Israel Matzav

Russia to sell S-300 missile defense to Iran?

This morning, I reported on the possibility that Israel could use ballistic missiles to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in lieu of combat aircraft because Iran does not have any missile defenses. Now, al-AP is reporting that Russian sources confirm that Russia has entered into contracts to supply Iran with the S-300 missile defense system. It just hasn't provided the missile defense system yet.

Russian officials have consistently denied claims that it already provided some of the powerful missiles to Iran, and had not clarified whether a contract existed.

The state-run ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies, in addition to the independent Interfax, quoted an unnamed top official in the Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service as saying Wednesday the contract had been signed two years ago.

Service spokesman Andrei Tarabrin told The Associated Press he could not immediately comment.

Supplying the S-300s to Iran would markedly change the military balance in the Middle East.

YNet adds:

A prominent Russian analyst, Ruslan Pukhov of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said the missile contract was seen by the Kremlin as primarily a political rather than commercial matter.

"The S-300 contract, and cooperation with Iran in general, is regarded by Moscow only as an instrument of political bargaining with the West and not as a way of realizing the fundamental defense and commercial interests of Russia," he was quoted as saying by RIA-Novosti.

That's the problem: Except for Israel, it seems that every country in the world sees selling things to Iran as a 'commercial matter.' Hope they don't complain too much when we tell them that oil jumping to $200 per barrel as a result of our destroying Iran's nuclear facilities is also a 'commercial matter.' Because that's where it's headed.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:18 PM