Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters “”We believe it is wrong to suspend Syria’s membership of the Arab League. Those who made this decision have lost a very important opportunity to shift the situation into a more transparent channel.”

To back up its position, Russia has announced that it will honour all of its many (and valuable) arms contracts with the Syrian Government and has sent Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia (the head of the Russian Orthodox Church) to Syria, where he met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “I am convinced that your visit will help strengthen the relations between our countries. And it will facilitate a dialog between various cultures of the representatives of various world religions”, Al-Assad gratefully told the Patriarch.

In an attemp to maintain dialog with both parties, Lavrov plans to meet with Syrian opposition leaders, including Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the dissident Syrian National Council (SNC), in Moscow tomorrow. However, he is reportedly planning to tell them to beware of triggering a conflict similar to the one recently played out in Libya, saying “the battle for power can become a goal in itself, but you have to think of your country and people.”

Naturally Burhan Ghalioun doesn’t think much of Russia’s current stance – in an interview with Anba Moscow, Russia’s Arabic language news agency, he said bluntly “it is about time the Russian leadership changed its stance towards a regime which is still ignoring calls to launch reforms and start dialogue with the opposition on a peaceful transition to democracy.”

This is a strong position from Russia, particularly when you consider that pretty much everyone in the rest of the world supports the decision. Even China, which had until today stood firm with Russia in supporting the Syrian Government has today confirmed that it supports the Arab League’s decision to suspend Syria’s membership.

As we noted previously, Russia has invested a lot in the current Syrian regime, and sees it as a valuable ally. As a consequence of this (as well as its general opposition to interventionism by the West), Russia has made a hard-headed decision to stand firm in support of Assad’s Government. A couple of months ago, international resolve looked weak and it looked like Russia’s gambit might pay off. But today it is looking increasingly like a gamble that will leave the Russian Government looking foolish, out of touch, and with very few friends in the Middle East.

Image reproduced with kind permission of crossed-flag-pins.com

Russia condems Arab League for suspending Syria is a post from: Siberian Light

It’s not clear who wants to kill Putin – apparently there are not just one, but several groups of suicide bombers wandering around Iran looking for the Russian President – nor is it clear why they’d want to assassinate him, but here are a few of my own stabs in the dark�(in descending order of probability):

• A Chechen group with sympathisers in Iran (true, there aren’t many of these, but there are a few)
• A group of domestic political opponents, who have just realised the only way they are going to be more powerful than Putin is if he is six feet under
• The CIA (come on – the CIA want to kill everyone, including from time to time, their own Presidents)
• The Iranian government – they’re really puppets of Russia, who are forcing nuclear weapons on Iran as a part of their own nefarious plots.

Hmmmm.� I’m not convinced, and I wrote these possibilities down myself.� How about this for a more plausible reason:

Putin is about to enter the most risky period of his leadership of Russia – he’s about to stand down as President and attempt to transfer real power from the Presidency to the Prime Minister’s office, despite the existence of a constitution which puts technical power in the hands of the President.� He’ll most likely be able to pull it off, but what if his hand-picked President suddenly grows a backbone?

It’s vital for Putin that he is seen as� strongman, capable of standing up for and fearlessly defending the interests of Russia’s people – both at home and abroad.� He’s already made a stab at showing off his masculinity with his “Fishing with Putin” photos, and the revelation of this assassination attempt�- whether there is a grain of truth in it or not – and the news that Putin will be visiting Iran regardless, is really about giving Putin the opportunity to say “look at me!��Mad and bad�foreigners want to kill me but -�for you, the Russian people -�I will put my head into the lion’s jaw.”�

Suicide bombers plan to assassinate Putin in Iran is a post from: Siberian Light

In a statement, President Mikhail Saakashvili said that Georgia wanted to do everything possible to help the Iraqi people and US-led forces to bring peace and freedom to the country.

The move comes on the back of recent US Congress for Georgian moves towards membership of NATO.�

I also wonder if the Georgian government’s decision to send�extra troops abroad signifies a growing confidence in the stability of the security situation within Georgia itself.� 2,000 men, after all, is a significant proportion of the Georgian army.�

Georgia to send 2,000 soldiers to Iraq is a post from: Siberian Light

Iran is secretly training Chechen rebels in sophisticated terror techniques to enable them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards’ Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran, according to Western intelligence reports.

In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom.

If it’s true, of course. Iran does some pretty stupid things from time to time, but is it really going to get caught offering terrorist training to the enemies of its only real superpower?

Well, actually, I wouldn’t put it past them.

Iran training Chechens to fight in Russia is a post from: Siberian Light

So instead of recognizing the course of history and moving toward the free world, Syria has decided to become a post-Soviet Soviet client state, and Russia is aiding a state which supports the same kind of Islamist terrorists who are blowing up Russian airliners and taking Russian children hostage. Brilliant.

