It appears Russia is wasting little time responding to the neocon provocation of declaring its intention of installing missiles at Redzikowo, on Poland’s Baltic coast. Russia has dispatched the aircraft carrier at Admiral Kuznetsov to the Syrian port of Tartus. Admiral Kuznetsov, along with Russia’s biggest missile cruiser Moskva and at least four nuclear submarines, left Murmansk on the Barents Sea on August 18, according to DEBKAfile.
On August 21, at the Black Sea port of Sochi, Syrian president Bashar Assad told the media he is considering a Russian request to deploy missiles in his country. The Arabic language newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, reported Bashar as saying he hopes to see Moscow cease its cooperation with NATO-allied states. “He is quoted as saying that Israeli arms sales to the Georgian army should prompt the Kremlin to strengthen the military alliance between Russia and Syria,” reports the Israeli news site, YNet News. Bashar is scheduled to meet with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. According to the BBC, fast track military and technical co-operation are at the top of the agenda.
It should be noted that prior to Russia’s defense of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the signing of the Polish missile deal, Moscow promised the U.S. it would not provide Iran and Syria with advanced military technology.
“I want to voice support for Russia over the situation around Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Assad told Itar-Tass. “We understand the essence of the Russian position and consider its military reaction a response to provocation by the Georgian side.” Assad also said “Syria was and is striving to develop strategic relations with Russia, in the interests of security in the whole world,” an obvious reference to the neocon plan to confront Syria, Iran, and Russia.
Russia plans to install Iskandar surface missiles in Syria and its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, sources at DEBKAfile report. As widely reported over last weekend, Russian Baltic and Middle East warships, submarines and long-range bombers may be armed with nuclear warheads. “One plan on the table in Moscow, DEBKAfile’s sources report, is the establishment of big Russian military, naval and air bases in Syria and the release of advanced weapons systems withheld until now to Iran (the S-300 air-missile defense system) and Syria (the nuclear-capable 200 km-range Iskandar surface missile).”
“We have brought Syria to this situation,” Israel Likud MK Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio on Thursday. “We must freeze talks with Syria until it stops calling on Moscow to arm Israel’s enemies, and until [Damascus itself] stops transferring arms to Hizbullah.” Several months ago, Israel and Syria announced they would resume peace talks.
Russia’s move is at least in part a response to Israel’s arming and training of the Georgian military. “Israel armed the Georgian army,” Russian Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn told a Moscow press conference last week. Jerusalem provided Tblisi with “eight types of military vehicles, explosives, landmines and special explosives for the clearing minefields.” Georgia’s Deputy Defense Minister Batu Kutelia previously said that “Georgian corporals and sergeants train with Germans, alpine units and the navy work with French instructors, and special operations and urban warfare troops are taught by Israelis,” Noah Shachtman reported for Wired on August 18. Earlier this year, Russia shot down a number of Georgian spy drones, specifically Hermes 450 reconnaissance planes manufactured by Israel’s Elbit Systems.
As reported by Infowars and Prison Planet, Georgia’s defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew. Kezerashvili contributed to military cooperation between Israel and Georgia. “Israel’s defense industries managed to sell to Georgia [drones], automatic turrets for armored vehicles, antiaircraft systems, communication systems, shells and rockets,” former Israel internal security minister Roni Milo told Ynetnews. Moreover, “Israel has reportedly helped upgrade Soviet-designed Su-25 ground attack jets assembled in Georgia. And former Israeli generals serve as advisers to the Georgian military,” according to the Jewish Week.
On Wednesday, Bush praised Georgia’s NED engineered “Rose Revolution” while addressing a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Orlando, Florida, the Washington Post reported. NED’s installation of Mikheil Saakashvili was “one of the most inspiring chapters in history,” according to Bush. “Georgia stood for freedom around the world,” he said. “Now the world must stand for freedom in Georgia.”
Bush’s “freedom in Georgia,” that is to say the imposition of a client state micromanaged by the IMF and World Bank, will become less tenable now that Russia “plans to establish a long-term presence inside Georgia and one of its breakaway republics,” as the Chicago Tribune reports. “If implemented, the plan would effectively put under Russian control the border between Georgia and South Ossetia, which is seeking independence, as well as a small chunk of Georgia proper.”
Obviously, with the Russian presence in Georgia and its renewed military relationship with Syria, the neocon plan to confront Iran and encircle Russia has encountered a speed bump. It remains to be seen how the Bush neocons, quickly approaching the apogee of their power, will react to Russia’s latest move.
