Russia

 While the right often lapses into analyzing Russia as a mischief maker, trying to expand its sphere of influence through the established means of corruption and destabilization, the reality of the Russia Iran connection grows not from Russia's depraved nature turning always to wickedness to advance a goal or injure an enemy, the Russia Iran connection is based on Russian weakness where wickedness is the only power available to them.  All this boils down to one word-Chechnya.

 Is it a coincidence that since Russia has begun its partnership of with Iran towards a nuclearly armed terrorist state, Russia has ceased to experience any more embarrassing flare-ups in Chechnya?  Why else would Russia help to proliferate nuclear arms with a terrorist state? Chechnya is clearly the pro quo is this equation.  That and the unfounded hope that Iran will use its weaponry against the West.  

Let it be remembered that Iran helped channel the Chechen freedom fighters into Iraq to fight coalition forces during the bleakest days before the surge.

The reality behind Iran's manipulation of Russia has two consequences we might want to keep in mind.  One--this is par for the course for Iran.  They use Islamism to undermine other countries--no doubt Chechnya most of all--to expand their power.  Terror is the origin of Iran's nuclear program and once they have obtained this new toy, terrorism will continue to be their reflexive gesture to their rivals.  Iran's nuclear weapons will be used aggressively, either as a backstop to prevent retaliation for lesser acts of murder or as a direct assault on Israel or the US through their terror network with deniability carefully intact.

The second consequence may have greater consequence in Russia itself but is not useless to the West.   In the Russia Iran relationship, Iran is like the sociopathic womanizer, exploiting the low self esteem of his victim to get what he wants and when it is time to make good on the implied security or love, he drops his mask and gives the female a lesson in how to further lower her already low self esteem.  Russia is not a strong country and Iran has been willing to first help create the crisis in Chechnya and then exploit it to its satisfaction--but once Iran has what it wants from Russia, once it is a nuclear equal why should it continue that relationship?  Russia with its vast Islamic population spread over strategically valuable oil fields is only going to be more vulnerable to a nuclear Iran than it was before.  Russia was too weak to deal with conventional Iran it will be every bit as weak against the Iran it has helped build up (only to be dumped).

Why is this something we need to keep in mind?  Not because of some wishful thinking that Russia and Iran will end up hurting only each other, but rather that this reality, that Russia has acted out of internal weakness needs to be broadcast more widely especially to the Russian people themselves who have been deluded into thinking that the new Putin led Russia is become stronger and more assertive of its interests.  Rather US foreign policy needs to hold up Iran as a perfect case where Russia is capitulating to a clear and distinct enemy out of weakness.  That this is what you get under a kleptocracy--illusions of strength and a heavy bill to pay when that illusion is burst.  A truly strong Russia would be dedicated to a market economy under law, a strong Russia would develop its army with the resources such an economy provides to deal with terrorism within its borders, a strong Russia wouldn't have a hand in helping a country that has done it an injury but would injure that country all the more so in turn.  But then, Russia, for all its power, is not a strong country.  Like those propagating the current Washington line that a nuclear Iran can be finessed, Russia will soon learn that in all this world nothing is so dangerous as lying to yourself.

For us today what solution is there to this mess?  There is only one.  Don't be coward in the face of aggressors.  Military strikes are the only way out and always have been the only way.  I know Iran has chemical weapons ready to fire at Israel but there are ways of communicating one's intentions that even Ahmadinejad can understand and tremble at.  They can lose a weapons program or they can lose everything.  

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Regarding the recent comments from Zbigniew Brzezinski about shooting down Israeli planes on route to Iran, I doubt this was a random unconsulted remark.   The Obama regime is trying to complicate Israel's calculus.  The good news is that I think any such order from the President will result in out and out revolt on the part of the military, if that can be called good news.  Well, we can only count that as a qualified good in truth but Israel can strike and with Washington being what it is these days, they are the last best hope.  Everything else is self-deceit.  

From Jumping in Pools:

Do you remember last year after the Russian invasion of Georgia when Russia threatened to nuke its neighbor Poland? Russia, who has been ruffling the feathers of many of its former possessions, told Poland not to accept an missile defense shield in its country.

The political leadership in Warsaw took a huge risk by accepting the missiles. Not only would it piss off Russia, it would also alienate relations with Iran and could cause an electoral backlash.

But Poland, a stalwart US ally who sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, accepted the missiles. These interceptor missiles could have protected the country from a nuclear attack.

So Obama comes in office, and in a move of great timing he cancels the deal--on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland!

And so Obama, who talked so strenuously about 'fixing' alliances has actually damaged alliances far more than George W. Bush. Bush pushed for and succeeded in forging relationships with Eastern European, former Soviet bloc, and other democratic nations. Obama has so far insulted Britain, Israel, Poland, and the Czech Republic and has opened his hand to Cuba, Libya, Syria, Russia, and Iran.

