High Stakes; Durable Assurance?

What a testimonial to government-to-government concern! If words could be trusted, and those expressed by peer politicians could be relied upon to relieve the tension of anticipated calamity, Israel would be in the position of relaxing about her grave concerns about Iran's stated intent to eradicate it from the geography of the Middle East. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, enemy of Chechen Islamists assured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose enemy is Islamist Iran, that Russia could not agree to a strike against Iran.

It would be too incendiarily uncivil, it would be responsible for unleashing an unstoppable tidal wave of revenge and counter-revenge, destabilizing that area of the world that the rest of the world looks upon to provide it with the fossil fuels so meaningful to industry and the ongoing ambitions of countries hungry for continuing economic advantage. Besides which, Russia has enjoyed a centuries-old relationship with Iran, one devoid of the level of antagonism it resentfully enjoys with America.

This is the way the world divides itself; America has been defensive of Israel, and it has been offensive toward Russia. Russia has been defensive of its latter-day extended community of socialist countries, and offensive toward its once-hegemonic and now resentful satellites within the old USSR. There is the provocation of Washington's missile-defence shield. And there is the West's support of Georgia, Ukraine and Kosovo.

Then there are the mysteries of secret shipments of the long-promised technologically advanced S-300 missiles - capable of detecting jet aircraft potentially attacking Iran's nuclear sites - from Russia to Iran aboard a hijacked ship. Russia may or may not have been involved officially, but clandestinely perhaps so. And convinced by Israeli pressure to embarrass it on the world stage to cease and desist - for the nonce.

The United States, for reasons of its own, particularly with its new administration, resists offering its advanced stealth aircraft to Israel, although if the price is right from Saudi Arabia it might consider sending older versions there, perhaps. Israel, long supportive and a friend of Georgia is coerced to halt the sale of weapons there. The Kremlin can be enticed to withhold the sale of its S-300 missiles to Iran should the U.S. stand down from its missile defence shield in Ukraine.

And there are those diplomatic statements from Vladimir Putin, responding to the potential for an Israeli pre-emptively self-defensive attack on Iran's nuclear sites: "This would be very dangerous, unacceptable, this would lead to an explosion of terrorism, increase the influence of extremists. I doubt very much that such strikes would achieve their stated goal." How's that for a cautionary damper?

Nicely balanced by Mr. Putin's warning to Iran to move with some caution on its nuclear program: "We have told Iran that it has the right to a civilian nuclear program but that it should understand what region of the world it is in. This is a dangerous region and Iran should show responsibility, especially by taking into account Israel's concerns, all the more so after the absolutely unacceptable statements about the destruction of the state of Israel."

Would a country like Iran, totalitarian against Russia's autocracy, take kindly to this admonitory intervention, having accused outside sources, mostly Western, of attempting to destabilize the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, under the theocratic leadership of its Supreme Leader? A country like Iran whose human rights abuses dwarf those of Russia, in isolating and defrauding and preying on its own people?

Oh, what webs we weave when we practise to deceive, dissemble, threaten and violate.