/iran_deal_throws_sparks_on_mideast_tinderbox_128034.html
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Aug 2015

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Russian build-up in Syria part of secret deal with Iran's Quds Force leader

September 11, 2015
Jennifer Griffin, Lucas Tomlinson
FoxNews.com

As the Pentagon warily eyes a Russian military build-up in Syria, Western intelligence sources tell Fox News that the escalated Russian presence began just days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran's Quds Force commander - their chief exporter of terror - and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. ..."

The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran’s proxies throughout the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ..."

Officials who have monitored the build-up say they've seen more than 1,000 Russian combatants - some of them from the same plainclothes Special Forces units who were sent to Crimea and Ukraine. Some of these Russian troops are logistical specialists and needed for security at the expanding Russian bases.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/11/russian-build-up-in-syria-part-secret-deal-with-irans-quds-force-leader/
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Pro-Hezbollah Paper: Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah Form Alliance

Sept 23, 2015

A prominent pro-Hezbollah newspaper in Lebanon reported Tuesday that Russia and the terrorist organization have formed an alliance and will fight together in Syria. "The parties to the alliance are the states of Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, with Lebanon's Hezbollah as the fifth party,"

Al-Akhbar Editor in Chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote. The pact would be called the "4+1 alliance", a pun based on the P5+1 that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran based in Lebanon and Moscow has been working with Tehran to save Bashar al-Assad's regime, even sending men and weapons to Syria.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/09/22/report-russia-partners-with-hezbollah.html

9 posted on 09/18/2016 8:48:47 AM PDT by ETL (God PLEASE help America...Never Hillary!)
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To: Kaslin

New? Tolstoy - Hadji Murad and the Sevastopol stories. The Crimean War....


10 posted on 09/18/2016 8:59:45 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: Redwood71

At this point in time it would be best for the planet for the sane and moral people to retreat to the caves, while the sociopaths see bright lights.


11 posted on 09/18/2016 10:09:23 AM PDT by justa-hairyape (The user name is sarcastic. Although at times it may not appear that way.)
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To: Kaslin

Whats interesting is that Russia, formerly the USSR, and the USA have always traded who would be the power-broker of the ME. At the time of Carter it was Russia. Once Carter was outed and Russia went to war in Afghanistan they lost that status and the war in Afghanistan. Now they are attempting to regain it. If you want to look at this way when Iran and Iraq were at war, Russia sided with Iran and the USA sided with Iraq. This kind of never changed. However, with the POSTUS in the WH, it leaves a vacuum not only in the world but in the ME to which Russia see as a crack to enter through.


12 posted on 09/18/2016 1:03:58 PM PDT by zaxtres
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To: zaxtres

The going against Russia through Iraq was one of the reasons why Rumsfeld was in Iraq without a diplomatic status at the time.


13 posted on 09/18/2016 1:05:31 PM PDT by zaxtres
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To: DarthVader

hahahahaheeheeheeheeheehohohoho


14 posted on 09/18/2016 2:14:36 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: justa-hairyape

If you can figure out how to grow your own food, hide from the blast and not be blinded or nailed with rads, or find anything when the levels get low enough to walk around in about a year and a half after the blast that would be followed by a radioactive winter killing everything on the surface, You go ahead. Me. I’d rather not suffer. I want to be the first vaporized. No pain, no extended exposure and slow death of starvation, dehydration or radioactive poisoning . Radioactive poisoning is painful. Better way to go.

And that means everyone will die, period. And that’s what deters Russia and the US from launching. And that’s why that nut in North Korea is so frightening along with the third world nations in the middle east that are trying to get the power.

Here’s a trivia for you. Did you know that there is still a layer of radioactive soil in Lock Ness killing fish from Chernobyl? Imagine 2000 ICBM’s in detonation? Some blast, huh?

red


15 posted on 09/18/2016 4:12:01 PM PDT by Redwood71
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To: DarthVader
They are now the preeminent military power in the world period.

I seriously doubt it. But they are without doubt the preeminent political power in the world.

16 posted on 09/18/2016 6:10:44 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: hinckley buzzard

No they are the premier military power now too because their strategic and tactical nuclear forces are superior to NATO’s right now. Their conventional forces can overun NATO Europe in 60 hours.


17 posted on 09/18/2016 6:20:06 PM PDT by DarthVader (Politicians govern out of self interest, Statesmen govern for a Vision greater than themselves)
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