Russia: Weapons to Iran for Defense Only

[Felix the Cat]

Russia: Weapons to Iran for Defense Only (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/03/D8E947A00.html)

MOSCOW - Russia's weapons sales to Iran are purely for defensive purposes, a government spokesman said Saturday, in response to reports that Russia was selling $1 billion worth of weapons to Iran. The news reports said Russian was selling Iran advanced missiles and other systems, but the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, did not comment on specifics, saying in a statement only that they were "exclusively defensive weapons."

Kamynin said the sales fully complied with nonproliferation commitments and Russian law.

The statement appeared timed to head off the heated reaction expected from the United States after Russian media reported Friday that officials had signed contracts in November that would send up to 30 Tor-M1 missile systems to Iran over the next two years.

The Interfax news agency said the Tor-M1 system could identify up to 48 targets and fire at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 20,000 feet.

A high-ranking Iranian official downplayed the deal, telling the official Islamic Republic News Agency on Saturday that Iran buys arms from many countries and would not stop.

"Iran's and Russia's military cooperation is not a complicated issue," said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. "It existed before, and there was no ban on it."

On Friday, Israel carried out a successful test of its Arrow missile defense system, intercepting and destroying a missile similar to Iran's long-range Shahab-3.

Israel considers Iran its biggest threat, and does not believe the Muslim theocracy's claims that its nuclear program is peaceful. Israeli concerns were heightened recently after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged that Israel be "wiped off the map."

[Felix the Cat]

Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) SAM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-15_Gauntlet)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/Amd_sa15.jpg

[Felix the Cat]

Israel Vexed by Russia-Iran “Defensive” Arms Deal (http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/12/04/israeliran.shtml)

Irked by Russia’s reported sale of weapon systems to Iran, Israel Sunday said the multi-million dollar deal will encourage the regime in Tehran to continue its dangerous policies, brushing aside Moscow’s contention that the items were exclusively defensive in nature, PTI news agency reported.

“Whether you call it defensive or offensive, it just encourages the regime in Iran to continue with its dangerous polices,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesman Ra’anan Gissin was quoted by Jerusalem Post as saying in response to Russia’s reported sale of 29 mobile air defence systems.

Former Israeli intelligence chief Ami Ayalon told Ynet today that “the strategic environment in the region will change fundamentally should Iran gain the capability to produce nuclear weapons.” “Israel must not accept such a possibility and Israel must not allow Iran to reach the point of no return in the process of producing nuclear weapons,” he said.

Meanwhile, Army Radio said citing Iranian media reports that Teheran would begin construction on two nuclear reactors towards the beginning of March.

An Iranian parliamentarian confirmed that one of the reactors would be funded by Russia at the cost of $1 billion, the Radio quoted the reports as saying.

Earlier, reacting to such reports in the Russian media, its Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, without giving any specifics on the deal, had said in a statement that they were “exclusively defensive weapons.” “All contracts concluded in the military-technical cooperation area fully comply with our international commitments, including in the sphere of nonproliferation, and are in full compliance with Russian law,” Kamynin reportedly said.

[Felix the Cat]

Netanyahu: Yes to Pre-Emptive Iran Strike (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177748,00.html)

JERUSALEM — Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in remarks published Monday that he would support a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program.

Netanyahu's comments, made in the heat of a campaign for leadership of the hardline Likud Party, drew criticism from rivals, who accused him of playing politics with the country's security. Iranian leaders brushed off the threat, warning that an attack "will have a lot of consequences."

Israeli leaders have long identified Iran as the nation's biggest threat. Israel accuses Tehran of supporting Palestinian militant groups and rejects Iran's claim that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in October that Israel must be "wiped off the map."

Iran's announcement Monday that it plans to build a second nuclear power plant — along with a deadly suicide bombing the same day by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group in the central town of Netanya — is likely to heighten Israel's concerns.

While Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says the world cannot accept a nuclear Iran, he contends that diplomacy remains the first line of defense. He has not said what should be done if diplomacy fails.

Netanyahu left few doubts about his solution: a pre-emptive strike similar to the 1981 attack ordered by then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin that destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor.

"I will continue the tradition established by Menachem Begin, who did not allow Iraq to develop such a nuclear threat against Israel, and by a daring and courageous act gave us two decades of tranquility," Netanyahu told the Maariv daily. "I believe that this is what Israel has to do."

Netanyahu, a bitter political enemy of Sharon, said he would support the prime minister if he carried out a pre-emptive strike. "If it is not done by the present government, I intend to lead the next government and to stop this threat. I will take every step required to avoid a situation in which Iran can threaten us with nuclear weapons."

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, a rival in the Likud race, said accused Netanyahu of making "inflammatory statements" that "endanger the very security of Israel."

"The nuclear issue has to be taken out of the election campaign," Mofaz said.

Sharon recently left the Likud to form a new centrist party, saying he will have more freedom to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians. Sharon is widely expected to win the March 28 general election, but analysts say the domestic campaign rhetoric could hurt the prime minister's cautious efforts in dealing with Iran.

Judith Kipper, a Middle East specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, called Netanyahu's comments "a desperate political move." She said such remarks would make it difficult to have a "rational and sane discussion" about policy toward Iran and undermine U.S. and European efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program.

