Russia has mutual interest with US and Israel in ultimately removing Iranian forces from Syria, says Dep. Min, ex-ambassador Michael Oren.
While critics of President Donald Trump blasted his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, both President Trump and senior Israeli leaders seemed optimistic that the closed-door meeting in Helsinki, Finland may have yielded important strategic understandings between the world’s largest nuclear powers regarding one of the most explosive geopolitical issues.
Pundits, Democratic lawmakers, and even some Republicans excoriated President Trump over the meeting, claiming the president walked away from the two-hour meeting with Putin empty handed.
“President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin,” Senator John McCain (R-Az.) said in a statement Monday.
Others, including Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned that Putin was unlikely to help the US and Israel in removing Iranian and Hezbollah forces from Syria a key goal of Israel. Leaving the Assad regime in place – a Russian demand – would invariably mean retaining Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria, Graham said in a veiled criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The president, however, appeared confident that he had secured “good conclusions” with Putin during the meeting, which would improve security in the region and benefit Israel.
“We came to a lot of good conclusions. A really good conclusion for Israel, something very strong.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu also expressed satisfaction with the results of the meeting, saying he was heartened by commitment to Israel’s security expressed at Helsinki.
Despite suggestions that the apparent agreement vis-à-vis Syrian and the future of Iranian forces deployed there will have little practical impact, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren (Kulanu) suggested that there is in fact reason for Israel and the Trump administration to be optimistic.
While Russia in the past has endorsed the removal of Iranian forces from the Israeli border, the Kremlin could also become an integral partner in the effort to remove Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and allied Shi’ite militias – including Hezbollah – from Syria entirely.
“There is definitely reason to be optimistic that President Trump’s meeting with Putin will influence Russia to work to stabilize the region, and end Iran’s military presence in Syria,” Oren said in an interview with Arutz Sheva.
“I think Putin can and will play a role in what is Israel’s ultimate goal – removing Iranian and Iranian-allied forces from Syria completely. Not from just the frontier area near Israel’s border, but the full withdrawal of Iran’s forces from Syria.”
Ultimately, argued Oren, it is in Russia’s own interests that Syria be rebuilt without the presence of Iranian military forces – something which could impair the Assad regime’s efforts to maintain stability once the civil war has ended.
“I think there is now emerging something of a confluence of interests. At early stages in the Syrian civil war, there was a division of labor, if you will, between the different forces in Syria, with Russia providing the airpower, and Syria and Iran providing the boots on the ground.
“Now, however, with the war in Syria winding down, I think Putin is seeing that it is also in his interests to pull Iranian forces out of Syrian territory.
“The Russians have an interest in stabilizing Syria. They want to start the process of reconstruction. Our message to the Russians is: As long as Iran is working to establish itself militarily in Syria and to transform our Syrian border into an actively hostile border, then there will never be stability in Syria.
“Just withdrawing Iranian forces from the Israeli border is not very helpful when the army has rockets that can be launched from a distance of 200-300 kilometers. That is the major Iranian threat in Syria. Simply removing Iranian forces from the border will not suffice.”
This build up of hatred for Russia is a very serious thing in our world. It has deep roots that go back before the advent of communism under Lenin and Trotsky. Britain WERE at the centre of this always. Remember this when you think of Steele.
I remember Libya very well. China and Putin made a compromise on a no fly zone against Gadhafi. But under NATO, the Europeans, Obama a bit reluctant, they extended that no fly into all out war.
Neocon Bear do you think you can double cross like this with no repercussions?
As a result of all of this Gadhafi was trapped, but also Assad and Putin. They had to fight or else go under seriously.
This is so simple but how can a neocon see it in truth he or she cannot. It is a disease.
It was at that point that precise point that Israel could have made a great gain for itself. Even Martin held back from this. Only I came forward and the abuse from those two devils yamit and Ross against me was massive and I was alone here.
So many lives, so many Islam slaves made, so many rapes could have been avoided not to mention all the rest of the barbarism from ISIS.
Now neocon bear spins again. Trump is made to look a fool in public by the neocons. I do pity him often. Such spirit. But such an awful country now.
I will give you a possible scenario. One notable thing Trump has done is to open the Jack Kennedy assassination papers. Trump will be assassinated and google, twitter and facebook closed down until resistance dies down. Nobody also can reach Israpundit. Thank the bear!
And neocon bear will go on analysing. He will be happy and self satisfied up to the moment he is enveloped in a nuclear cloud
@ Bear Klein:
Maybe Russia is carefully keeping away from any matters which are about to reach active military action against Iran, either from America or Israel, or both. If there was antagonism between them about the ZERO oil threat, they could not have parted so amicably. Something would have been said at the Press Conference.
