News
Russian general confirms Iran missile deal frozen
Reuters
Published: 22.09.10, 13:33
Comment Comment
Print comment Print comment
Back to article
6 Talkbacks for this article
1. But as long as they sell to Syria
Anon ,   Johannesburg   (09.22.10)
Iran will get it anyways... so whats the point?
2. Russian arms
hebrew prophet ,   israel   (09.22.10)
Now that the Russians are aware of Isreal supplying arms to the former USSR republics ,they suddenly have woken up to the real world of politics where what,s good for the goose is also good for the gander ,typical ex communist mentality?
3. Russia is a lot of things...
Mark from Georgia ,   USA   (09.22.10)
But stupid isn't one of them. While they may be sending a message to the U.S., France, Britain etc., and all the other players. That they are still major players in the Middle East. But like anything nowadays it would be easy to put a GPS on these types of weapons, and track them, and where they go. There are probably a hundreds of ways to hide it, or make it look like part of the weapon and it normal electronics. So who knows what's really happening here. Although I do agree with other writers that anything you sell to Syria, Iran will certainly get a look at. Whether Syria would actually give one up to Iran is another issue.
4. The Syrian deal will be cancelled, too
Sarah B ,   U.S.A. / Israel   (09.22.10)
The last thing that Russia wants is for Israel to resurrect its arms deal with the Republic of Georgia. There is nothing in the Russian arsenal that is as good as whatever any of the former Soviet republics can get from Israel. And there's a VERY major arms deal in the works between Israel and China, which is causing headaches in the Kremlin. For all their noise, the Russians will back down. The last thing on earth they want is for the United States Congress to yank their "most favored nation" status. And there's the little (well, not so little) matter of the devastating harvest failure in Russia. They do not want to displease the United States too much; particularly since the Congress is likely to go Republican in a very big way come the mid-term elections. 335 million metric tons of grain -- a free gift of food from the people of the United States -- is riding on Russia learning how to behave itself.
5. What's frozen today...
Persian CAT   (09.22.10)
will be unfrozen tomorrow. These things usually have a very short shelf life. Who remembes Victor Chernomyrdin's "secret" agreement with Al Gore not to sell arms, any arms, to Iran? Who remembers what happened next?
6. War with Russia
ben Ish   (09.22.10)
It is in fact *greed* which keeps the world from flying apart most of the time. If the US were drawn into a conflict large enough to affect it's economy, most nations in the world stand to lose enormous amounts of money. Hence the bonds to China, and the dollar as a reserve currency. No one wants to lose money on such an epic scale. Yes Russian hardware is often lower quality than Western product, however... compare the bullet to the vest. It takes a $1200 vest to stop a .49 bullet. When you are talking $2.5M bullets (120 of them) It something to worry about. AFIK, there has not been any real-world test of Yakhont vs. Aegis. Of course there -have- been such tests, we just don't know about them, and the only reason we would not know about them is because Aegis has failed every Yakhont test. Back to the money thing. Gazprom. Do they make more money or less, when the price of oil goes up? Question 2, in the event Iran mines the strait, does the price of oil go up? Question 3, in the event of war, how much power does oil and fuel represent? Question 4, who would be the winners and losers? Now you can debate to what extent, what the actual balance & returns might be, but clearly in an Iranian war, Russia would come out the winner, and essentially all Western economies would lose.
Back to article