Is there a problem here?

With US President Barack Obama’s first visit to Moscow this week, the relationship between Russia and the West remains fraught. Last year, it came to the brink once again with the hostilities in Georgia, not to mention winter’s energy crisis. The question of whether Russia and the West can ever put aside their differences and form a strategic partnership is of relevance to our ability to solve many of the problems facing the globe today – including Iran, climate change, energy security and the financial crisis.

In order get the latest opinions on whether this relationship is likely to bloom, Atlantic-Community.org recently canvassed 21 experts on Russian relations from 11 EU and North American think tanks and universities including Janusz Bugajski from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the US, Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff of Yale University, Dr. Hans-Georg Ehrhart of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg and Katinka Barysch from the UK’s Centre for European Reform. Overall, they were largely sceptical of the potential for such a partnership’s chances for development, even though they felt Russia and the West have more common than diverging interests.

Katinka Barysch of the British Center for European Reform told Atlantic Community that many of the issues are interpreted differently by Russia, leading to misunderstandings, while Elzbieta Stadtmuller from the University of Wroclaw in Poland said “Russia is not aware of such common interests because it is attached to the realistic paradigm and sees international politics as 'loser-winner' relation,” while the West has by and large shifted towards a win-win game. While the still-new Obama Administration may change the tone of foreign policy between the US and Russia, the policy experts believe the onus is on Moscow to open up to the concept that there could be common interests with the West in order for any potential strategic partnership to succeed.

Despite the shock waves of the economic crisis being felt around the world and particularly in Russia, dealing with the fall out would provide only a small window of opportunity for enhanced Western-Russian cooperation. Ms Barysch said Russia was dealing with the “triple whammy of collapsing world trade, lack of finance and low oil prices” but the situation was not – yet – severe enough to make Moscow more amenable, even though “Russia needs foreign investment, technology and market access more than before.”

But according to Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Moscow may become more aggressive in order to divert focus from the instability caused by the economic crisis. “Russia's brewing domestic problems precipitated by the global financial crisis will not ensure that its expansionist ambitions are aborted,” Mr Bugajski said.  “On the contrary, in order to deflect attention from mounting social and regional disquiet, the Kremlin may further cultivate the sense of besiegement to threaten and destabilize various neighbors in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus and test Western reactions.”

Ivo Samson from the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association suggests that Russia may continue to “try to use energy policy as an instrument to divide Europe on various issues.” Experts felt the European Union needs to come up with a cohesive policy towards Russian energy supplies – at the very least – in order to respond effectively to such disagreements in the future.

There remain other issues, like the role of NATO – recently highlighted by the decision to hold war games in Georgia - still acting as a stumbling block in the relationship between Russia and the West. As such, it’s unlikely that this is an issue that is going to be solved in the short term, irrespective of the benefits such a partnership may provide to transatlantic relations.  

As President Obama arrives in Moscow this week, it will be the first, small step on the road to a better relationship between Russia and the US. But even though this is undoubtedly a positive development, the experts polled by Atlantic-Community.org remain sceptical about the likelihood of a strategic partnership being formed between the two nations. Perhaps, as Merijn Hartog of the Centre for European Security Studies suggests, Russia may need new leadership before closer ties can be forged.

View the four-part expert survey online here.

Ria Voorhaar is an editor with Atlantic Community, the first online think tank for foreign policy. She is also a strategic communications specialist who is currently working on a global climate change campaign.

 Michael Savage needs to take a chill pill.

One of the biggest issues with this Russian/Georgian conflict is the fact that there is a lack of verifiable information. One minute you hear that the conflict has ended and the fighting has stopped the very next, you hear that the fighting is still happening, and that the Russians are not honoring the cease-fire agreement. It is all rather confusing, and it makes for a very frustrated blogger. Because the last thing a blogger wants to be, is wrong.

However, more than that is the lack of the Main Stream Media’s ability to look at this entire conflict in a historical context. Many are pointing to the actions of Ronald Reagan for dissolving the Soviet Union Empire, as being the cause of this conflict. I happen to disagree with that notion. I believe personally that it was the foolish actions of President Harry Truman, that is the cause of this conflict or shall I say the harvest of seeds planted by Harry Truman’s actions.

On December 7, 1941, the empire of Japan attacked the United States naval base in Oahu, Hawaii. This act of brazen hostility brought the United States of America into World War II, despite President Franklin Roosevelt’s pledge to remain neutral in the ever-growing conflict. As history would show, The United States fought the war and finally Hitler was defeated, and Japan surrendered. However, the method used to end the war, is in my opinion the underlying cause of this conflict.

