to rail against.

Folks who are pro-peace can 'thank' Putin for that nasty move.

regions. Chechnyan insurgents, where are you?

Are they just collateral damage?

in the decimation of the Russian press corps.

Of which 200 were children? You advocated for the Chenchnyan insurgents two posts ago. Not cool.

Chechnya and that they've killed thousands of Chechnyans in their 'pacification' campaign? Not cool.

I'm not advocating anybody killing anybody.

I AM saying that Vlad needs to be reigned in, and that a little internal dissension would focus his attention elsewhere.

Chechnyan terrorists killed US citizens in Boston by the way, including a little boy named Martin who was 8 years old. What every happened to diplomacy? Have we forgotten how to be civil? Or is violence now the only answer?

agreement leading to the framework, the whole purpose of which for the Iranians was to lift the sanctions....of many countries.

It is anti-aircraft and cruise missile. Considering that Israel is dying to attack Iran it makes sense that Iran have good defense against a possible air attack.

he is trying to kill the peace deal.

programme."

Sounds like it is in line with the deal. Isn't the deal supposed to lift sanctions?

Anyone who really cares about this peace agreement would wait until the details are finalized and the smoke clears before doing what Putin just did. That is a matter of months.

BUT, if you want to destroy the peace deal before it's finalized, you would do exactly this, which is to hand critics of the peace deal in the US the perfect red meat that they need to attack the deal.

I'm only surprised that Putin is being so transparent about it. The only thing I can come up with is that he wants everyone to know he is doing this.

amount of enriched uranium. Putin is not abiding by the agreement, and he knows it. Sounds like you know it too, but are defending him. Why is that?

They barely have a framework in place that lays out the principles the deal will be negotiated around.

That's why the White House wants the extension before Congress votes on anything.

is the end to international sanctions

threatened to go back on several nuclear agreements and of course, after going back on the Ukraine promise to respect their borders, no one really trusts Russia on international agreements anymore. The rest of the partners on the peace agreement would almost certainly continue the sanctions if the deal fell through.

What this signals to me, beyond what I have said about it already, is that Putin views creating problems for the US as even more important than Russia's long term security. Iran has no love for Russia and has been training Chechen rebels against Russia. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1504038/Teheran-secretly-trains-Chechens-to-fight-in-Russia.html

This is just the latest piece of evidence that Russia views the world in terms of them versus the US. Everything else is secondary.

move to try to kill the deal before it's finalized.

lifted now, beginning in phases, starting with this.

I expect Germany and France to follow the lead with lifting on non-military sanctions, and by the time the Republicans and the Mullahs - use interchangeably - have begun to do anything but fling word feces to their base it will be too late....the world will have lifted sanctions and the world will keep spinning on its axis as always, Israel will still have it's 100 nuclear bombs....with or without America and the Mullahs.

And there will be no war.

What is the option?

Why would Russia do this NOW?

1. There's an interim agreement.
2. It could use the money.
3. Israel keeps threatening to attack Iran.

Those are all more reasonable explanations than your convoluted one, which doesn't explain why Russia would want to blow up the deal it had a hand in negotiating.

There is only one reason to do this now while there is only the framework of an agreement that is not finalized.

Besides, delivery of the air defence systems are not due until the end of the year.

Other than "bomb, bomb, bomb - bomb, bomb Iran"?

during the crucial period between the 'framework' agreement and the final treaty in June?

I suspect not. Just more of Vlad's dirty work.

to ignore all of that.

Russia's economy is less healthy with the price of oil being in the pits. I'm sure that geo-politics plays a role as well and, yes, there is always the bare chested bear riding impaler (my bad, I made up that part about the bear).

It would be nice if these things had simple answers but sorry, they don't.

For what reason I have no idea.

But this is an extremely obvious move.

It's only a big deal now because the deal isn't finalized and could fall through.

but it has no more value than mine. As we say in Texas about opinions, "They are like assholes, everyone's got one and they all stink!" That includes mine. We will see if this skunks the deal or not.

