Russia's aid to terrorism

Michale Kraft:

Buried in the avalanche of news about the Lebanon crisis is an important and negative development in the U.S. government’s relations with Russia over its soft approach to Iran, Hezbollah’s prime backer.

The U.S. Government has imposed sanctions against two Russian companies and five others from North Korea, India and Cuba for transferring equipment that could contribute toward Iran’s development of weapons of mass destruction and of cruise or ballistic missile systems. The Counterterrorism Blog carried a link to the announcement on Friday.

The sanctions were made public Friday against the backdrop of the attempts in the United Nations and elsewhere to curb Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

The sanctions also emerged amid reports that Iran has provided Hezbollah with long-range missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Knowing the bureaucracy, however, the internal U.S. government’s paper work for approving the sanctions and listing them in the Federal Register undoubtedly was initiated long before the reports of the Iranian missiles became general knowledge.

Russian reactions to the sanctions suggested a new low in already chilly relations between the U.S. and Moscow, partly because on of the firms is headed by a close friend of President Vladimir Putin, Reuters said in a report from Moscow today.

The Russian reaction also reflects its continuing rift with the United States over the American more assertive efforts to curb Iran’s drive toward developing nuclear weapons.

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The sanctions dispute comes against a wider background. In effect, Russia has been aiding Iran, which in turn has been conducting a proxy war against the U.S. decades. It is the prime backer of Hezbollah which bombed the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. Iran was involved in the bombing of the U.S. military’s Kobar Tower barracks facilities in Saudi Arabia in 1996. American and British military officials also have said that Iran has been supplying to anti-coalition insurgents in Iraq special shaped explosives charges to attack armored vehicles.

In short, Russian has been giving material and diplomatic supporting to a country that is conducting a form of undeclared low intensity war against the United States. And Moscow complains when we take relatively minor actions against two of its state-owned companies!

Russia's short term thinking about aiding people who want to kill them too shows how immoral its government is. Russia is already fighting the Islamist in Chechnia, but it sees no problem with arming the Islamist to fight people that aren't its enemies elsewhere. Neither the US or Israel is an enemy of Russia, yet Russia has no problem arming our enemies.

Update: Gordon Cucullu has more thoughts on who is on the side of our enemies.

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But in the war against Islamofascists and their allies and supporters the equation has changed drastically -- and not in our favor. This war is, as Taheri notes, not over territory but rather "an ideological battleground between two rival camps with global ambitions." The U.S.-led camp looks to free market democracy and open societies as a solution to the world's issues. The other sees itself under the flag of a resurgent, conquering Islam, sweeping the globe in a new order that aims to impose a new Caliphate upon heretics. Not only is the MAD strategy not applicable, but in the instance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad such global destruction would be welcome, even desirable, as a door-opener for the 12^th Imam to reawaken and lead the hosts of Islam against the infidel foe.

Meanwhile Leftists, appeasers, anti-Semites, and blame-America-firsters in Europe and the U.S. think that they can do business or "dialogue" with the Islamofascists, or at best hold them at bay. They are so blinded by their own ideology that they refuse to see the undermining effect their policies have on the very countries that provide them a platform for their rhetoric. Despite assassinations of filmmakers like Theo Van Gogh, vilification and death threats against intellectuals like Oriana Fallachi, and open declarations vowing death to the West, they continue to operate as if they are going to be exempt from the stonings and beheadings that will accompany Islamofascist victory.

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The delusions of the left are captured, but they will not be able to get Geneva Conventions protections when it happens in reality.

Stephan Pollard describes the China support for terrorist through its trade with supporters.