Word: russianizing
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...move raises concerns in Tehran, it's not because of any impact it will have on Iran's missile capability, but rather because the decision represents an enticement to Moscow to support new U.S. sanctions against Iran. At the same time, Russian officials must be smiling wryly at Obama's explanation that the plan was changed because of revised intelligence estimates of Iran's missile capability - since Moscow had never taken seriously the U.S. explanation that the shield was designed to protect against an Iranian threat. (An interceptor system targeting Iranian missiles would be more appropriately stationed in Jordan than...
...Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made it clear from the outset of the Obama Administration that any effort to "reset" U.S.-Russian relations would require that Washington do more to accommodate Russian concerns - first and foremost, its opposition to the missile shield and to NATO's expansion into former Soviet-bloc countries. Soon after taking office, Obama reportedly wrote a private letter to Medvedev suggesting that the missile shield would become unnecessary were Russia to help the U.S. prevent Iran from developing into a nuclear threat. The Russians also made the missile shield a central issue...
Given the link drawn by Obama, soon after he took office, between Russian cooperation on Iran and the missile-defense plan, it's hard not to read the shelving of the missile shield as at least partly a move to enlist Russian support on Iran. It's not at all certain, however, that such support will be forthcoming. Moscow does not believe Iran is currently pursuing nuclear weapons, and its adversarial relationship with Washington will be maintained as long as the likes of Ukraine and Georgia are being considered for NATO membership. Critics in Washington are already accusing Obama...
...More and more it seems likely that the ship was illicitly carrying powerful Russian anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Russia has denied this assertion, but its position seems fishy. Whether Russia was coerced into taking back the missiles and covering the situation up or the missiles were forcibly removed, they would not be reported in the inventory following the ship’s recovery. Furthermore, the first whistleblower on the ship’s secret cargo, Mikhail Voitenko, a maritime expert and editor of the Russian maritime journal “Sovfracht,” has been fired and induced...
...With the Russian government itself commenting only vaguely about whether Netanyahu met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, it does not take Jason Bourne to unravel a common thread: Whether through its commandos or through strong-arm diplomacy, Israel appears to have stopped a shipment of missiles from reaching Iran. As the two countries work more closely together, it appears Israel avoided any post-op crisis and successfully negotiated with its much larger counterpart on the issue. Around the time the ship was discovered off the west coast of Africa, Israeli President Shimon Peres even declared victory of a kind...