The S-300 missile system in Syria - two posts discussing the crisis

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Atlantic Charter, 2. clause:"territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned;". Crimean majority favoured the change of hands.

But still all NATO members, having signed this chart, have not recognized Russian take over of Crimea and Eastern Ukrain. I have not enough knowledge to know who is right or wrong on this case, I just describe the current international situation.

And the majority of Catalonia has voted to gain more autonomy in Spain and its political leaders have been accused of treason by the Spanish government without any country blaming them of not respecting the Atlantic Charter.

In the Middle East, applying this rule will probably see Iraq disappear or shrink a lot, with Shia lands going to Iran and Kurdistan becoming independent. I will be very very surprised to see it happen.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I won't discuss the numbers in your citation, but my translation will be that Iran is giving close to one billion dollars a year to organizations labelled as terror groups by USA and other countries.

Please go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...idents_in_2018, you will find links for monthly lists of terrorists acts in the world, more than 2000 in this year alone.
NONE were done by the Hezbollah.
I have counted all attacks on Israel: 26, killing 12 people and injuring 70+. That is 12 too much, but that is far less than 1% of the total.

So Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism... with 1% of the terrorist activity possibly sponsorized by it...

And Iraq was full of terror weapons and had the 4th army in the world...

By the way, I thought the downing of a F-16 in February had slowed Israel raids on Syria, I was wrong, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel...rian_Civil_War.

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by Laurent Rizzotti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...idents_in_2018, you will find links for monthly lists of terrorists acts in the world, more than 2000 in this year alone.
NONE were done by the Hezbollah.

Laurent, that Wikipedia list is misleading. Iranian terrorism now involves primarily large-scale military and paramilitary operations by the terrorist organisations that it sponsors, not the sort of individual terrorist attacks that Wikipedia deems appropriate to list.

See description of Iran's activities at https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2017/282844.htm:

"In 2017, Iran supported various Iraqi Shia terrorist groups, including Kata’ib Hizballah. It also bolstered the Assad regime in Syria. Iran views the Assad regime in Syria as a crucial ally and Syria and Iraq as crucial routes to supply weapons to LH, Iran’s primary terrorist group ally. Through financial or residency enticements, Iran has facilitated and coerced primarily Shia fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to participate in the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown in Syria. Iranian-supported Shia militias in Iraq have also committed serious human rights abuses against primarily Sunni civilians.…

Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese Hizballah conflict, Iran has supplied LH with thousands of rockets, missiles, and small arms, in direct violation of UNSCR 1701. Iran has also provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of LH and has trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran. Lebanese Hizballah fighters have been used extensively in Syria to support the Assad regime."

As for Israel's continuing air strikes against targets in Syria, the S-300 story is important because there have been no fully confirmed Israeli air strikes since Russia's declaration that it would transfer the S-300 to Syria, as of today. Israeli government sources have said anonymously that strikes continue, but there have been no accounts of these from the Syrian side, until a confused report of some explosions in southern Syria late on November 29. See some English language coverage in a local newspaper, by way of illustration https://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/syria-airstrikes/

Referring back to the issue of Russian air defences in Syria, I have become aware of an article written a month after my two blog posts referred to above, entitled "Russia Expands Its Air Defense Network in Syria" and written by Matti Suomenaro and Jennifer Cafarella with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) Russia Team. These authors emphasised the difficulties that Russian air defences may pose, but they have also mentioned that Israel has already destroyed multiple air defence systems within Syria. Given the much greater capabilities of the United States, it is unlikely that the air defences now present in Syria will be able to significantly ihibit a future American attack.

Regards,

Dan