We have over the years posted a great deal of evidence of how Russia is aiding the global jihad, for its own short-sighted geopolitical reasons. It will, most likely, come to a point when it regrets this support. John VI Cantacuzenes Alert: "Tehran -- with Moscow’s Backing -- Seeks to Expand its Role in the Caucasus," from the Georgian Daily, November 3 (thanks to Mackie):
Vienna, November 3 – The big winner at the summit among the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan yesterday may be a country was not there: Iran, whose return to an active role in the Caucasus, something the US opposes and the Minsk Group was organized to prevent, now appears to enjoy the active support of both Moscow and Yerevan.Yesterday, following their meeting in Moscow, Presidents Dmitry Medvedev, Serzh Sarksyan, and Ilham Aliyev signed a joint declaration on their commitment to continuing to pursue “a peaceful regulation” of the Karabakh conflict by means of talks, including within the framework of the Minsk Group.
While Russian commentators celebrated this document not only as a major contribution to the peace in the Caucasus and a confirmation of Russia’s newly expanded role there, in fact, neither that declaration nor the meetings of the foreign ministers on Friday or their joint session with the Minsk Group on Saturday broke much if any new ground.
But a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday suggests that the diplomatic landscape in the Caucasus may be changing quickly, albeit in ways that may not lead to any resolution of the conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan or between Georgia and the Russian Federation.
Lavrov said that Iran had expressed an interest in creating a security zone in the Caucasus, a step that would appear to challenge both the Minsk Group which was created to exclude Iran from having a role in the region and Turkey which has proposed creating a Platform of Security and Stability in the Caucasus.
The Russian foreign minister said that he had spoken with Iranian officials about their desire to be included “in discussions” about the Caucasus, a move that appears to be the product of both Moscow’s own desire to promote a north-south axis through the Caucasus and two developments earlier this fall....
Read it all.
It's nice to see that our Russian comrades are as equally in the dark about the jihad as our own Western apologists.
Meanwhile, in a geopolitical demonstration of the adage you-can't-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks, the Russian government and Russian press continue to fulminate with tales of those diabolical plotters, the Americans, who are always and everywhere out to make war on Russia. When China first infiltrates (how many Chinese are already across the border, and how many are busily marrying local women, and not only in Russia but in Kazakhstan?) Russia's mineral-rich East, and then makes or stakes its claim, will Russians then realize that the United States never had any plans to seize Siberia?
In the south, in and around the Caucasus, as Iran or other Muslim states work their malevolent magic, and as the Russian population plummets while the Muslim population (even of, perhaps especially of, Moscow) goes up and up and up, who will then think that perhaps it was wrong to find, under every bed, an American scheming to undo Russia.
It's easy of course, to appeal to, to whip up, nationalist fervor against a venerable enemy, even if that so-called "enemy" cannot conceivably ever in any future have the same claims on the the loyalty of the inhabitants, or the land area, of part of Russia> It is the Camp of Islam, and China, that should worry the Russians.
Meanwhile, as the article says, in the Caucasus. . .
My hunch is that Russia is not naive at all about the Jihad, just making a calculation as Robert suggests about short-term vs. long-term.
They probably think that if and when they deem it necessary to counter the Jihad, they can and will be ruthless (in a way the West could never fathom).
We'll see.
Does anyone understand what positive interest, short or long term, Armenia would have in promoting Iran as a negotiator? Do they seriously think Iran is going to be an objective judge between the interests of a Christian country and a Muslim country?
The Armenians were liberated from persecution and genocide on the part of the Ottoman Turks. Do they think they will fare better as Dhimmis under Iran?
In fact, for complicated reasons, the one group of non-Muslims that seems to be least subject to mistreatment in the Islamic Republic of Iran are the Armenians. That is merely relative, however. After all, in "Reading 'Lolita' in Teheran" the best-selling Mrs. Nafisi describes entering an Armenian-owned restaurant that, in its window, displays the mandatory announcement that the place is owned by Christians (just as, in Nazi Germany, those big Star of Davids painted on Jewish-owned shops, beginning as soon as Hitler came to power, those shops then to be boycotted by all Aryans, if they knew what was good for them), and good Muslims should take in that fact, and no doubt avoid it. Mrs. Nafisi, of course, went right in.
The Shi'a who include on their list of what is "najis" or "unclean" -- see the cleric Al-Sistani's very own web-page, do -- the category blandly described as "Infidels."
