The Crimson Tide

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to meet with Hamas threw a monkey wrench into the Quartet's thus far united front against any dealings with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, barring recognition of Israel's right to exist, a pledge of nonviolence and acceptance of all previous PA undertakings.

Putin not only declared that he would invite Hamas leaders to Moscow, but insisted that Hamas isn't a terrorist organization, again in incontrovertible contradiction to the position of the Quartet (the US, Russia, the EU and the UN).

Putin, who argued that he would seek to prevail on Hamas representatives to accept Israel, is no novice. He knows that rather than soften Hamas, his readiness to enter a substantive dialogue with its leaders greatly reduces the pressure to embark on the transformation that the international community has been demanding. Putin has recklessly made an already very bad situation significantly worse by cozying up to some of the worst villains in the global terrorist conflict, in which Russia itself has sustained agonizing blows.

Conventional wisdom ascribes Putin's obstructionism to aspirations to continue playing the role of a superpower even after the demise of the Soviet Union, and promote a foreign policy not only independent of Washington but even opposed to it.

Hamas terrorists aren't Putin's only odious bedfellows. His regime has been a major accomplice in the Iranian nuclear and missile programs. Russia continues to transfer sophisticated technology to Iran, despite Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad's genocidal threats against Israel and his open denial of the Holocaust.

There is every reason for someone like Putin, who seeks to be counted as a bona fide member of the club of democratic statesmen, to avoid the company of the Axis of Evil's most unsavory mainstay. Yet he both fraternizes with Teheran and stymies America's attempts to refer Iran to the UN Security Council and impose meaningful sanctions upon it.

My friends @ Vital Perspective:

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center points out that Hamas has been a supporter for many years of Chechen separatists targeting Russians with terrorism. Hamas identifies ideologically with Chechen terrorism, regarding them as part of the global jihad. They have allowed Chechen terrorists to use the Hamas web site to provide religous sanction to its suicide bombing attacks. In propaganda, they have called the Red Army's counterterrorism operations "terrorist activities against the Islamic population in Chechya." With all of this ideological opposition, we must ask, why is Vladimir Putin reaching out to them then?

In this respect I would like to explore the link between China and Russia who are desperately wishing to avoid the U.S domination of the Middle East. If they fail to persuade Iran to accept the Russian enrichment proposal it is highly likely that the US will sooner rather than later seek to effect a regime change in Iran.

If, they should succeed in that aspiration, China would be entirely dependent on US goodwill. Russia would lose it’s alternative oil supply leverage, which given a hostile Iran towards the US, could be an invaluable trump card in geo political negotiations with Europe and the US.

Hence Russia is busy dreaming right now that they have a listening partner in Hammas, during a nice cup of tea and cucumber sandwich session to be scheduled in Moscow. Any more tea Vicar? Ahem...

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.

If this is indeed true, I stand to be corrected, in my piece Has Israel Persuaded Washington? I really did not believe what Der Spiegel had printed back in January. The publication is anti-establishment, socialist, pro-appeasement, heavily spinning any story to further it's political conviction, and in my view was not to be trusted. The fact that CIA's Porter Goss decided to blurt out during his visit to Ankara that Turkey should be prepared for possible air assaults against Iran and Syria made me even more suspicious. The notion of Goss blurting anything out without clear intent is simply not credible.

Look if the information has indeed been 'leaked' about the Special Forces missions, it is by choice of the Administration. Not a bad thing in view of the fact that we need to show that we are serious, and that The President will not allow Iran to go nuclear.

Pamela @ Atlas Shrugs says: "Hey guys  just do it already"

France of course has endorsed the Russian Hammas initiative. Why are we not surprised.

Just when Hamas had really been stuck in a corner, forced by Fatah to form a government on its own and faced with economic disaster for its terrorist policies, Russia rides in to extend its gamesmanship in Southwest Asia. Israel erupted with an anger infrequently seen in diplomatic circles, calling the Russian initiative a "knife in the back." Israel has been forced into a long war with Hamas, which it (rightly) sees as an Iranian/Syrian proxy in the territories, and has endured countless attacks on civilian targets by the so-called "political" party. For Israel, the election of Hamas into power by the Palestinian people provided a rare moment of clarity for the world to recognize that the Palestinians are not prepared to accept a peaceful settlement in the region.

The thus encouraged diplomacy violates one of the more trumpeted and lately most-violated tenets of the West: no negotiations with terrorists. And it will have its usual effect, which is to pump up the standing of the terrorists in Hamas and extend the war rather than bring it to an end.

Unless the civilized world unites to make it clear that Iran's current combination of rhetoric and nuclear armament is intolerable, Mr. Ahmadinejad and the mullahs will likely continue to believe they can have their nuclear apocalypse at a "reasonable" price. Inviting Israel to join NATO will send a far tougher message to Iran than mere referral to that tower of delay and rationalization known as the United Nations.

The leader of The America's Useful Idiots, is listening to the sabers rattling. He must be running to his boss John Kerry for advice on how to join forces with Lieberman. Ugh, indeed. Come back Bill all is forgiven....

UPDATE: Iran is prepared to retaliate :

Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists.

The Astute Blogger with another brilliant post here.

More @ Blogs for Bush, California Yankee, Stop The ACLU, Winds of Change.NET, The Belmont Club, The Strata-Sphere, A Daily Briefing on Iran 

Comments

[MarcH]

Alexandra,

It is slightly demoralizing that the Department of State sometimes seems to tiptoe around the issue of Hamas as a terrorist organization. For example, the recent joint press conference of SoS Rice and Israeli FM Livni:

“The administration's uneasiness was illustrated by Rice's remarks at the news conference. She sidestepped a question about what aid to the Palestinians would be restricted, saying it is a "changing and evolving situation." Unlike Livni, she never uttered the word "Hamas" or its State Department designation as a terrorist organization. Instead, Rice spoke vaguely of a "government of the Palestinian people," leaving open the possibility that Hamas could retain its charter calling for the destruction of Israel while a Palestinian government containing Hamas-linked ministers accepts international conditions.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802119.html?nav=rss_print/asection)

[Kenny Pierce]

Bubba,

Are you American? You sound French to me. Seriously, your family American? Born here? Any of them? Yourself? Go back to where you came from, you're not red white and blue.

And the point of that was...?

There's not much secret about Alexandra's background. She is the daughter of noted Yugoslavian literary dissident Borislav Pekic, many of whose family members died at the hands of the Communists. She grew up largely in exile in London and New York, and thus knows well and loves America, despite being Serbian by birth.

Two mother-of-all-moats oceans, America's two centuries of Constitutional stability, our free market heritage and consequent capital and productivity base, and history's greatest military...all together those provide a wealth and security in which the average American lives blissfully, knowing only academically (if at all) the reality that the overwhelming majority of human beings in all times and places throughout history and even today, labor and have labored under political oppression. (When Republicans accuse Democrats of "socialism" and Democrats accuse Republicans of "fascism," the provincialism and the utter ignorance of what life under either of those vicious systems is really like, takes one's breath away. There is much to regret, but little to wonder at, when an American Senator all too predictably musters the impenetrably cocooned, toddlerish ignorance necessary to equate Guantanamo with the gulag.) The freedoms for which Americans have so often fought and died, but which we who have spare time to opine on blogs generally take for granted, are freedoms for which Alexandra and her family have paid with blood. In that, it's quite possible that her kinship with our Founding Fathers is deeper than that of most of her American commentors, including myself.

And nobody less like a French appeaser than Alexandra could very well be imagined.

Of course none of this means that Alexandra's opinions are correct...but then it wasn't her opinions that you were attacking.

[RightyTighty]

Any strike on Iran might be a tad embarrasing. They do have the capacity to hurl a few antiques courtesy of an old underground operation.

[RL]

the infamously anti-Semitic french govt. of
Chirac is also seriously-pursuing "talks" (read
appeasement and compromise) with this evil and
murderous islamoterrorist-organization.

Surprise, surprise ?

Hardly.

i wonder which govt. is next ?
(my hunch is the Chicommies, Cuba, Venezuela,
and the cowardly Spaniards)

They have already had numerous visits with Assad
in Damascus, and even our favourite radical
islamoterrorist Iraqi mullah, muqtada al-sadr,
just recently had an audience with brutal dictator
and major State sponsor of islamoterrorism Assad
in Damascus; he, al-sadr, was in Tehran a couple
of weeks ago. do you see the pattern here ?

[reliapundit]

my read on the sit:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2006/02/israel-warns-putin-hamas-aids-chechens.html

[RL]

It is unlikely that the preemptive strikes against the
islamoterrorist republic of Iran's rogue nuclear-weapons
program, using USAF air-power and the US Navy's advanced missile
technology, will happen before Sizdah Bedar '06; unless an
urgent crisis develops in the region (such as ayatollah khamnei
and ayatollah rafsanjani firing Shehab 3 missiles in the
direction of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. An evil act that both of
these evil-monsters have publicly and repeatedly declared that
they wish to actualize)

If the tri-lateral partnership between Russia, China, and
the IRI is solidified, then they will have officially become
the "evil empire" of the 21st century, and a major threat to
the national-security of both America and Israel(vis a vis
a major increase in funding and armaments for international
islamic terrorist-networks such as hezbollah and islumic jihad)

It should be noted that the USAF's "Boomerang" (aka: B2
"Spirit") also operate out of purpose-built Air Force bases in
the UK as well as Diego Garcia AFB in the Indian Ocean; and
more importantly, they are fully capable of delivering
nuclear munitions.

