Who Can Enjoy Tinker to Evers to Chance . . .
Filed under: Europe ~ Iran ~ Middle East ~ Russia
. . . when you have to deal with Russia to Syria to Iran, and they don't have a baseball they have this:
What is it? According to Jane's Defense Weekly, it's a Russian Tor-m1 missile system launching vehicle during exercises at an undisclosed location in Russia. Reuters says:
Syria has agreed to supply Iran with at least 10 out of 50 air defense systems that Damascus is in the process of buying from Russia. Iran would take delivery of them in late 2008. To reward Syria for its middleman role, Tehran would part-finance Syria's Pantsyrs as well as paying for its own. Syria struck a $730 million deal with Russia earlier this year for some 50 Pantsyr-S1E self-propelled short-range gun and missile air defense systems. Its source said Moscow had not been officially notified of the reported Syrian arrangement with Tehran, which flowed from a November 2005 strategic accord between the two countries on military and technological cooperation.
These systems will be used, of course, to shoot down Western aircraft if/when they seek to take out Iran's nuclear weapons capacity. In other words, they'll assist Iran in developing nuclear weapons, and increase the cost in Western lives of addressing that threat. Looks like this "cold war" thing could get pretty damn hot pretty damn fast if the Kremlin continues down its crazed current course. How is it possible that the nation providing weapons to one of NATO's most hardened and dangerous foes is a quasi-member of the G-8? How long will it take us to come to our senses on Russia?
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