By Walid Shoebat
As we reported last week, things are heating up between the U.S. and Russia and it is best folks learn what is happening. As it seems, the U.S., led by captain chaos, Obama, has U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter say that Washington is prepositioning tanks, artillery, and other military equipment in Eastern and Central Europe, in a move to reassure NATO allies concerned by Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. A Russian Defense Ministry official said stationing tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia’s border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War. So it it worth it? Do we really need a showdown with Russia at the moment instead of handling the ISIS problem?
Carter, during a trip to Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, said on June 23 that the Baltic states — Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia — as well as Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland have agreed to host elements of this equipment.
Some of the equipment would also be located in Germany.
A fact sheet provided by the U.S. military said the United States’ prepositioning would include about 250 tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled howitzers.
The amount of equipment that would be temporarily stored in each country would be enough to supply either a company — enough for about 150 soldiers — or a battalion — about 750 soldiers.
Officials say much of the equipment is already in Europe.
After the announcement, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said that Putin’s statement was one reason why the international military alliance was upping its deterrence measures, according to Reuters.
Kirill Kudryavtsev | AFP | Getty Images
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued its warning on Monday against military presence on its western border after the New York Times and other media organizations reported that the U.S. had offered to store military equipment for up to 5,000 troops—including battle tanks and heavy weapons—in allied eastern European countries.
UNDERSTANDING THE U.S. RUSSIAN DIVIDE
Eastern European and Baltic states shares a border with Russia—which include Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine—have become increasingly nervous about recent, seemingly provocative military exercises by Russia, especially after Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region. The move by the U.S. to station military equipment along the border was part of a propaganda plot to turn Europe against Moscow.
The way Russia sees it, is that since the European Union was in shambles given the terrible economic problems of Southern Europe, so adding the weak Ukraine to the EU was preposterous, but making it in the Russian sphere of influence will prove an asset for Russia in the future. This angers the U.S.
While many in the U.S. fear the Russian sphere of influence, especially that it strengthened Iran, fact is Russia is fighting Muslim Sunnis in the northern Caucasus and fears the strengthening of radical Sunni Islam anywhere, particularly in the larger Sunni-dominated republics in Russia. [1]
Also, an Iranian sphere of influence would threaten Saudi Arabia and would compel the United States to re-engage in the region to protect Saudi Arabia and by that will also be inclined to defend Israel. After all, the Americans remain rightly obsessed with the Islamic world.
What Russia is doing is to create a strategic crisis for the United States who fears Iran more than the Russians who are buffered from Iran by the Sunni Caucasus states. The Russians do not really have an interest to attack Israel as many in the Prophecy mania proclaim. No serious analyst would see any reason for Russia to invade Israel, one just needs to look at Russia’s support for the Armenians, and neither does Russia want the Iranians to gain nuclear weapons. What they do want is an extended conflict in Iraq, extended tension between Iran and the United States, and they wouldn’t much mind if the United States went to war with Iran as well. [2]
Turkey and Iran have a common interest in preventing an independent Kurdish nation. The more the United States supports the Iraqi Kurds there will be a greater danger of an Iranian-Turkish alliance which is what we project will happen.
The bigger danger for the United States is Turkey and it has a vested interest in being viewed by the United States as the stabilizing agent in the region and no longer regards the United States as a stabilizing force, and it sees Europe as a collective entity and individual nations as both hostile and impotent and has plans to expand its Islamist agenda into Europe.
The U.S. today wrongly views the Russians as a long-term threat to its interests and sees Russia’s potential return to Turkey’s frontier as a long-term challenge. [3] Considering the future of the region, the only power in a position to assert its consistent presence is as we have been saying for two decades is Islamist Turkey. [4]
Turkey is ready to revisit its relations with Iran. Turkish experts believe that competition with Iran for regional dominance is futile. They argue that leaderships of both nations have come to realize that striving to secure an undisputed leadership in the Middle East was pointless. [5]
Iran’s ambitions in the region will then succumb to Turkish dominance. The primary reason being that the Sunni-Shia strife in the region would eventually acquire a content conforming to the geopolitical interests of the U.S. and despite Ankara’s insistence and is why Washington refrained from resorting to plans of total regime dismantling in Syria.[6]
Most do not understand U.S. policy in the region and why the U.S. Administration are behind the Sunni-Shia divide. The U.S. needed a region equally treacherous both for Turkey and Iran. Current balance of forces between extremist religious groups prevents Turkey and Iran to feel comfortable, whereas Washington reaps geopolitical dividends from the situation. [7]
The only problem with this policy is that it undermines the situation for the Christians in the region, who are becoming highly persecuted. Such persecution will extend to the future in which the entire Christian population in the Middle East will have to flee or be slaughtered. To Christians, this issue should be the highest priority. Please help us rescue Christians.
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