Putin To US : Attack Iran And You Attack Russia

US Like A "Madman Waving Knife" Over Iran Threats

Caspian Summit A Triumph For Iran-Russia Alliance



Russian president Vladimir Putin has fired up his attack on BushCo. over its threats against Iran, likening them to a "madman waving a knife" and repeatedly stating that Iran poses no threat to the US, Europe or Middle East nations. Putin's raising of the rhetorical volume in support of Iran follows the historic events of the recent Caspian Sea states summit.

Some more details from a comprehensive Asia Times report on the summit, where Putin and Iran's president firmed up their alliance, and showed utter defiance in the face of NeoCon demands for air strikes on the joint Iran-Russia nuclear facilities, and a cascade of anti-Iran propaganda from the American media. The message from Putin to the Caspian states was a loud 'You don't need America anymore, and you don't need to fear their threats either'. It was a monumentally historic event, strategically and diplomatically, and the true importance of the summit has barely registered in the western media. As usual :

The two day summit, coinciding with twin nuclear crises and escalating US-Iran tensions relating to Iraq and the Middle East, is bound to be regarded as a milestone in regional cooperation, with serious ramifications for a broad array of issues transcending the Caspian Sea region.

Billed as a "great leap toward progress" by Mehdi Safari, Iran's eputy Foreign Minister in charge of Iran's Caspian affairs, the summit has been a great success for Iran as well as Russia and the other participants (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and Tehran is likely to capitalize on it as a stepping stone for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), considered a security counterweight to NATO and US "hegemony".

Indeed, it is as much shared interests as common worries and concerns, eg, the US's unbounded interventionist policies, that have now brought Iran and Russia closer together and to the verge of a new strategic relationship. After all, both Iran and Russia are today objects of American coercion, their national security interests and objectives imperiled by the US's post-9/11 militarism and its feudalistic ossification of the international order.

The upshot of the Caspian summit is, in fact, a prominent message about the need to democratize the international order by erecting effective barriers to the American "leviathan", as shown by specific agreements reached at the summit, including prohibiting other countries from using the littoral states for attacks on one another "under any circumstances'', and disallowing any ship not flying the national flag of a littoral state on Caspian waters.

...Moscow is now poised to enter into a new strategic relationship with Iran that will serve the geostrategic, security, and other shared interests of both nations.

"Iran is an important regional and global power," President Vladimir Putin said after his initial meeting with Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who has been much vilified in the West and yet is respected in the Third World and beyond as an assertive leader of a developing nation standing up to world-domineering policies.

A major achievement for Iran's diplomacy and particularly for Amadinejad's embattled foreign policy team, the "good news" summit will likely serve as the hinge that opens new breathing space for Iran's diplomacy, and not just toward the Caspian, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Iran's Persian Gulf policy is also bound to benefit from the improved image of Iran in the Middle East, making more attractive Iran's role as a corridor to Central Asia which the Arab world in general and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in particular can take advantage of in their external trade and energy policies.

...Russia's commitment to complete Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, represents yet another significant development for Iran, which has defied the UN Security Council's resolutions calling for a suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities. By stating on record that there is no evidence to support the allegations of a nuclear weapon ambition on Iran's part, Putin looks to have provoked Washington's fury, as seen in Condoleezza Rice's instant counterpunch that Iran has been "lying" about its nuclear program. Yet more importantly Putin has signalled the beginning of the end of Rice-crafted "diplomatic consensus" vis-a-vis Iran.

Putin has held his ground against his Washington detractors, wooing various European leaders such as Germany's Angela Merkel and snubbing the pro-US Nicolas Sarkozy, while working on a new model of Russia-EU relations that is not dominated by US prerogatives. There is undoubtedly an element of risk here and Putin's new Iran policy may backfire, particularly if he does not generate more Iranian cooperation on the nuclear issue.

The "lonely superpower" that Samuel Huntington once wrote about now appears dangerously on the verge of losing its "coalition of the willing" against Iran, both inside and outside the United Nations. The only choice is either stubborn refusal to make the necessary policy adjustments toward Iran, along the lines of a non-threatening civil diplomacy, or to face what is certain to be a diplomatic defeat in the global arena.

