Putin’s Pravda Posturing Shades of Cold War

Russia’s Underwear in bunch over U. S.-Israel Anti-Missile Radar Plans.

Iran is heading towards a major breakthrough in its nuclear weapons capability, Israel’s deputy Israel Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz warned Friday according to an AFP story. Iran is continuing to advance toward a military nuclear capability and is heading towards a major breakthrough,” the Iranian-born Mofaz told a think tank after talks in Washington with US officials.

He charged that Iran was playing for time in talks aimed at halting uranium enrichment with the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain — the permanent UN Security Council members — and Germany, the so-called P5-plus-1. “One thing is clear is Iranians are continuing their policy of buying time and so far they are succeeding,” he said.

Also on Friday Putin’s Pravda, humorously Russian for “truth”, story said “Israel has entered the last phase of its preparations against Iran.” It also said the U. S. was about to pull a “dirty trick” against Russia by installing anti-missile radar in Israel before a new president is inaugurated in 2009. Because the radar system will be jointly operated by the U. S. and Israel without interference and can detect missile launches by Russia then former Soviets have their underwear in a bunch.

Russia and the U. S. have also been butting heads over U. S. proposals to install similar radar systems and an anti-missile missile system in Poland and Eastern Europe extensively to defend against an Iranian threat on Europe. Russia is paranoid about being hemmed in a way unseen since the JFK backed down during the Cuban missile crisis and removed intermediate range nuclear tipped missiles from Turkey.

Pravda’s notorious bent to convoluted propaganda showed through claiming “the Pentagon cannot provide more, than the 200,000 US and coalition forces in the tenuously and unstable region so it could not conduct war against Iran. Russia is still smarting from its humiliation in Afghanistan and peaked by the U. S. military aid to the Mujahedeen that rubbed their collective Slavic noses in it. In any case Pravda claims even a “slight war” - read Israeli attack, and Iran “would not miss a chance to strike oil pipelines and oil structures on neighboring Arab states causing economic upheaval. Pravda said such upset would hurt Europe, India and China most. That Pravda concluded in typical stem winding fashion, “(T)he U. S. would not mind weaker competitors” inferring if Iran refuses to stop it nuclear weapons development and is attacked the U. S. would be boogie-man, provocateur and beneficiary.

Notwithstanding such contortions Israel is resolutely determined to stop Iran’s Mortal nuclear weapon’s threat because of its anti-Semitism and pledge to incinerate Israel. Russia, if it want to contribute to preventing such a conflict, could be much more constructive, and a lot more forthright.