The problem for both Syria and Russia is that the number of states still living in this ultra-realist world is shrinking almost daily.  If these two states cannot adapt to the new global political structure (which, to be sure, does still retain many realist aspects), they are doomed to be outmaneuvered at every turn.  Ukraine may turn out to be just the first in a long line of humbling setbacks that Russia suffers over the next few years.

Running to stand still is a post from: Siberian Light

John A Shaw, America’s Deputy Undersecretary for International Technology Security, is behind the remarkable claim that Russian special forces (Spetsnaz) spirited “special weapons” (read: WMDs) out of Iraq in early 2003.

In the Washington Times he alleges that Spetsnaz forces visited some 200 arms depots through Iraq between January and March 2003, separated weaponry or WMD components that could be traced back to Russia from regular arms, and transported them out of the country to Syria, Lebanon, and possibly Iran. They also destroyed “hundreds of pages of documents”.

“The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units,” Mr. Shaw said. “Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units.”…

…The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam’s weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX, is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said.

The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said.

Russia, naturally, has hotly denied the claims.

Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and “ridiculous.”

“I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structures couldn’t have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because all Russian military experts left Iraq when the international sanctions were introduced during the 1991 Gulf War,” he told The Associated Press.

I have to say, I’m with Russia on this one. The idea that Russian Spetsnaz forces are needed to truck weaponry across the Iraq-Syria border, or that they are needed to separate “special weapons” from ordinary weapons is laughable. The Iraqi’s under Saddam were perfectly capable of arranging convoys themselves, and I’m pretty sure they can tell the difference between weapon types. There really was no need for Russia to be involved.

Even a closer reading of the Washington Times article which carries Shaw’s claim seems to argue against Russian involvement. UN weapons inspectors visited one of the main Iraqi weapons dumps (Al-Qaqaa) in January 2003, and placed seals on the site. Those seals were still in place, with no evidence of tampering, when they returned in March 2003, just prior to the invasion. The movement of 380 tons of sensitive weaponry would also be pretty hard to disguise – I’m sure the US had Iraq’s key weapons sites under pretty heavy surveillance from the air in early 2003. If the US had observed large scale movement of weaponry, or Russian personnel, how come they didn’t mention it a year and a half ago, when relations with Russia really were tense?

On a related note: Cicero at Winds of Change.net takes Shaw’s claims at face value, and predicts a return to a cold war style freeze in relationships between not only the US and Russia, but the US and ‘Old Europe’

The ‘friendship’ between Russia and the United States is now edging towards diplomatic confrontation over the Al-Qaqaa affair. The next phase that we can all look forward to will be official accusations and denials from each side. And then perhaps an old familiar freeze might reshape itself…

Russian aid to America’s enemy may be the most blatant example of a Europe that seeks a divorce from its old ally.

Update 1: The Financial Times carries a quote from Shaw, setting out his claims of Russian duplicity unambiguously:

�For nearly nine months my office has been aware of an elaborate scheme set up by Saddam Hussein to finance and disguise his weapons purchases through his international suppliers, principally the Russians and French. That network included. . . employing various Russian units on the eve of hostilities to orchestrate the collection of munitions and assure their transport out of Iraq via Syria.�

The Financial Times goes on to note that Shaw, who works in the Pentagon

has not provided evidence for his claims and the Pentagon distanced itself from his remarks.

�I am unaware of any particular information on that point,� said Larry Di Rita, Pentagon spokesman.

Update 2: Lots of blogs commenting on this story. Michelle Malkin and Wizbanblog have been particularly active in looking at the story, and if you follow their trackbacks you can find a pretty large list of others who are writing about it.

Malkin’s article especially notes that Bill Gertz, the author of the original Washington Times article is also the author of a new book – Treachery – which reports extensively on Russian arms and business dealings with Saddam’s regime.

Here are a few of the more interesting viewpoints I picked out:

INDC Journal speculates that the Russian diplomatic convoy that was fired on by US forces just before the invasion…

may have taken place under the assumption that the Russians were transporting weapons, WMD components and/or other evidence that detailed any illegal pre-war relationship between Russia and Iraq.

(You’ll need to scroll down quite a way to find the theory).

Right on Red notes that John Kerry, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committe should have had some knowledge of this, had it happened. If he was aware of the Russian involvement, he would have been unlikely to directly accuse the Bush administration of incompetence and failing to secure the weapons, on the eve of the election.

The Gantelope doesn’t think much of the seals used by weapons inspectors:

From the look of it, it’s just a conventional brass lock, a wire, and a little crimped metal tag (presumably stamped with an IAEA number).

Powerline notes that, if Shaw’s claims are proved correct, the implications for Kerry are substantial (and negative!):

The Senator will have (a) jumped to a conclusion that wasn’t supported by the facts, (b) assumed the incompetence of our troops, (c) confirmed President Bush’s position that Iraq had weapons worth worrying about, and (d) unleashed evidence that, as Rocket Man notes, suggests that chemical and biological weapons could easily have been moved out of Iraq just before we invaded.

Russia accused of removing WMDs from Iraq is a post from: Siberian Light