This is not a good time to be an overworked and underpaid
employee of the IRI's department of energy, or having the
responsibility of guarding their rogue facilities in locations
such as Arak, Isfahan, Natanz, and their "super-secret"
facility that is surrounded and guarded by the IRGC
just North of Tehran.

KGB dictator Putin, and judging by the vast number of
Chinese anti-ship silkworm-missiles and other Chinese armaments
in the IRI's arsenal, and China are not the friends of
America. A weakened America that is led by appeasers who don't
have the will to persevere against and eventually win the global
war against islamoterrorism, is in both of their national/
economic interests; and the consistently high-level of Chinese
and Russian espionage concerning American interests is
very-troubling fact.

fightingterror.org
(bipartisan, pro-American, and pro-commonsense)

[Alexandra]

Edd, Kim, Nasty,

Thank God you came and posted some sane comments thank you, and yes you are absolutely right. The trouble is as Machiavellian as Putin is, he cannot beat the sheer psychotic devotion of the Muslim fundamentlists. If he thinks he has chosen his bed buddies he needs to think again, as for any sincere intentions we can eliminate that thought immediately.

[Edd]

When Vladimir Putin looks in the mirror the only reflection one sees is a younger Joseph Stalin. Putin does not want Pease as defined by most western nations but longs for and will reach out for the old days of superpower glory. Trusting Putin is in the same category of trusting an Inland Taipan or Black Mamba two of the most dangerous snakes in the world. Believe me, Vladimir Putin is not the persona he truly presents to the international community.

[Alexandra]

David,

One politician "calling" for talks does not compare with the Russian President issuing an invitation, but you knew that.

I'd be much more interested to understand what you mean by "Israel is destroying Israel by showing such a serious lack of self-respect!"

[David]

How can you blame Putin when it is so clear that Israel is heading down the same path? Israel claims to be outraged by Russia's action, but at the same time, Yossi Beilin, a big player in Israeli politics was calling for talks with Hamas! No one is destryoing Israel; not Russia, not France, and not even Iran. Israel is destroying Israel by showing such a serious lack of self-respect!

[Alexandra]

CL,

I take offense to your using the name Publius in any form as if your ideas could compare in any way with Alexander Hamilton's.

You are too pompous for words, I suggest you move on, and continue surfing Memeorandum for some more bloggers you can lecture.

And btw 'Publius Rendezvous' is a name of a blog on the TypePad list of TrackBacks, which means blogs that have mentioned this post. Hahahaaha you really are a bright spark.

Not too abstract for you?

[C.L.Nunnelly]

I am always intrigued by ideas that begin at the top try to work themselves down to the base. You build nothing that way. Most of it is pure air as language is not the thing or to quote Korzybski, "the map is not the territory."

While most of this is abstract, it is not an abstraction from nature, but abstractions constructed by just the mind of man. There is some small part of this based on evidence but the major part is creating abstractions that are not found in nature. We will not find truth as truth in this maze of political crap requires certainty.

The issue to America in my opinion (not belief) is simply deciding do we want to revert to the individual states again by destroying a hard acquired infrastructure in the name of "less government" or follow the design of the creators of the United States. Incidentally, I take offense to your using the name Publius in any form as if your ideas could compare in any way with Alexander Hamilton's. Have you studied the 85 Federalist Paperes and other documents used to form a constitution? If you have you might recognize that this government is attempting to destroy a "stron central government." Without that conception you are dancing around the maypole.
The ideas of the PNAC have become policy and the strategy for keeping power the notions of karl rove, just use fear. When the military begins to control activities in this country as our military does in others you might recognize sensory abstractions more clearly.
---------------------------------------------

abstraction - (n.) the act or process of seperating in thought, or considering a thing independantly of its associations; or a substance independantly of its attributes; or an attribute or quality independatly of the substance to which it belongs.
-The Oxford English Dictionary
------------------------------------------
To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;

To experience with abstraction is to know the world.

These two experiences are indistinguishable;

Their construction differs but their effect is the same.
-Lao Tzu
----------------------------------------------
Try John Locke for some paths to "knowing the world.". But never forget that when an abstraction is used, it becomes famous for what is left out.

[Kim @ Up North Mommy]

What may also be contributing to Putin's interest in meeting with Hamas is Hamas' relationship with the Chechen terrorists. Hamas has always allied itself with the Chechens and had promoted anti-Russian propaganda in the PA.

[nasty90]

Perhaps the really big question is this, what is it exactly that makes a given society "civilized"? It is highly likely that most western nations these days would probably answer this question with a phraase like "it is as it is" or "it is because we say so". I have heard the saying before... "that we are only one generation away from being savages".