Russian Missile Sale to Iran - Unseen Deals With Israel

Russian Missile Sale to Iran - Unseen Deals With Israel

Postby Oscar » Tue May 05, 2015 8:58 am

Russian Missile Sale to Iran Involves Unseen Deals With Israel

[ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ith-israel ]

by Calev Ben-David and Ilya Arkhipov 2:00 PM CST May 4, 2015

Last month, when President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced plans to sell a powerful anti-missile system to Iran before the lifting of international sanctions, Israel was quick to join the U.S. in expressing shock and anger.

But behind the public announcements is a little-known web of arms negotiations and secret diplomacy. In recent years, Israel and Russia have engaged in a complex dance, with Israel selling drones to Russia while remaining conspicuously neutral toward Ukraine and hoping to stave off Iranian military development. The dance may not be over.

Critics of the Russian move say it undermines efforts to apply pressure to Iran by removing one building block of a sanctions regime that will be hard to put back together. It would also enhance Iran’s defenses against a potential U.S. or Israeli attack, as both countries have said they’d consider using force if diplomacy fails.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that the missiles, known as S-300s, would provide the Islamic Republic with a military shield that would encourage further adventurism, and expressed concern they could end up in the hands of Iranian allies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Others argued that the Russian move shouldn’t be taken at face value.

“The public announcement of the possible sale of S-300 to Iran is no more than a political gesture aimed at the U.S. to motivate it in restraining its arms transfers to Ukraine,” says Konstantin Makienko, deputy head of Moscow’s Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.“In any case deliveries of S-300s to Iran will remain a bargaining chip between Moscow, the United States and Israel in talks on a wide range of issues.”

Ukraine

One of those issues is Israel’s neutrality toward Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have waged war over the past year. Israel has held back from selling weapons to the government in Kiev, which is backed by the U.S. and European Union, in the hope of keeping Russia’s S-300s away from Iran. It’s reportedly reconsidering that position

“Israel has come under a lot of pressure for not joining the all-Western consensus on the Ukrainian crisis,” said Sarah Feinberg, a research fellow at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies. “It was a difficult decision for the Israeli government, which was concerned about possible Russian retaliatory moves in the Mideast - such as selling the S-300 to Iran.”

On April 18 Putin cautioned Israel against selling arms to Ukraine, saying it “will only lead to yet another swirl of confrontation, to more human casualties, but the result will be the same.”

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[ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ith-israel ]
Oscar
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