Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
I'd suggest only two caveats. Putin visited Iran and he talked a lot -- but he didn't really say anything. They got no promises from him...

Also note that your stated presumed goal of oil supply control is probably true but we, China and India may have other ideas.
No promises in public. Putin's public statements should always be understood in light of his past as spymaster. What you see ain't what you get with him.

Note that when Primakov visited Milosovic just before Milo grew a backbone he told the Western press that it was sad but he couldn't talk sense into Milosevic. Then Primakov got off the plane in Moscow and announced in Russian that he was reconstructing the Eastern Bloc alliance and Serbia was its first member. (Predictably missed by every news outlet.) Then Russia ran our blockade with fuel for the duration and sent a spy ship to provide signal intelligence. By the end of that conflict by some estimates 10% of all infantry were Russian born "volunteers". Believe me, Russia's old guard would have made much hay from dead Russian volunteers in the Russian homeland. They made the bombs falling on Serbia into a regime change in the motherland.

I'll note that Ahmedinejad isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. What the powers behind the throne in Iran are probably paying attention to is the practical support Russia is giving. That's what I attend to also. That and the outcomes of the game. As we have seen, it is easy to screw things up, and in the last resort, to raise the price of oil that is all it takes. The Kremlin is nothing if not ruthless. One sees that very clearly sitting in a small nation nearby to Russia when they don't give a damn if the iron claws get seen.

The Kremlin is playing, "Heads we win, tails you lose" right now. Our side isn't being clever at all about big picture strategy. That the USA is weakening itself economically with warfare that simultaneously raises the price of oil is a bonus for the Kremlin (which has few economic ties to us unlike China). That economic malaise in the USA will cause a case of economic bird flu in China is another bonus. Those boys in Moscow are excellent zero-sum game thinkers. They ain't dumb, they just look at the world through a different lens than we do. A very different lens. And they are motivated as all hell these days. They have watched their country collapse into a state so far below that of the USA in the great depression it's hard for Americans to imagine.

For what it's worth, I got one report a few years back from a fairly reliable source (i.e. every other checkable report from that source had been correct) that Igor Giorgadze had been meeting with bin Laden prior to 9-11. But that's just a report and even if true proves nothing. It would make sense for their intelligence service to keep tabs on ol' Osama. They had fewer illusions about what he was about than we did prior to 9-11. But on the other hand, Giorgadze is a very high level agent whose previous assignment was to take over a nation...

Frankly, I think our side has gotten fat, dumb, happy and full of hubris. I advise serious caution. We blew a big opportunity in th 90's to make a great friend. Let's hope we can weather the rise of Russia without becoming too much of enemies again. Rise they will, with a seriousness of purpose that hasn't been seen in our nation for a couple hundred years.