The role of Azeris is complicated, too. On the one hand, Azeris have massacred Armenians in recent times. These massacres have been given as little attention, in the press of the outside world, as the massacres of Serbs by Muslims. See Nagorno-Karabakh. On the other hand, the Azeris in Iran,, who make up 1/3 of that country's population, might wish to incorporate Azerbaijan or, possibly, to have Azerbaijan incorporate them. Who, save for someone right there, knows what is going on in the crazy-quilt of such places, with ever-shifting alliances and schemes and dreams, and where mendacity is the order of the day?
The President of Iran has SINGLE DIGIT approval ratings. I firmly believe that Iran as we know it will cease to exist and Russia will find itself the enemy of a new and revitalized PERSIA.
You know the 'warm water port' thing is getting REALLY old, tovarisch.
"Does anyone understand what positive interest, short or long term, Armenia would have in promoting Iran as a negotiator? Do they seriously think Iran is going to be an objective judge between the interests of a Christian country and a Muslim country?"
Iran supported Armenia against the Azeris during the war.
Russia, very foolishly, seems also to have been cozying up to Muslim Libya:
as per these two reports from the Australian national news site.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/01/2407734.htm?section=justin
- Gaddafi pitches tent for Kremlin visit
Posted Sat Nov 1, 2008 10:22pm AEDT
"Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has pitched a tent in a Kremlin garden before talks with Russian leaders..."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/02/2407780.htm?section=justin
- Russia, Libya sign civil nuclear deal
"Libya and Russia have signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal, Tripoli's foreign minister said on Saturday, as Moamar Gaddafi visited Moscow in a trip also expected to focus on oil and gas and arms purchases...".
But then I suppose, given the conspicuous follies of the British and US relationship with the monstrous House of Saud (see, for example, the British PM's recent visit), with Egypt and with Pakistan, the 'West' is in no real position to throw stones...
When, oh when, will non-Muslim polities everywhere wake up and realize that any sort of dealing, at all, with Muslim entities, is a dead-end one-way street?
Mpayne1 is right, Iran supported Armenia against Azerbaijan during the war. Iran is also about to provide gas to Armenia. Iran has been a good neighbor to Armenia and helped it to survive.
Georgia to Armenia's north is no friend; they have been putting pressure on Armenians there to drive them out (you know, like the ethnic cleansing that other friends of America promoted in the Balkans). Georgia also keeps shutting off gas delivery from Russia.
Recently America moved its position on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue to recognizing the position of Azerbaijan. Both the Armenians and the Russians want to kick the Americans out of the Caucasus, and I hope they succeed as Armenia's existence depends on it.
In the following article Nick Eberstadt notes that Russia has a near future problem of a major demographic decline - a fall from now until 2020 of 10 million population. The resumption of their adventurism in this light seems inexplicable. http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28830/pub_detail.asp
In 1999, J.R. Nyquist wrote (Origins of the 4th World War) about a massive Soviet deception of the West beginning with the fall of Berlin Wall and abolition of the Warsaw Pact, all designed to take the West off guard while the Soviet Apparatus regrouped for another surge onto the world scene in a decade or so. Maybe the current adventurism is a manifestation of Nyquist's prediction, but according to Eberstadt, the demographic decline means Russia will likely implode in a few decades.
So is the Kremlin just kidding itself and its people? Nyquist never considered the possibility of a demographic implosion (nor did most anyone in 1999). Eberstadt indicates the interior problems - especially health - are so severe that there is little possibility of turning back the demographic clock. And Hugh notes the Chinese invasion and intermarriage in the East.
The Euros have basically the same demographic problem as Russia, maybe not quite as bad but close.
There is no question that Putin still nourishes the Marxian goal of destroying the West. However he may get overstretched in these alliances without enough generations of Russians to follow through.
If Russia implodes such that its Russian population no longer controls its 14,000 (or whatever) nukes and the Muslims inherit them, then what? The West will be left with Muslim madmen such as the Iranian genocide mullahs to deal with.
With that I think I will retire to a cup of hot port.
P.S.
I was working in Iran at the time of the late Shah. In retrospect, the Armenians that worked with me seemed to have had the psychology of dhimmis, even then. I cannot imagine the Armenians expecting a break from any Muslim country, but maybe after 1300 years of persecution they have lost their will to remember history.
Jimmy, the Armenians have not forgotten their history, and never will. Note that the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh walloped the Azeri jihad and stopped in its tracks the CNN attempt to demonize the Armenians like they did the Serbs.