Jun 21 2007
Russia, the Japedo
How come whenever you scratch the surface of events in the Mideast, you’ll find the taciturn Russian Bear standing on the side pulling the strings?
During the run up Operation Iraqi Freedom, even well into it, Russia was selling Saddam arms and night vision equipment. More recently, we find Russian scientists building Iran their nuclear reactors and Russian “advisors” shuffling their feet and whistling in the air in Southern Lebanon.
Now this.
Israel is concerned about reported Russian deliveries of advanced MiG-31 fighter planes to its enemy Syria as part of an armaments drive, the top-selling Hebrew daily reported on Tuesday.
The MiG-31, considered one of the best fighters in the world, can carry guided missiles with a range of more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) and is capable of striking 24 different targets simultaneously, Yediot Aharonot said.
“This information is more concerning when put in the context of massive armaments purchases made recently by the Syrians,” Yuval Steinitz, an MP from Israel’s right-wing opposition Likud party, was quoted as telling the daily.
“If Syria acquires the MiG-31 we can no longer rule out the idea that this country is preparing for war,” said Steinitz, a former chairman of Israel’s defence and foreign affairs parliamentary committee.
A Russian newspaper reported on Tuesday that Russia has begun delivering five MiG-31E interceptors to Syria as part of an agreement reached this year, and that Moscow also plans to sell Damascus its MiG-29M/M2 dual role fighters.
The Israeli media has recently carried alarmist reports that a war with Syria could erupt as early as this summer, following Israeli intelligence reports that Damascus was preparing for such a conflict.
I haven’t time to blog on this yet, but Putin has as good as announced the resumption of the Cold War with the United States. And if all these reports are true, they seem to be following their old Cold War strategy of encircling the Mideast oil fields. Once they’ve overrun the Mideast oil fields, they can force the United States and the rest of the world to terms.
At least, this is what it looks like on the surface. Undoubtedly, there are a lot of things we don’t see. I’ve only done preliminary digging into this, but what I’ve encountered so far is alarming.
But how does it stack up to the IDF aircraft, and how good are the Syrian pilots? The MiG15 was piloted by crappy pilots in Korea and they got crushed by the F-86 because our pilots were far superior.
Doesn’t matter how fancy the aircraft is, if the pilot sucks it’s waiting to get splashed.
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