By Ted Belman
Recently I suggested that Israel should bail Greece out in exchange for favours. Now it appears that Russia took my advice.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced today (Wednesday) that his country will receive 3 billion Euro ($3.3 billion US) for shipping Russian gas to Europe.
Russia has expressed interest in building an energy center in Greece to open up the European market to its natural gas.
Now Europe and Israel must ponder the new situation. No doubt Israel will negotiate with Russia to see how the two can work together.
Any and every step Israel can conceive and follow up on in regard to mutual agreements that serve Russia’s long-term defense and economic development interests in eastern Europe should be carefully but vigorously pursued. I am convinced that Russia’s main long-term game is to be played out in her western borderlands of eastern and central Europe and especially so among the pravoslavtsi (Orthodox Christian) governments and nations of the Balkans, for whom the Russian Empire always played the role of imperial protector, equally against the Roman Catholic powers such as Austria-Hungary and the Moslems of the fading Ottoman Empire.
Most Israpundit commenters undoubtedly will remind me of Russia’s planned sale of this or that improved ground to air missile systems to Ayatollist Iran, which could make it more difficult for Israel to mount an aerial assault to knock out Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities..
But I think that sale is mainly a ploy against Obama’s Iranian gambit, not against Israel in particular. That goes also for Russia’s efforts to protect Assad’s Alawite control of at least western Syria.
Also, I am certain neither the USA nor any collection of supposed US allies will ever carry out such an attack. Washington has had far better reason to do so in the case of North Korea’s nuclear enrichment and missile launching facilities, but has stood by with folded arms in the face of a regime far more reckless and vicious even than that of the Shi’a Moslem gerontocracy that presently rules Iran. So anyone who has serious expectations of the waning power of the USA being used to smash the Iranian nuclear facilities will wait for an event that never shall take place.
I almost as certain that Israel will not make an attempt to attack the Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities either. Israel, while developing its own supply of bunker-buster super- bombs to take the place of those they cannot buy from the US Defense Department, is not likely to be able to destroy enrichment machinery buried deep under mountains in a large number of locations. Moreover, I think their regime itself would be a far softer target than their nuclear enrichment facilities. They are largely a bunch of elderly men who do not sleep each night in Iranian versions of the fuhrerbunker. But the implications of all that is for Israel’s defense ministry to determine. In any case, the present leadership of Israel is noted for making hinted threats they cannot carry out, and this has not escaped the world’s evaluation of Israeli strategic potentials.
All things considered, Israel no longer can rely on strategically-defined help from the USA, and there is no solid evidence this trend will change irrespective of who is elected president next year. So the time has come for Israel to balance its strategic relationships as soon and as meaningfully as possible. That means Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi and possibly Tokyo. So ask them what they want that does not negatively affect Israel’s own direct national interests, then figure out what it takes to become an ally to as many of them as possible, but starting with Russia and China. Those two especially are the empires that will be calling the shots over everything from the Bering Straits to Poland, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI