Iran to Hold Naval Drills With Russia, Signed ‘Unprecedented’ Agreement to Expand Military Ties — Iranian Admiral
Drills to be held soon in the Indian Ocean at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz
The head of Iran’s navy has said he signed a document to expand ties with Russia, with whom his forces planned on conducting joint drills in the same tense waters that the United States sought to counter the Islamic Republic with international support.
Iranian naval commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said Monday that he signed an unprecedented memorandum of understanding with Russia, largely involving the two countries’ naval forces, and that it “may be considered as a turning point in relations of Tehran in Moscow,” according to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency.
The news came as Khanzadi was visiting St. Petersburg to celebrate Russia’s Navy Day and he further announced that “joint Russian-Iranian exercises in the Indian Ocean are expected to take place soon.”
“When we talk about the Indian Ocean, perhaps the most significant part of the area is the northern Indian Ocean, which flows into the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz and also the Persian Gulf,” Khanzadi said.
Such an exercise would take place in the same waters in which the U.S. has accused Iran of attacking and seizing international vessels in recent months, charges Tehran has denied as it faced mounting sanctions in the wake of Washington’s withdrawal last year from a 2015 nuclear deal with its longtime foe.
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Moscow and Tehran have coordinated militarily in their joint campaign to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and their strategic partnership has so far endured repeated U.S. and Israeli appeals to Russia to end it.
At the same time, Russia has called on Iran not to enrich uranium beyond limits outlined in the 2015 deal, though it has joined China in consistently blaming the U.S.’ withdrawal for the Islamic Republic’s decision to do so.
Source: Newsweek
the price of poker just went up.
This will likely scare off any Euros other than the Brits.
Iran don’t trust Russia.
May need to associate with them at the moment, lessor of two evils, but Iran don’t trust Russia.
I’m glad to read of such expanded cooperation between Iran and Russia. Friends and allies are so important when threats approach. Maybe there’s room for a little optimism.
The United States is determined to upset the Gulf region and perhaps tip it into war.
It is just all so unnecessary and destructive. And just plain unreasonable.
But Israel deeply resents Iran’s influence and wants it reduced, and it doesn’t much care how that is achieved or what terrible conditions are imposed on Iran’s eighty-or-so million citizens.
It has nothing to do with any threat to Israel. That claim is just emotion-laden propaganda to help Israel get what it wants. There never has been any real threat from Iran, a country which has started no wars or hostilities in its modern history. And besides, since when do non-nuclear states seriously threaten nuclear ones? It just doesn’t happen.
The sudden new hostilities, wave after wave of them, hurled at Iran by America, have only to do with Israel’s drive to dominate its region, to be its most influential country, with no one around to disagree or object to what it does.
Israel strives to be a miniature replica in the Middle East of what America is in the world. Hardly a worthy or admirable goal for anyone else concerned. It’s just plain old imperialism, all dressed-up as something else.
It wouldn’t happen were there anyone to restrain Israel, but there isn’t. Just as no one has ever insisted Israel get back to its original borders. In case you hadn’t noticed, Israel is a rather odd state with absolutely no defined borders.
It is a state which works constantly to increase the area under its control. It is what historically we would call an “aggressor nation,” but there is no one around with any authority to make that charge and give it force.
So, Israel takes land from Palestinians, from Syrians, and, in the near past, from Lebanon, and it promotes hostilities it regards as advantageous, such as those against Iraq and Syria or now those against Iran.
The United States has never really played the role of restraining Israel or insisting on its borders, and it doesn’t allow anyone one else, such as the United Nations, to do so either. Indeed, for decades, the United States has done little else but attack and diminish the United Nations. It has many reasons for doing so, but Israel’s situation is a big one.
Israel’s insistence that it should have more influence in the region than Iran rather resembles Luxemburg feeling it should tell Germany what to do in Europe. The population ratios are not dissimilar, but of course, when you are a special colony of the United States, you speak with a much louder voice.
Israel very much is a de facto colony of the United States. It does some of America’s tasks and provides an American pied-a-terre in the Middle East. It is subsidized by a huge flow of American public and private funds plus many special advantages it has been granted, from free trade and the flow of technology to the receipt of very large contracts and easy access to the highest officials.
The hard-nosed establishment in Washington – people who have killed many millions in meaningless colonial wars since WWII, variously estimated at 8 to 20 million, or more, people – are hardly the types to be influenced by biblical tales or sentimental considerations.
And they are hardly the types to protect people for humanitarian reasons, as they’ve proved a number of times by standing back from authentic genocides in Rwanda, in Indonesia, and in Cambodia. The establishment employs sentimental tales to look like good guys while carrying on with what pretty much is ruthless colonial work. Of course, those tales motivate ordinary citizens of Israel, and motivated citizens are useful.
The closest historical equivalent we have to what we see with the United States and Israel perhaps was the past relationship between France and Algeria. Algeria actually became a legal part of metropolitan France.
But Israel’s location, both in the heart of the Middle East and on the Mediterranean Sea, makes it more geopolitically significant than Algeria could be to France.
Israel’s population – its influential people and their investments are able to move freely between the two places almost as though Israel were a state of the union – also endows it with special properties, including heavy influence back in the “mother country.” It helps further with ties and connections that the population is largely of European and North American origin.
How ironic that the ugly invasion of Iraq – always Israel’s project with Ariel Sharon, as well as Netanyahu, having relentlessly pushed for it – destroyed what was in many ways the Middle East’s most advanced society, leaving room for Iran to increase its influence and connections instead.
The people who advocate playing with the lives of millions of others in coups and imperial wars often have no idea what the outcome of their acts will be, which is just one of many arguments against America’s violent imperial practices.
America has done little else but make unholy messes of country after country with its Neocon Wars in the Middle East. From Israel’s cynical point of view, making messes of those countries is just fine since it means removing their influence for many years to come.
So now, Israel wants something done about Iran. What a truly destructive force Israel has been and continues to be.