http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=2782#more-2782 Russia lines up with Syria, Iran against America and the West
Rev. James M. Hutchens, Ph.D., Chaplain (Brigadier General) US Army (Ret.), the president of Christian Zionism
……Russia’s vicious dismemberment of the tiny nation of Georgia is the beginning of an unfolding sequence of Russian aggression. At present, pipelines from Siberia that run through Russia supply the majority of natural gas and oil used by Western Europe and Ukraine. A pipeline from the Caspian Sea has been bringing one million barrels a day of non-Russian oil through Georgia to Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea. Russia wants to control all of those vital pipelines.
Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, is only 578 miles from Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. Russia has helped neighboring Iran build its two aggressive nuclear facilities. Georgia and Iraq are now sandwiched between the dictatorships of Russia and Iran. The Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, seems to want to dominate Caspian oil and Persian Gulf oil to add to Russia’s own enormous supplies of oil and gas. If he succeeds, Russia will gain a stronghold over the economies of most of the world and can then act to bring America to its knees.
Against that backdrop, consider what is happening in Iran. That nation is under the domination of a fanatical group of Shiite Muslim clerics. The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a fervent believer in the Mahdi, a mythical messiah figure who, according to his belief, will come to make the entire world Muslim, but only after a period of worldwide chaos and destruction during which all the Jews will be killed.
Iran, despite warnings from the United Nations, is on an accelerated course to build nuclear facilities and an atomic bomb. The Iranians recently test fired an improved intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Shahab-3, that is capable of carrying nuclear warheads to hit Israel, Iraq, and most of Europe.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly expressed a desire to use nuclear weapons to annihilate the nation of Israel. He has declared that the threat of nuclear retaliation from Israel against Iran does not concern him because tens of millions of Iranian deaths will merely hasten the coming of the Mahdi.
In the 1930s, a similar fanatic named Adolf Hitler made clear his diabolic plan. Early on, the Allied Powers, France and Great Britain, could have stopped Hitler but they scoffed at his pretensions. In 1945, only after World War II and 50 million tragic deaths, did the free world recognize the cost of its indifference to the clear warnings from Hitler’s own speeches and published writings.
In 2008, the nation of Israel does not have the luxury of ignoring the ravings of a fanatic who soon will possess nuclear bombs with a will to use them. The Western powers want to talk and negotiate with Russia and Iran, but talk is futile. If Russia moves again to crush a neighbor or enter the Middle East, and if Iran develops an atomic bomb, time for talk will be over.
The Western powers have left Israel no choice but to strike Iranian nuclear facilities now. However, it seems to me, after consultation with Chris Mitchell (our CBN News Jerusalem Bureau Chief), that Israel will not want to commence actions against Iran until after the United States elections have taken place. In my opinion, Israel will be forced to make a preemptive strike against the Iranian nuclear reactors by air or submarine-launched cruise missiles during the brief period between the U.S. elections and the inauguration of a new U.S. president.
But here is the downside for Israel. In Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, the radical group known as Hezbollah has, along with Iranian help, completely rearmed and now possesses as many as 40,000 rockets targeting Israel. To the south of Israel, in Gaza, another Iranian client, Hamas, is armed to the teeth and longing for an opportunity to strike Israel. Of course, any Israeli strike against the nuclear facilities of Iran will trigger a counter blow from Iran and possibly Syria. But these are not the only dangers.
Would Russia then consider hostilities (such as I have outlined) the excuse to enter the fight on trumped-up reasons in order to further its ultimate aim of controlling Middle East oil?
As the potential conflict spreads, oil terminals would be engulfed in smoke and flames. The Strait of Hormuz would be blocked, and with it 40 percent of the world’s oil. The industries of the world would face severe energy shortages and the economies of both America and the European Union would face a devastating depression.
What if the United States decided to oppose the Russian expansion? The Russians have enough long-range nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles aimed at the United States to annihilate all of our cities. Would we be willing to play a nuclear game of chicken with Russia to save Israel? Probably not. Would the United States risk war with Russia over Middle East oil? Perhaps, but unlikely. If we act, it will be ugly. If we don’t act, our economy could either be crippled or faced with continually escalating exactions demanded by Russia for oil.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
Friday, Sept. 12, Moscow announced renovation had begun on the Syrian port of Tartus to provide Russia with its first long-term naval presence on the Mediterranean.
As the two naval chiefs talked in Moscow, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki in the Russian capital for talks on the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant by the end of the year.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the commander of the Russian, Navy Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky, and his Syrian counterpart, Gen. Taleb al Barri, spent all Friday working on details for the outfitting of Tartus port to accommodated increased Russian fleet Mediterranean missions not far from Israel’s shores.
Mottaki’s unannounced visit to the Russian capital focused on the timetable for Atomstroiexport to finish work on the Bushehr reactor after five years of delays.
Moscow has sharpened its tone in comments aimed at the West and the US in particular. President Dmitiry Medvedev said Friday that Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia was the equivalent for Russia of the 9/11 attack on America. Even if Georgia had become a NATO member, he said, he would not have thought twice about ordering the Russian army to go in.
Prime minister Vladimir Putin, after putting Moscow’s case on Georgia to the Western media, warned the US that stationing a missile defense shield near Russia’s borders would start an arms race in Europe. There was no basis for a new Cold War, he said.
DEBKAfile’s sources interpret Friday’s events as indicating that Russia’s leaders have determined not to declare a Cold War in Europe but to open a second anti-Western front in the Middle East.
In the second half of August, DEBKA file and DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s analysts discussed this re-orientation at length (Russia’s Second Front: Iran-Syria), disclosing that Moscow had decided to use its ties with Tehran and Damascus to challenge the United State and the West in the Middle East as well as the Caucasian, the Black Sea and the Caspian region.
The traumatic impact of the Georgia conflict on Russia’s rulers came through in the remarks of an unnamed Kremlin official quoted by the Russian media this week: “Everything has changed since the war with Georgia. What seemed impossible before is more than possible now when our friends become our enemies and our enemies our friends. Russia will respond. A number of possibilities are being considered, including hitting America where it hurts most – Iran and Syria.”
In aligning with Tehran and Damascus, Moscow stands not only against America but also Israel. This volatile world region is undergoing cataclysmic changes at a time when Israel is virtually without a fully competent prime minister and key political and military decision-making by the rest of the government is at a standstill.
Atomic Allies
By Kathy Shaidle
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, September 12, 2008
Iran’s entrance into the club of nuclear nations is imminent and “irreversible.” So says Leonid Reznikov, president of the state-run Russian company Atomstroiexport. Reznikov ought to know. After all, his company is building Iran’s first nuclear plant.
Topic: Russia aligns itself with nazi pigs Syria and Iran (Read 878 times)