More from Putin on his "madman" with a "knife" allegory about US sanctions against Iran, and the storm of 'Bomb Iran' demands clogging up the American media :

"To run around like a madman waving a knife is not the best way forward,'' Putin said...

"Why drive the situation into a dead end?''

Putin was in Iran last week for talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and leaders of all other countries with a Caspian Sea coastline. They agreed none of the Caspian states would allow their territory to be used to launch an attack on Iran. Putin told French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow Oct. 9 there's no evidence Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.

"We are categorically against breaking all norms of international law,'' Putin said today. Putin has repeatedly said that only the United Nations is empowered to take further action to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions.

More on Russia's claims that Iran poses no threat, while US 'missile defence' in Europe certain does.

Pepe Escobar explains the 'Attack Iran And You Attack Russia' paradigm.

Putin Warns US Not To Go To War On Iran

Russia's Strategic Bombers To Patrol The World's Skies For Rest Of October

Putin : Iran Is Not Afraid Of US, Israel "Believe Me"



Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has received a warm welcome during his visit to Iran, and he again warned the United States not to attack Iran. To back up his warning, and to make clear that airstrikes on Iran will draw his promised "consequences", Putin has placed his arsenal of strategic, long-range bombers on airborne stand-by for the rest of the month.

Link :

At a summit of the five nations that border the inland Caspian Sea, Putin said none of the nations' territory should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region. It was a clear reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. was planning to use Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

"We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state," Putin said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also underlined the need to keep outsiders away from the Caspian.

The warning from Putin to the US grabbed most of the headlines around the world, but the significance of his warning to the Caspian states Russia and Iran are now economically, and strategically, allied with, is probably the bigger story. Putin is telling the oil and gas rich Caspian sea states that they don't need, and should not pursue, military alliances with the United States. This is obviously a remarkably important development :

"The Caspian Sea is an inland sea and it only belongs to the Caspian states, therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here," he said.

Putin, whose trip to Tehran is the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II, warned that energy pipeline projects crossing the Caspian could only be implemented if all five nations that border the Caspian support them.

Putin did not name any specific country, but his statement underlined Moscow's strong opposition to U.S.-backed efforts to build pipelines to deliver hydrocarbons to the West bypassing Russia.

"Projects that may inflict serious environmental damage to the region cannot be implemented without prior discussion by all five Caspian nations," he said.

Other nations bordering the Caspian Sea and in attendance at the summit are: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

Putin has warned the U.S. and other nations against trying to coerce Iran into reining in its nuclear program and insists peaceful dialogue is the only way to deal with Tehran's defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment.

"Threatening someone, in this case the Iranian leadership and Iranian people, will lead nowhere," Putin said Monday during his trip to Germany. "They are not afraid, believe me."

The Russian president underlined his disagreements with Washington last week, saying he saw no "objective data" to prove Western claims that Iran is trying to construct nuclear weapons.

Putin emphasized Monday that he would negotiate in Tehran on behalf of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members _ United States, Russia, China, Britain and France _ and Germany, a group that has led efforts to resolve the stalemate with Tehran.

From RIA :

Russian strategic bombers will conduct October 16-30 a series of long-range training flights, with simulated bomber raids and missile launches, an Air Force spokesman said on Monday.

"Russian strategic bombers Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, and Il-78 aerial tankers will conduct flights over the Arctic region, the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, and the Black Sea, with simulated bombing raids and firing of cruise missiles at testing grounds in northern and southern Russia," Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky said.

Colonel General Alexander Zelin, the commander of the Russian Air Force, will supervise the exercises.

Moscow announced in mid-August that regular patrol flights by strategic bombers had been resumed, and would continue on a permanent basis, with patrol areas including commercial shipping and economic production zones.

The U.S. administration expressed concern about the resumption of patrol flights by Russian strategic bombers.

"I think the rapid growth in Russian military spending definitely bears watching," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with ABC News on October 14.

"And frankly, some of the efforts - for instance, Bear flights in areas that we haven't seen for a while - are really not helpful to security."

Russia, however, obviously believes they are helpful to security. The security of Iran.