Russia Recognizes Palestine

President Medvedev said that Russia would continue to support a Palestinian state, the same as the Soviet Union did in 1988.  Israeli is downplaying the matter.  Medvedev met with the king of Jordan after trying to visit Israel.  Also, apparently Lebanon put a resolution condemning Israeli settlements before the UN Security Council.  And since the US is trying to support Hariri, they may have a hard time vetoing it.  Will Spain be the next country to recognize Palestine?

Nuclear Iran

Iran is getting closer to nuclear weapons.  According to Israel, it has enough nuclear material for one bomb and should be able to make a second one soon.  Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad still says Iran only wants nuclear material for energy production, and he accused the West of being arrogant.

Ahmadinejad is also upset with Russia for cancelling its military order.  Iran ordered S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems from Russia in 2007, but then the Russian president banned sales over the summer.  So Ahmadinejad wants Russia to pay a penalty for breaking the contract.

No Cold War!

Hey, you heard it at the debate! McCain says there will not be another Cold War with Russia. (What does this have to do with the Middle East? The Middle East was one of the areas being fought over during the Cold War.) I seem to remember from my course work many years ago, that a bipolar world is pretty stable. And that's what we had during the Cold War - 2 poles, the US and the USSR. Then we went to a more unipolar world. Now, we're getting multi-polar: US, Russia, EU, China, etc. And I seem to remember that is fairly unstable. We live in interesting times.

Iran, anybody? Part II

Yes, I said it before and I'll say it again. Things look dicey with Iran. The US has imposed more sanctions, just like in the lead-up to Iraq. And the talk coming out of the Whitehouse is similar to the lead-up to Iraq. And now Russia is getting more and more upset with us. Putin compared the US missile defense shield to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I've been watching the national news on the ABC network and even their anchors are comparing what's happening with Iran to the lead-up to Iraq. (All I can say to that is "It's about damn time!") I have two schools of thought on this. First, the administration is just stupid (all of our troops are tied up in Iraq). Second, they're not stupid, they're positive a democrat will win in 2008 and they can dump the war on the democratic president. No one will remember who started it, just that the democrats lost the war. Right now I'd say it's about 50-50 which one is correct.

Update: US Ready to Attack Iran

As you may remember from previous posts, I have been predicting the invasion of Iran. See USA Attacks Iran!, Iran, anybody?, Update: Iran, anybody?, More on Iran, and US Ready to Attack Iran. The Russian News and Information Agency (RNIA) is reporting that the US will attack Iran in early April. A liberal blog reported that it would be Good Friday (April 6th), but I couldn't find that date in the Russian article. According to the RNIA, they were informed of these events by Russian intelligence. This earlier article says that the last time the US had so many troops in the Gulf was just before the US invaded Iraq. The Russians are also saying that the UAE will "not allow anyone to use its territory for any military, reconnaissance or security operations against Iran." Why do we care? Because while the US has army bases in Qatar, the UAE has traditionally been a big naval stopover. And to add even more to these events, Russia and China will be working together to go to Mars. That may seem like a non sequitur, but those 2 countries also have ties to Iran. And they seem to be getting mighty chummy lately. I feel a Cold War Redux coming on.

Russian Middle East

President Putin of Russia has been visiting the Middle East. Yesterday he was in Saudi Arabia, and today he's in Jordan. Can you say "cold war redux?" With the US on one side and Russia on the other?