Whereas you and several others seem desperate to come up with any alternative explanation to the point you are ignoring important facts.

me.

The Truth Will Out.

I would offer to make a wager but since we are physically apart we cannot shake on it.

LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

If you aren't willing to even contemplate any other possibility, of course you will believe you are right. Your belief in your own righteousness does not mean you are correct. Any more than Sen Cotton's belief in his righteousness makes him correct.

That's not having fingers in the ears. That is a fact that is very inconvenient for you and anyone else who would prefer to believe something else.

You seem to believe that "a deal" would instantly lift all sanctions on military goods. That is insane. Everything that has been discussed at this point had a staged removal of sanctions, and sanctions against trading military goods are going to be the last thing to go away.

So it's not two months. It's many years.

to be lifted on a specific timetable.

Right now, Russia can claim there's kinda a deal in place so they can sell the weapons because the previous sanctions were supposed to last until there is a deal.

The other big, massive, gaping hole in your theory is what Putin gets from killing the deal. You claim that is his goal, yet don't actually list any concrete benefit for Putin.

The guy's a sociopath. He doesn't give a fuck about who "looks bad". He wants money, power and land. Killing a deal in Iran gets him none of that. There's no land involved. There's no boost in power. And since China and several other nations happily buy Iranian oil, and oil is a fungible commodity, he can't get any extra money from sanctions preventing Iranian oil sales.

being argumentative more than you are being logical.

Putin has no problem with supplying Iran with defensive missiles but freaks out and starts threatening whenever one of his neighboring countries considers acquiring them.

will not want to deal with.

And critics in the USA are going to have Jack Shit to say about it.

This is about $$$.

enough to kill the deal. I hope not.

The Congress can go along or not, nobody cares what they think. I am sure Russia and Iran do not.

Have they got anywhere with their bloviating so far? no. Did Obama just slap them around in a public international forum? Yes, he did. Do they have any idea what to do about that except keep on with the bloviating? No.

With the defense system, Bibi, if he tries a foolish attack, will suffer 50-75% loss of aircraft and pilots. Putin just took out Bibi's dentures and threw them in fire rendering him toofless.

The second goal of this is to let the congresscritters know that they can have their own sanctions but they will not be followed by the world -- so they will be essentially shooting themselves in the foot.

also wrong.

No one weapons system can accomplish what you wrote. There are ways around this missile system just like there are ways around just about everything else. One of the more simple methods is to launch standoff traditional (i.e. non cruise) missiles against the system itself to destroy the S-300 system before more traditional air attacks.

There is no question that the S-300 makes attacking Iran more complicated, but it is not a guarantee by any means to cause an attacker to "suffer 50-75% loss of aircraft and pilots".

But all of that is besides the point. This move by Putin now is designed to provide ammunition to the peace deal's opponents to scuttle the deal. None of the other arguments for it stand up to scrutiny.

In two months, once the deal is done, this move might be for money or various other reasons.

If it looks like other nations are slipping out of the sanctions regime, the republican push for even more stringent sanctions would evaporate.

Americans never go at sanctions alone because that only hurts Americans.

Kremlin is giving cover to Germany and France to start business with Iran and you'll see more deals announced in coming weeks. UK, being the loyal poodle, will hold out a bit but eventually cave in.

this. We will be very lucky if the peace deal holds and if we aren't at war with Iran in a few months. That's what Putin wants.

I see a silver lining here.
First Israel won't be able to attack Iran because of the missiles.
Second if god forbid we get a puke in the White House in 2017 they also won't attack Iran because of the air defenses.
Iran gets no offensive advantage from this but the defensive advantage is huge.
It's not a bad thing in that sense.

without the "letter" from the 47?

He wants to kill the deal.

Russia's economy is utterly dominated by oil. Oil prices are very low. And sanctions aren't helping Russia's economy.

Putin needs cash. Iran has it, and wants missiles.

The timing is the key to understanding what this is about.

It is likely that any deal will include keeping military sanctions on longer than non-military sanctions. So Putin has no idea when the military sanctions will actually be lifted.

