Is Russia stalling the West for Iran?

Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei formally gave such an order in July 2005. But the Iranians moved too slowly for Khamenei's taste. Teheran had sealed an agreement with Russia for its TOR-M1 short-range anti-aircraft system to defend nuclear facilities.

www.atsnn.com...

Russia agreed to refer Iran to the UN security council on one condition: that nothing be done to Iran for at least 4 to 5 weeks. So Russia has bought Iran 4 or 5 weeks breathing space just now. Considering that Iran is also buying missiles from Russia, could this just be Russia trying to buy Iran enough time to prepare for war?

I dont think the 4 or 5 weeks respite is really so Russia can negotiate a way out of this mess for Iran by enriching uranium in Russia and then sending it to Iran, because Iran has already started full scale uranium enrichment today when it heard it was being sent to the UN security council.

Anyone share this view? Russia is buying Iran time to prepare for war.

[edit on 4-2-2006 by metallicabrainz]

[edit on 4-2-2006 by metallicabrainz]

No.

Russia may have a deal with Iran and Russia knows that at some point it will have to accede to the demands of the UN in this matter.

So in my view its a good job of fence sitting. Russia keeps a potential arms market open and can continue to sell wepaons to yet acts as a "good citizen" on the world stage.

4-5 week? Its enough to allow Iran to hide or safeguard some of its program in the event of an attack. But buying, training, and fielding advanced weapons systems may be a bit of a stretch IMHO. yeah they may be able to sell some stuff, but would it really matter?

For all the hype about integrated Soviet air defence systems, they are pretty much batting zero in the last few conflicts.

[edit on 2/4/06 by FredT]

umm Russia has the best missile defence systems in the world...

For decades Russia has known it can't keep up with the US military so instead of building new ships and planes, the Russians have spend all their effort on making the best missile systems in the world.

We already know Iran has the world's most advanced anti-ship weapons from Russia, missiles that no US ship can defend itself against. Im sure Iran would be purchasing only the latest and best missiles to defend its nuclear establishments also.

Originally posted by FredT
Russia may have a deal with Iran and Russia knows that at some point it will have to accede to the demands of the UN in this matter.

Russia really does not care much for what the UN wants or thinks and does as it pleases.

For all the hype about integrated Soviet air defence systems, they are pretty much batting zero in the last few conflicts.

Comparing exported weapons to natively deployed weapons ( with all the allready emplaced early warning) is not going to help anyone in a conflict. As far back as Vietnam Ho Chi Mihn complained that they were being sold everything the Russians no longer wanted. It had a great deal to do with Russians not risking their best technology falling into enemy hands and back in those days much had to go trough China....

Concluding that Russian missiles and air defense systems are not effective is not something history should be leading you to believe imo.

Stellar

Actually both Russia and China said they are not supporting sanctions against Iran and were still very intersted in the Russian deal to get uranium from them so we'll see how it goes.

Originally posted by Bozorgh
Actually both Russia and China said they are not supporting sanctions against Iran and were still very intersted in the Russian deal to get uranium from them so we'll see how it goes.

Actually russia has just said the uranium deal is dead in the water, and no chance of it being revived.