@ Bear Klein:
They may not part ways on certain mutual matters, but this will not negate their reluctance to face and damage American strongly supported and just recently expressed interests. I’m sure that the American determination to cut Iran’s oil exports to ZERO were discussed yeaterday.
@ Bear Klein:
I wonder how that will work against American announced determination that Iran’s oil exports will be forced won to ZERO. Just last week. If the two countries are on a collision course I say that Russia will balk first.
@ Bear Klein:
OK. I re-read your post and it makes sense. That would be sufficient for now. If Russia helps get Iran out of Syria, that’s enough. Otherwise, we have no beef with Russia, which has always cultivated good relations with any regime running Iran because it needs to keep that border secure.
However, if Russia doesn’t abide by U.S. sanctions in trade with Iran, that will raise additional interesting complications. Ireland is about to get a taste of that having just passed a BDS law which will make them violate U.S. law if they want to keep doing business with us directly or indirectly.
As far as Crimea is concerned, they are actually in the right. It’s there’s. They are Russians who were being oppressed by the Ukraine and who had a referendum and took up arms themselves to defend their right to self-determination.
As far as the rest of the rest of the anti-semitic cesspools that used to be part of the Soviet Union or Russia and now want us to pay to protect them. Screw them. Poland, the Baltic states, the Ukraine. Putin can have them. If he even wants them.
@ Bear Klein:
Sorry, I forgot and cited the very article we were commenting on (which i had read earlier.) So, you are not really answering me so much as the article which I am accepting at face value?
@ Bear Klein:
OK, a guy can dream, but their alliance can be downgraded considerably and is being in Syria. Did you read Michael Orens’ article on the subject?
“Michael Oren:
‘Putin is serious about forcing Iran out of Syria’
Russia has mutual interest with US and Israel in ultimately removing Iranian forces from Syria, says Dep. Min, ex-ambassador Michael Oren.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/249064
@ Edgar G.:
Russia and Iran work together in energy. They are regularly doing large deals. Link below is one example of why they are not parting ways.
https://www.ft.com/content/141e6662-bf11-11e7-9836-b25f8adaa111
@ Edgar G.:
So you believe Iran and Russia will part ways. I think they will not militarily back up Iran in Syria and let the Israelis attack them as long they do not endanger Russians. They will tell them their preferences but they will not fight them. Right now the Russians have air bases in Iran also. They do business with them and will not want to lose the business in my view.
@ Bear Klein:
Iran doesn’t need nuclear plants under the present regime, allowing it’s huge energy reserves.. They were only the pretext to veil the nuclear weapon access via Nth. Korea. They are sufficiently advanced technically to be able to make use of them aggressively. and If America tightens the sanctions Russia won’t supply. They are not living from their Iranian sales. Energy, with which Iran is a rival, makes a far bigger contribution to Russia’s economy. And Russia’s principal interest in Syria is to have that port and access to the Med.
They won’t jeapordise it by letting Syria remain unstable, if there’s, a lot of interest from Israel the US, Jordan and the EU in having Syria stable. The EU could then send back all the Syrians who’ve been flooding the EU and destroying their more-or-less homogeneous cultures..
If they allow Iran to stay in Syria, they are antagonising Israel, wirh whom they want good relations, the US, with whom they want very good relations, Jordan, with whom, I don’t think they care, allowing an energy competitor access to facilities needed by Russia, allowing permanent instability in a country which they seriously want to become stable, and likely much more that I can’t think of right now.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Do you really think Russia going to drop Iran? They are their customer for nuclear plants and arms. Plus they use them to play against the Sunnis and USA. Russia is for Russia. Which does not mean that it does not have common ground with Israel against terrorism plus it does business with Israel.
Russia can find in some areas find common ground with USA but only in some. Putin’s statement that the greatest disaster of the 20th Century was the breakup of the Soviet Union. When Obama let him run opposed he took over parts of Georgia (no one talks about this anymore), Ukraine and Crimea.
HOPE YAMIT UNDERSTANDS HE ASSISTED MURDER AND RAPE OF YAZIDI GIRLS
Where is low political life Yamit today? This is rich confirmation that I was right and he and “Bernard Ross” wrong, wrong in the sense of mass killers of Yazidis and so many others.
So where is Ross today Yamit you fraud and causer of murders and rapes of Yazidis today.
Trump is clearing the mess left by Netanyahu and Obama.
Understand? This was possible from the beginning. An alliance of Assad, Putin and Netanyahu against ISIS and Obama was truly possible.
If Russia ends its alliance with Iran and stops voting against Israel in the UN, it should become America and Israel’s firmest ally. Western Europe? Canada? How on earth are they allies at all? In what conceivable sense?