However, if he uses the fig leaf of "there's a framework!", he can complete the sale before the deal explicitly blocks the sale.

And truth be told, Russia, and Putin in particular, don't much like Iran, not least of which because of this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1504038/Teheran-secretly-trains-Chechens-to-fight-in-Russia.html

but agreements? Putin doesnt give a rats arse about them.

That makes no sense. We'd have already scuttled it over Ukraine.

He's got a window of opportunity to get a lot of money. That window will close when "the deal" goes through, and it won't reopen for an indeterminate time. And Russia's economy is doing poorly, so he needs cash in the next couple years to stave off the pitchforks.

Yes, the missiles will piss off Israel. We're already pissed at Israel. We are openly mocking Netanyahu and his bomb picture.

Meanwhile, killing the deal gets Russia nothing. Much of the western world already believe no deal is possible, so not getting a deal isn't even going to be a "black eye" for the US.

Throughout this thread, your claim is Putin is trying to scuttle "the deal". Now you're claiming you never said that.

In fact, you wrote this:

Last edited Mon Apr 13, 2015, 02:25 PM - Edit history (1)

They obviously don't care that Russia would be violating the sanctions that are in place RIGHT NOW. They also don't seem to understand that it's the Republican 47 types that want this scuttled. I guess Vlad the Impaler is some kind of hero on DU?

that Putin is an angelic dove who can do no wrong and the U.S. is the automatic bad guy in anything to do internationally particularly with respect to the Middle East and anything to do with Russia and Ukraine.

Anybody that reads through this thread can see who is and is not obsessed with Putin.

I've read the thread too. It seems like those obsessed are the ones that think Putin is doing the right thing.

That's how far this pro-Putin/anti-American stuff goes.

He should be expected to be an asshole, that is what assholes do. All of this whining about Putin is just a red herring to avoid looking at the incompetence of our dealings with the asshole.

And all of these people who are obsessed with Putin and the fact he has not been an incompetent opponent in these purile power games seem to think that you get to win these disputes by moral posturing.

It was clear to me he was an asshole from way back, he did the same thing in Georgia, but for some reason all these other people who think he is an asshole did not expect him to do it this time.

This is not a popularity contest, but if it was we would be losing.

What I said was, some folks are determined to see issues with regards to Putin a certain way.

There are indeed Putin lovers out there, but that is not our problem, that it their problem. Our problem is how do we stanch the induced haemorrhage in our credibility and influence? Well the first thing you do is fire some people, lots of people.

in order to boost their economy is a good thing.

How does desperation make Putin a hero?

So either you have some reason where desperation makes Putin a hero, or you're just calling people names.

And where does desperation enter in to this?

The idea with the deal was and is to bring Iran in from the cold.

But it is also correct to say that it is a direct result of Bibi's incompetence and belligerence.

they have a few hoops to jump through between now and the end of June.

beginning. I know you agree with me (I think) considering your previous responses.

Putin is the worst thing to happen to the world since Dick Cheney. In fact he is worse than Cheney because Cheney's influence was limited by term limits. Putin is apparently leader of Russia for life.

a 'bare-chested bear rider', as somebody said. They do love their strong men.

Frankly, the public declaration by some in the pentagon, which is part of the executive branch and should be reinforcing the President on everything, is surprising and should result in repercussions. But, we are going to see an avalanche of folks coming out to say this action by Russia proves the whole peace deal should be scuttled.

and soon to be more, no doubt.

Curious what the agenda might be. You seem to be heavily invested in getting your point out above all others.

to go about it.

The "agenda"? Being mad that someone may have torpedoed the peace deal. Are you happy about that?

I'm siding with the side looking for peace.

As it is I don't know whom you are proposing as the sides, or perhaps I am just not aware of the recent alliance between Russia and Israel, although I think that is possible.

But generally I can tell you that I don't take sides much, the confirmation bias kills you and you can't tell what is going on.

And I have a low opinion of posters who expect me to or ask me to or raise it like it was an important point.

And I just told you what I think of Putin, eh? Would you believe me if I repeated myself?