Thank you for the exposition Wretchard that was great.
Frankly all this Russia sympathy in the comments has me a bit concerned. To it’s reasonably obvious that Iran is simply a weapon to swing at the West – who else is providing Iran’s nuclear technology? Does anyone really believe AQ Khan’s network was a “black market”? Come on – anyone ever hear of Victor Bout, the “former” KGB arms dealer?
Guys. All this war of maneuvor, of which al Qaeda, the Iraq and Afghan Wars, the oil spikes, are a part, all of this is part of a Russian strategy.
Someone referred to “Russophobes” above. Russophobes? An irrational fear of Russia? Do you, my friend, know much about the USSR, to say nothing of Russia prior to it? It is plausibly said that the business of the USA is business; England was the shopkeeper nation. What, in your opinion, is Russia’s character? Or do you believe that the 70% of KGB/GRU agents who currently run the Russian government and orchestrate its farcical democratic theater just said, “well played old chap, well played!” when the Soviet Union disintigrated?
Is that how you interpret the Ukrainian and other oil shut-offs – as reasonable economic comeuppance for these little states?
And what about Russian provision of all manner of help – from the US order of battle to Iraq prior to OIF, to missile and nuclear technology to Iran, to weapons for Hezbollah, and general diplomatic cover for all these states, including welcoming HAMAS to the Kremlin, among other things?
Personally I’m glad the missile shield is going up. Russia is just bitching to provoke all its erstwhile allies to carry water for it – there is no way that the United States is contemplating war with Russia, and so there is no way the Russians could possibly feel threatened.
As always, the primary thrust of Russia’s strategy is essentially *political,* not essentially military – and they know that our political scene is most vulnerable. The Left believes precisely what the Kremlin wants it to believe, and behaves in a disruptive and hamstringing manner in exactly the way that is most valuable to Russia. It only need to throw gas on those histrionic imaginations occasionally to keep the pressure on commonsensical Americans.
How could Russia’s strategy not be implacably aggressive, and its delusions of America’s hostility not rooted in its own essential aggression, when it is run by the people it is run by, and in the manner in which it is run? Come on. The Russia as victim thesis makes no sense, unless it is as a victim of its own idiot cunning.