"A war of words is not something anyone needs now," she said. "The U.S. and EU are trying to get Iran to calm down its nuclear program. Netanyahu pouring fuel on the fire is not going to help."

In Tehran, Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said he did not take Netanyahu's comments seriously. "If they make such a mistake, they will add to their own problems. Attacking Iran will have a lot of consequences," he said.

Experts say a unilateral military strike against Iran would be extremely difficult. In contrast to the Iraqi reactor, Iran's nuclear installations are heavily fortified and spread throughout the country. And Arab nations like Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to permit Israel to use their air space to carry out an attack.

[Excorcism]

Iran's got money, Russia wants money...hmmmm. I wonder how the so called "defense deal" came about :D

[Starr]

Netanyahu is always itching for war it seems. I wonder how delighted he would be(as he was on 9/11) if the U.S was attacked again by "terrorists" that just happened to have some kind of ties to Iran?;)

[Jimbo Gomez]

Netanyahu is always itching for war it seems. I wonder how delighted he would be(as he was on 9/11) if the U.S was attacked again by "terrorists" that just happened to have some kind of ties to Iran?;)


As big an asshole as Sharon is, you can see the same difference these as you can see in the USA: arrogant politicians who didn't serve a meaningful time in the military (I am aware of the specific conscriptionthing that exists in Israel) are way more eager to go to war that seasoned highranking officers. You see it with the neocon 'thinktanks' in the USA, you see it in the Sharon/Netanyahu dispute.

[Felix the Cat]

Russian Arms Deal: Kremlin believes US "too weak" to respond (http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2370582)

The Russian leadership appears to believe that the Iraq debacle marked the tuning point in the short-lived era of American global supremacy. The Iran arms deal suggests that the Kremlin will likely continue pursuing an assertive foreign policy in regions the U.S. deems vital for its national interests.

At the end of last week, Russian media reported that Moscow would supply 32 sophisticated Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Tehran under a contract worth $1 billion. On December 3, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman told Itar-Tass that the Iran deal concerns "exclusively defensive weapons." All the diplomatic explanations notwithstanding, the contract could not fail to raise eyebrows in Washington.

U.S. policymakers regard Iran as a state that has been supporting terrorist groups in the Middle East and sponsoring terrorism against the United States for the last 25 years. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns who, quite ironically, happened to be in Moscow when the reports on the planned arms sale appeared in the press, made clear that he was very upset about the development. "We have a very poor relationship [with Iran]," said he in a December 2 interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio, adding that it is easy to "understand why we would not favor any country selling arms to a country like that."

But Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov shrugged off American objections to the deal, saying that it was fully compatible with international law. He argued that Russia had not violated any of its international obligations and noted that Iran currently is not subject to international sanctions. "This contract will be carried out in line with international law and Russia's obligations," Ivanov asserted. "We do not care whether others like it or not."

Most Russian and international security experts agree that the Iran deal will negatively affect Russian-U.S. relations but doubt that Washington will go so far as to introduce sanctions against Moscow. Some analysts suggest that an excessively tough U.S. response is unlikely, since Washington is interested in Russia's cooperation in a number of strategically important issues, including Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Kremlin, too, appears unperturbed about possible U.S. retaliation. "The [arms] contract with Iran will hardly lead to a Russian-American scandal, although the U.S. is likely not very pleased about it," a Putin administration official told the business daily Vedomosti.

Russia's remarkable self-assuredness can be explained by the country's robust economic performance and unprecedented oil revenues. But there appears to be another factor at play: the Kremlin likely perceives America as a weakened giant bogged down in the Iraq quagmire.

The Kremlin leadership sees the Bush administration's ill-starred Middle East adventure as a kind of "moment of truth" in international affairs. This idea is clearly expressed in a lengthy paper written by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for Diplomaticheskii ezhegodnik-2005 and posted on the ministry's official website.

First, it has been proved that America is not a hegemon in the unipolar world, Lavrov asserts. In reality, he notes, the world is multipolar one and "practically all nations, including the leading ones, proceed from this fact in their foreign policy."

Second, the U.S. failure in Iraq appears to reveal the flawed nature of almost everything in American foreign policy that the Kremlin holds to be objectionable: unilateralism, boundless hubris, disregard for international organizations, reliance on raw force, bullying of opponents, and spreading of democracy through fomenting "color revolutions." The course of events in Iraq has led to the destruction of "many myths," Lavrov writes, and he suggests that the "post-Iraq period in global politics" will be more predictable.

In his essay, Russia's top diplomat openly challenges U.S. policy toward Iran. There are already two large unresolved conflicts in the Middle East, Lavrov points out, adding that escalation and the possible destabilization of Iran as well as of Syria -- another usual target of Washington's sharp criticism -- will only lead to the broadening of the "zone of instability." Tehran should be "engaged," not "isolated," Lavrov contends. This policy recommendation runs contrary to the line that the United States suggests the international community should take vis-à-vis Iran. "Our view is that Iran needs, in essence, to be isolated," Undersecretary Burns argued in his Moscow interview.

Emboldened by America's perceived weakness and its newly forged strategic ties with the rising eastern giants China and India, the Kremlin feels comfortable enough to recognize that its own -- and presumably its powerful allies' -- vision of the new world order differs markedly from that of the United States. Russia's optimism appears to rest on the leadership's sense that the country is an ascendant power. As Lavrov's essay asserts, "We are on the side of history."