Russia Helps Iran Keep Balance of Power

[Purveyor]

A meeting of the Russian-Iranian intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation took place n Tehran at the end of last week.

The commission discussed leasing Russian helicopters and deliveries of modified RD-33 engines for Iranian jet fighters. Head of the Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service Mikhail Dmitriev stated that cooperation with Iran would continue with the goal of maintaining the balance of power in the region.

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A delay in the U.S.-Iranian war is implied by the recent publication of a U.S. intelligence report indicating that Iran closed down its military nuclear program in 2003.

Russia is clearly taking advantage of the situation to sell as many weapons as possible. Dmitriev stated that “Russia and Iran are strengthening stability in the region.” He added that “We are talking about defensive types of weapons…

Iran has never asked for and Russia would never give Iran offensive weapons to encourage any, conditionally speaking, aggression against anyone.”

---EOE---

http://www.kommersant.com:80/p839198/arms_sales/

[theoldman]

1. Russia has tried to keep a presence in the Middle East for

over a hundred years. Sometimes I think there would be less trouble if there was a better balance of power. The problem is that the Arabic nations tend to have a nut job for a leader. Oh, I forgot, so do we.

[Purveyor]

2. I agreee with you on the 'balance of power' and welcome Russia's return on the world scene. eom

[Genanderson]

3. I certainly don't

Balances of power have the tendency to create bad peaces and longer wars. Last time we had a balance of power we called it the Cold War. That bad peace with the Soviet Union exacerbated and influenced all sorts of other conflicts like the Vietnam and Korean wars, to say nothing of both nations' meddling in the Middle East.

Now you might think Bush is a as wacky as any other nutjob out there, but I figure at least he's OUR nutjob who cannot be reelected for a third term. The Democrats might be acting incompetent as hell in Congress, but they DO have some semblence of control, whether or not they choose to excercise it. And we as Americans have some semblence of control over who we put in Congress. Can you say the same about the Russian or Iranian presidents?