America assisted Russia's aerial assault on Ukraine by enabling Iran to develop ballistic missiles in the highly flawed 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
America is only finally thinking about sending long-range missiles to Ukraine. But Iran sent them to Russia:
Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources told Reuters, deepening the military cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned countries.
Iran's provision of around 400 missiles includes many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons, such as the Zolfaghar, three Iranian sources said. This road-mobile missile is capable of striking targets at a distance of between 300 and 700 km (186 and 435 miles), experts say.
You can thank the monumentally stupid 2015 Obama/Kerry Iran nuclear deal for advancing that Iranian capability:
Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a speech at the Australian National University that Security Council Resolution 2231, which was adopted after the Iranian nuclear deal was signed last year, did not bar Iran from testing the type of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that it launched last week.
"It doesn't call upon Iran not to test ballistic missiles, or ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads ... it calls upon Iran not to test ballistic missiles that were 'designed' to be capable," Zarif said.
"That word took me about seven months to negotiate, so everybody knew what it meant," he said, referring to "designed."
Kerry went along with that long effort at crafting the Definitions Section. Because of course he did. And that was just one of the ways Iran duped our chief of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne.
Not that American short-sighted stupidity is the only way Russia is getting missiles. North
Korea improved its missiles based on the chaos of post-Soviet Russia.
Now North Korea sells missiles for food to Russia to fire at Ukraine. North Korea sent Russia its old ones first, naturally.
Ah, the circle of life.
Sometimes short-sighted stupidity somehow works out for you. I don't think we'll be as lucky as Russia on this score. Notwithstanding the Biden administration's remarkably reality-free confidence in its Smart Diplomacy® with Iran.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
