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How Serious Does it Have to Be For Americans to Get Worried?
Putin has lifted the ban on supplies of S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran, effective immediately. The S-300 is Russia’s top-of-the-range air-defense system. Anyone really think those sanctions will just snap back?
The moves come after world powers, including Russia, reached an interim deal with Iran on curbing its nuclear programme and signal that Moscow may have a head-start in the race to benefit from an eventual lifting of sanctions on Tehran. The Kremlin said Putin signed a decree lifting Russia’s own ban on the delivery of S-300 anti-missile rocket system to Iran, removing a major irritant between the two after Moscow cancelled a corresponding contract in 2010 under pressure from the West. A senior government official said separately that Russia has started supplying grain, equipment and construction materials to Iran in exchange for crude oil under a barter deal.
Sources told Reuters more than a year ago that a deal worth up to $20 billion was being discussed with Tehran and would involve Russia buying up to 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day in exchange for Russian equipment and goods.
The batteries must presumably be operated by Russian crews before Iranian teams could be trained in their use. In other words, if the US or Israel attempted to destroy the missiles and caused Russian casualties, you’d have a direct superpower confrontation.
I know going on about Hillary’s campaign video three days running makes me sound obsessed, but it spooked me. It seems to me that anyone who has even the vaguest sense that these events are really happening would find that video astonishing. I keep thinking: the ad was extensively tested. A very significant number of Americans must like it and think it’s appropriate. The only way I can understand that is that is to imagine they literally have not heard that any of this is happening–or somehow don’t see it as connected to the United States. How else can it be explained?
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And this is my concern, precisely: A large part of the electorate doesn’t seem to think these issues are at all important. I judge this based on what I think a reasonable assumption: Hillary’s ad was extensively tested and focus-grouped.
But they are important. The electorate is–ultimately–in charge of our foreign policy.
How do you explain this: This is on the front page of newspapers everywhere else in the world. It’s not such a complicated issue; it requires no special grasp of higher-order mathematics or constitutional law. To read any article about it is to grasp that the key assurances we’ve been given–that the sanctions can “snap back,” and that “the military option remains on the table”–are false. This is obviously a very big deal.
I don’t think this is complicated or academic. I don’t think anyone needs a doctorate to grasp it.
Putin’s action was definitley another poke in Obama’s eye. This really does elevate the stakes because now Iran if they do get a nuclear bomb can protect it from destruction. I’ve been worried on the international front for a long time. Obama is the most incompetant president I have ever experienced.
We have 19 months before we have to pull the lever. This issue will have it’s day in the court of public opinion. The media will get to it, and folks like you who are more in the know will have your say.
Here’s my say, and maybe it’s just the football coach in me:
If Iran is losing it’s chance at their best offensive players (nuke bombs) wouldn’t we fully expect them to strengthen their defense? They are on their own side. This seems like a formation our offensive coordinator should easily anticipate.
Also – there is no deal yet. This move by Russia is taking place without a deal. If I may advocate for the devil, doesn’t that support Obama’s point that deals with Iran are needed?
Lavrov explicitly said that the embargo on S-300 deliveries was no longer necessary owing to “the progress in Iran’s nuclear talks made in Lausanne on April 2.” And Moscow is explicitly saying that they’re hastening this to ensure they’re first in on the market. It’s possible that they would have done this anyway as retaliation for the NATO buildup in Eastern Europe, but we’ve given them a tremendous figleaf.
As for Iran strengthening its defense: Pretty clearly no one wants to launch an air campaign against Iran–except under one circumstance.
Persuading Russia to embargo the S-300 was the only tangible achievement of the reset. It certainly seems noteworthy to the rest of the world that we now have an overt Russian-Iranian axis. It’s another extremely aggressive Russian gesture–one in perfect keeping with Russian behavior of late. A Russo-Persian condominium over the Persian Gulf would be a nightmare. And this is a clear sign that this is precisely what they envision.
Claire,
I really wish that I am wrong, but I don’t think so. What has the American reaction been to having peoples’ heads cut off or burned alive in a cage caught on video? Crickets after a few news cycles. I was stationed in the UK during 9-11, a few days after the attack, I saw a news segment on the BBC. An American college student was being interviewed, he stated that if there was a military draft, he was going to Canada. Right now I think the only thing that the average American might risk his/her neck for is their own kids, but nothing else. I always wondered what was like when Rome fell to the barbarians, guess we have from row seats .
I felt the same way about 1938 Europe and how people could do nothing in the face of a gathering storm.
Let’s talk about just how serious this really is. We’ve known since 2009 that Iran has successfully tested the Sejjil-2, a two-stage, solid-fuel, surface-to-surface missile. It has a range of 1,500 miles. If the Iranians can fit that with a nuclear war head and get it on to the deck of an oiltanker this is how much ocean they can hide in and still take out significant east coast targets:
Well most of those states vote Dem anyway. Sure we might get our hair mussed, 10-20 million tops. Acceptable casualties in the greater causes of Kerry’s Nobel prize and Obama’s master plan.
It would depend on which city. There are some cities they might be doing us a favor by removing.
But it might help to have been in a schoolyard fight or two…
I want to second (or third!) the recommendation for Claire’s book, Menace in Europe. I wrote a review of it several months ago, here:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/44959.html
Where can I send money to support this attack? Enemy of my enemy soft of thing. Just taking out DC or New York makes this enterprise interesting.
The Sejil-3–reportedly–will have a range of 4,000 km. Pretty astonishing that people have convinced themselves the threat is only to Israel.
And they are developing Sejil3 under sanctions, right? They got all those centrifuges under sanctions, right?
Claire,
Well I wanted to use only conventional comments but this is getting way out of hand.
YOU HAVE WAITED MUCH TOO LONG. NOW YOU’D BETTER WATCH YOUR TONGUE.
Regards,
Jim
Claire,
If you are basing your view of what Americans think of the situation on the video that Hillary’s team produced, I think you are in error. That only tells you what the demographic Hillary is targeting thinks. I can tell you that in my circle of people, the only ones who don’t see this as a serious problem are the 30-something and younger democrats.
I believe that Americans understand how serious things are in the middle east, even if they don’t have a well articulated, nuanced explanation of what’s going on. Knowing there’s a serious problem, and knowing what to do about, and knowing who knows what to do about it, those are three separate things.
I meant is was complicated compared to Monica Lewinsky…
That’s a pretty significant and worryingly large demographic. Look, no one likes to say it here, because it’s bad for morale, but Hillary has a very good shot. We all know it.
It’s certainly not all of America, but it’s far too much. I’m very willing to hear a serious argument about Iran with which I’m in disagreement. I’m very willing to hear many political arguments with which I’m in disagreement. But what that video said was that a very significant number of Americans–a plurality or even a majority–think there’s nothing to discuss. In other words, we’re not even having a debate about the American role in the world: It’s not even on peoples’ minds.
I think there are also a substantial number of people who feel that things are spinning out of control–in the Middle East, in the American economy, and in the American social structure–but also feel so overwhelmed that they prefer not to think about it.
I’m reminded of a passage in Arthur Koestler’s sadly-neglected novel, The Age of Longing. The novel, written in 1950, is set in a Europe which faces imminent Soviet invasion. In this passage, a senior French security official is asked by a young American woman why so many people are in denial about the forthcoming attack.
No, Mademoiselle, don’t be misled by appearances. France and what else is left of Europe may look like a huge dormitory to you, but I assure you nobody in it is really asleep. Have you ever spent a night in a mental ward? During the Occupation, a doctor who belonged to our group got me into one when the police were after me. It was a ward of more or less hopeless cases, most of whom were marked down for drastic neurosurgical operations. When the male nurse made his round, I thought everybody was asleep. Later I found out that they were only pretending, and that everybody was busy, behind closed eyes, trying to cope after his own fashion with what was coming to him. Some were pursuing their delusions with a happy smile, like our famous Pontieux (a philosopher modelled on Sartre–ed). Others were working on their pathetic plans of escape, naively hoping that with a little dissimulation, or bribery, or self-abasement, they could get around the tough male nurses, the locked doors, the operating table. Others were busy explaining to themselves that it wouldn’t hurt, and that to have holes drilled into one’s skull and parts of one’s brain taken out was the nicest thing that could happen to one. And still, others, the quiet schizos who were the majority, almost succeeded in making themselves believe that nothing would happen, that it was all a matter of exaggerated rumours, and that tomorrow would be like yesterday. These looked as if they were really asleep. Only an occasional nervous twitch of their lips or eyes betrayed the strain of disbelieving what they knew to be inevitable…No, Mademoiselle nobody was really asleep.