It is a known fact that the United States soundly defeated Hitler by fighting them on the ground and air, using conventional weapons. However, we stopped the war, and to end the conflict with Japan, we used atomic weapons. This I feel was a tragic mistake. This is because Truman was a different kind of a Democrat than Roosevelt. Roosevelt was an “old line” Democrat, who saw the Communist threat, knew what the Communist doctrine was truly about, the repression of freedom and he stood to defeat it. No matter how long it took.

However, Truman was another matter entirely. President Truman represented the “new line” of Democrats who felt that war was unneeded and that peace was a better path. This was a precursor to the “peacenik” Democrats of the sixties. This was evident when President Truman gave his infamous “Military Industrial Complex” speech, at the end of his term. * - See below, please.  With Hitler out of the way, Truman, feeling the ever-increasing pressure to end the war and return the country to pre-war status, devised a plan to end the conflict with Japan.

While using the Atomic bomb might have been an effective means of ending a war, its impact and stain upon the United States would be long ranging, to this very day, is to be considered a very poor decision by the United States. On many websites in Japan, including those in English, denounce America as being brutal for dropping the bomb. However, those who had friends and relatives that died at Pearl Harbor felt that Japan got what it deserved.

It is in the opinion of this writer, that the United States should have fought the war, all the way to Russia, until communism was soundly defeated. Furthermore, The United States of America, should have never dropped the atomic bomb on the empire of Japan, but rather, should have fought that war on the ground, until Japan surrendered. This would have resulted in the total defeat of communism. However, as we all know, this never happened.

Because of this obtuse neglect, the United States of America began a “Cold War” with the empire of the Soviet Union that lasted until a Conservative President, a real conservative President, whom came on the scene in the eighties to plant the seeds that would eventually bring down the soviet empire. However, as we have seen here in the last few days, Russia is not a free and democratic society; it is simply a police state, without the outright communism.

Putin, a man who is sympathetic toward the old soviet empire, filled to the brim with communist doctrine, is wagging his finger in the face of the United States and making a mockery of the supposed democracy in the European continent. This is the harvest of the neglect of the Democratic Party of the forties.

* Update: Oops! I blew it, Truman did NOT give the military-industrial complex speech, Dwight Eisenhower did. My bad. I blew it, I should have checked. But my point about the Democrats and the cold war as it relates to Russia still stands.

So far, there's been rhetoric about the revanchist Russian power grab in Georgia.  And equivocation from the "hope and change" camp. And not much else.

But if the idea of a resurgent militarily ambitious Russia under Vladimir Putin and his Mini-me President bothers you there are things one can do to respond short of becoming a soldier of fortune in the Caucauses.

Quit buying stuff from Russian firms and using our dollars to prop up their military arsenal.   

Now the easiest one to idetifiy is vodka.  There are plenty of fine alternatives to Stolichnaya. I would suggest Finlandia and Grey Goose (let's reward France for Sarkozy) as excellent replacements.

But the most valuable source of foreign exchange to  Putin's plutocracy is oil sales. And you may be directly propping up the Russian economy without even knowing it.

One of the biggest players in "Big Oil" in the U.S. right now is a Russian owned firm, LUKOIL. 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUKOIL

LUKoil (RTS:LKOH LSE: LKOD NASDAQ: LUKOY) (Russian: ЛУКойл; pronounced /lukɔɪl/) is Russia's largest oil company and its largest producer of oil.^[2] In 2006, it produced 95.2 million metric tons of oil.

Its international upstream subsidiary is called LUKOIL Overseas Holding. Headquartered in Moscow, LUKOIL is the second largest public company (next to ExxonMobil) in terms of proven oil and gas reserves (ca. 20 bn boe by SPE standards; some 1.3% of global oil reserves).  

 

Now how are you helping out this firm? Well, in 2000 they bought out Getty Oil and now sell gasoline thorugh that brand and their own brand. (They changed the brand to that of their own firm in the Philadelphia/NJ market; but kept Getty in New England and upper NY state)

Wikipedia reports that Kwik Farms and also some Model statiions in PA are LUKOIL owned. You may have seen their billboards at some MLB stadiums on the east coast.

Now "who" is LUKOIL? The biography of the firm's principal   Vahid Alakbarov , reveals that he was "appointed deputy minister of the Oil and Gas Industry of the Soviet Union and became the youngest deputy energy minister in Soviet history."

I've affixed LUKOIL's U.S. web site, complete with photos of Putin's visit to one of their NYC gas stations.

http://www.lukoilamericas.com/

Say what you want about ExxonMobil, their profits aren't going into the Russian national treasury.

I know boycotts are so lefty , and 1960's- ish and granola. But dammit, we have choices about what to put in our drinks and our gas tanks 

I choose not to send my diminished greenbacks to people who want to refight the Cold War all over again.

Don't buy Stoli!

DON'T BUY LUKOIL OR GETTY GASOLINE!

Lenin said capitalists would sell the rope used for their hanging. Let's keep the rope here, folks.