———Russia delivered its first shipment of Iskander missiles-——
The article denotes cause and effect that are not necessarily related.
Unmentioned were the date of the purchase order, the contractual delivery date and how and when payment was made.
It can be argued that the missiles were ordered long ago, the Ruskies failed to deliver on time and were in fact perhaps a year late and actually got paid upon the delivery.
Putin, seeing Assad to be failing beat upon his lagging missile producers to force the actual delivery and resultant payment before Assad falls.
I think that is what really happened. Russia’s concern for Syria is only as a paying customer.
Russia got a tit for tat to remove their missile from Cuba. We in turn took our missiles out of Turkey. Unknown until somewhat recently JFK did some backing down. The Russian ships never did get to the blockade. They turned around, IIRC, after JFK conceded.
Russia may be doing something similar now. They may have upped the ante hoping we’ll cut our support not only for the insurgents but also remove the Patriots.
It looks like we’ve been down this road before.
Perhaps, then again it might be the Soviets, like the dems, never let a crisis go to waste. I think we’ve missed the fact the Soviets are back and playing the Cold War game. Seems a great opportunity to make the US look bad, tie them up and destabilize the region further while sticking a finger in Israel’s eye. From the Soviet POV whats not to like.