The Iranian defense minister criticized Russia Thursday for banning all sales of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran.
Gen. Ahmad Vahidi's comments came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree on the ban, which also prohibited exports of tanks, aircraft and sea vessels to Iran.
But I worry about the price we paid. And this matters little if we won't use force to damage Iran's nuclear weapons programs, of course.
I also wonder if Iran won't get what they want by having Syria be the front man for purchases that ultimately go to Iran after making the right payments and bribes to make it happen.
In that case, the button Secretary Clinton delivered was accurately labeled as "overcharge" after all.
UPDATE: I may have been hasty in crediting the Obama administration, given Syria's status as an Iranian province:
While Russia is complying with the new sanctions against Iran, it wants to go on record as still opposed to such harsh restrictions on military sales to Iran. But Russia has an escape clause. While Russian finally cancelled the billion dollar sale of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran, it is going through with a $300 million sale of P-800 high speed anti-ship missiles (with a range of 300 kilometers and a nearly quarter ton warhead) to Syria. These missiles, some or all of them, will end up in Iran. That's because Syria can't afford these missiles, and has been propped up by Iranian subsidies for over a decade. Now Russia plans to sell lots more weapons to Syria, not caring if much of this stuff mysteriously shows up in Iran. Russia made it clear that it would continue "military cooperation" with Iran, even though Iranian officials (as named in the new sanctions) are not permitted to enter Russia.
If our administration wants to pretend our foreign policy is a roaring success, our foes will happily pretend that our foreign policy is a roaring success (with the exception of Iran, which doesn't even respect us enough to pretend).
Yep, it's just an opportunity to over-charge the Iranians for the extra difficulty of getting weapons to Iran.
