The Russians Are Coming OK, so I'm confused. What the hell was Putin's visit to the Middle East all about? I mean it is widely know that Russia is selling missiles to Syria and is providing Iran with nuclear fuel and technology, both of which directly threatens Israel. Despite this President Putin goes on a trip to visit none other than Israel. Up until now I had thought that OK, Russia is getting back into the Middle East chess game by supporting countries opposed to US-Israeli interests. But now it seems they want to play both sides of that fence.
Does that make any kind of sense?
Not to me. Consider this
Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed yesterday to set up a hot line from his Kremlin office to Ariel Sharon's in Jerusalem to share anti-terror information.
"We are partners," Putin repeatedly told the Israeli prime minister during a luncheon in his Jerusalem office.
Partners? Hot line? Putin is giving Israel's enemies weapons that could be used against Israel!
Putin's reassuring comments were aimed at allaying Israeli concerns about the Kremlin's planned sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria and its continuing aid to Iran's nuclear program.
He said Russia and Israel have common concerns because Arab money is financing terrorist attacks on both countries, a source said.
OK, so Russia could be seeing Israel as a means of counter-balancing the "oil sheikdoms" financing terrorist activities in the Caucasus. So was the whole Syria-Iran Gambit a way of coercing Israel to help Russia
Putin also sought to allay Israeli fears over the Russian sale of SA-18 missiles to Syria by proposing a joint intelligence-sharing mechanism to allow Israel to warn Moscow of the misappropriation of weapons sold by Russia.
I'm sure that makes Israel feel mush better about the whole thing. Especially when Putin announces that he is also going to equip Palestinians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday he would give equipment and training to Palestinian security forces and he offered to help rebuild the Palestinians' crumbling infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, from which Israel is withdrawing this summer.
Israel protests and Putin equivocates, at least while he is in Israel.
Putin did not comment directly on the sale during Thursday’s news conference with Israeli President Moshe Katzav, but there were increasing signs that same day that Moscow was willing to back down in the face of Israeli opposition to the sale of 50 armored troop carriers and two helicopters to the PA.
And in fact, when visiting Palestine, Putin did not specifically mention the armored troop carriers. But the helicopters were mentioned.
Putin, who met today with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said Russia will help strengthen the Palestinian security forces and teach them to fight terrorism.
``Russia will continue to provide aid to the Palestinian Authority to implement reforms and build a state,'' Putin, 52, said at a news conference with Abbas. ``We are now examining several options for Russia's participation in the rebuilding of the Palestinian economy.'
...Russia will supply Abbas with two helicopters for traveling between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Putin said, replacing aircraft that were destroyed by Israel when Yasser Arafat was head of the Palestinian Authority
And while in Israel, Putin did make the point that Syria's missiles couldn't reach Israel.
Mr Putin strongly defended his decision to sell SA-18 missiles to Syria, and disclosed for the first time in talks with the Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, that he had vetoed a contract also to sell longer range 185-mile missiles to Damascus on the grounds that Israel would not be able to intercept them...
Mr Putin said that, to come within range of the anti-aircraft missiles, Israel would "have to attack Syria. Do you want to do that?" He said the missiles could not be shoulder-fired and would not work if uncoupled from the Jeeps on which they were mounted.
So is all of this really just a way for Russia to reintroduce itself as a player in MidEast politics?
Perhaps, but what does Russia stand for? What do they support and what do they oppose? Like it or not, you know where the US stands in the Middle East: who we support and who we oppose.
Who's side is Russia really on? And what is the play here?
The Fall Today is the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. RJ Rummel notes:
In spite of the continued public support (as polls at the time showed) for our staying the course in Vietnam, and even though the war had been in effect won militarily, the alliance between the left, communists, Democrats, and major media forced an American military withdrawal from Vietnam, and a sharp decrease in aid to the South. Without sufficient American aid and support, the South collapsed under a conventional North Vietnam military offensive, and the North occupied and absorbed what had once been a sovereign country (no, it was not a civil war, but an invasion—the North and South had never been one country). Millions were killed and murdered before the United States turned tail to run off, and after the North’s victory, the killing did not stop. Hundreds of thousands were murdered -- executed outright, or dying in “re-education camps,” and in the “new economic zones.” And never forget the over a million Vietnamese that risked an awful death on the ocean to escape the communists enslavement (the Boat People), of which perhaps 500,000 never made land again.
And Scott Johnson of Powerline remembers
For me, the horrible sights of April 29 and 30, 1975 bitterly highlighted the necessity of unlearning the many lies and myths of the American antiwar movement that I had merrily bought. The much-derided doctrine of containment that had more or less led us to resist the Communist takeover of South Vietnam was vindicated within remarkably few years -- crowned with success by the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the liberation of its conquered provinces and former satellites.
One didn't need to wait that long for reason to rethink the narrative that American newspapers and networks had imposed on the war. By 1977 former Washington Post Saigon bureau chief Peter Braestrup had meticulously documented the pitiful performance of the American press covering the war in Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. (Click here for a good account of the book and here for a 1995 oral history interview with Braestrup.) Is there a retrospective on that subject today? Not that I can find.
And make no mistake, there are many who are hoping for a repeat in Iraq.