Having a role means we might have to do something and there are a lot of people who don’t want to anything.
To the extent I have discussed Iran with people who disagree with me, the common response is “who you really want a war?” As though if Iran gets nuclear weapons, the chance of war is reduced and not increased.
Claire, I don’t get your point to be honest. Hillary’s little video was a slick ad that did one thing right more than anything else: it limited Hillary’s face time to a few seconds. That she didn’t mention the possible Russian sale of an air defense system to Iran in the video isn’t very meaningful. I mean, to be fair, no presidential candidate has mentioned this item (or anything this specific) in their announcement speech. Rubio mentioned Iran once in his speech.
I think you’re connecting two things in your mind that aren’t. Also, I’m not too worried about this to be honest. I’d rather it not occur, but we still have the best gd Air Force and Navy on the planet and plenty of ways around these systems. The Iraqis under Saddam had tons of Russian military hardware. How’d that turn out for them?
P.S. Enough about how great it would be if the East Coast got nuked. Some of us live there. This country would fall apart without the East Coast. Sorry dudes. Phoenix isn’t that important.
They didn’t have the S-3000.
Here’s a loose translation from an analysis in Libération. (The French press certainly has this front-and-center today.) I agree with the author. This is as disturbing for what it says about Russian intentions as it is for what it says about the way this deal is heading:
Yes, I agree.
My point isn’t that I expected Hillary to say anything specific about this deal or even about foreign policy. But there was a lack of any sense of the United States facing exceptionally serious problems right now. The banal murmurings and chuckles about the challenge of keeping the dog out of the garbage and some guy marrying “someone I really care about” seemed chilling in context: the context being a degree of geopolitical instability that has the rest of the world panicked, and a widespread acknowledgement–simply taken as fact, now, by everyone outside the US–that America is in dangerous decline.
We have reset buttons. We have hashtags.
Does a nation that twice elect Obama really have reason to expect more?
I agree with your criticism of the ad. As appealing as it was, when you reflect on its purpose–to convince the viewer that Hillary would make a good president–you realize that she’s an empty shell with no moral vision for the country or world, who just desperately wants the position because she always has and doesn’t know what else to do with herself. It seems like she should have a clearer vision of why she seeks office, but I really don’t think she does. She wants it because she does. There’s no great problem or issue that’s motivating her run. I think this explanation (along with Hillary’s desire to distance herself from herself and pander to each and every element of the Democratic primary base) explains the ad’s contents better than Hillary’s obliviousness that the end of the Pax Americana is nigh. I actually think she understands that last problem better than Obama, but her campaign isn’t going to talk about it much, if at all.
Let me amend that to say that her primary campaign isn’t going to focus on foreign affairs. Dem primary voters just don’t care about such things. Maybe if you view that ad as a pander to that (smaller) subset of the population, you can rest easier knowing that only a third of the American populace has lost its marbles. Another third agrees with you, and the last third is too busy scrolling through Instagram to care.
Our current foreign policy experts (and Secretary of States) under Obama are inexperienced (Hillary did not do anything to bring stability but the opposite) and they do not understand history, especially Russian history. Obama sadly seems to be looking for a legacy that he somehow created a more peaceful situation by trying to work with the Iranians. This speaks for their attempts at preventing Netanyahu from being re-elected – trying for another legacy, seeing Israel as the problem, not the thugs that are surrounding Israel.
The big picture shows Russia stirring the pot of turmoil in the Middle East for a long time, and he probably wants control of the Strait that all the Middle Eastern oil comes out of. He tries to control the supply of oil to Europe especially in winter by buying up all the companies that supply it by hook or crook. He has big plans that have been churning forward since he re-elected himself – and all of the world’s rogue leaders are speeding up their plans while the current administration of appeasement is still in place doing nothing.
Putin I imagine is happy there is so much turmoil among the Islamist nations while he spins his web and Iran spins centrifuges – he will continue to contribute to the turmoil. Americans are weary, but we have always been there as a stabilizing force through strength – we have grown soft, and that has to change – the survivors of WWII are dying off, but listening to their stories, both military and civilian, had hardships that we can’t even imagine. But their sacrifices brought freedom and peace – I know this will be a message loud and clear come election time from candidates who care, and we are desperate to hear it and believe it again.