«Γιατί τόση φασαρία» απάντησε ουσιαστικά ο Ρώσος υπουργός Εξωτερικών,
Σεργκέι Λαβρόφ σε ερωτήσεις που δέχτηκε, όσον αφορά το θέμα της
παράδοσης των S-300 στην Συρία και ανέπτυξε την επιχειρηματολογία του
βασιζόμενος στα τέσσερα πιο κάτω σημεία:
1. Σε περίπτωση που η
Ρωσία αθετήσει την συμφωνία της με τον Άσαντ και δεν παραδώσει το
αντιπυραυλικό/αντιαεροπορικό σύστημα S-300, αυτομάτως πλήττεται το κύρος
της.
2. Η Ρωσία ουδέποτε έκανε κάποια μυστική συμφωνία με τον Άσαντ.
3. Οι S-300 είναι αμυντικό πυραυλικό σύστημα και όχι επιθετικό.
4.
Η συγκεκριμένη πώληση δεν παραβαίνει τους όρους του Διεθνούς Δικαίου ή
τους αυστηρούς εσωτερικούς όρους της Ρωσίας περί πώλησης εξοπλιστικών
συστημάτων.
Σύμφωνα με τον Ισραηλινό έμπειρο Αξιωματούχο Amos
Yadlin, η Ρωσία δεν θα στείλει τελικά τους S-300 στην Συρία, ωστόσο η
στάση της στο θέμα με τους S-300 είναι έμμεση απάντηση προς τις ΗΠΑ:
«Χάσαμε την Αίγυπτο, πήρατε το Ιράκ, πήρατε τη Λιβύη, δεν πρόκειται να αγγίξετε την Συρία».
GEOPOLITICS & DAILY NEWS –
http://www.geopolitics.com.gr/Sergey Lavrov says he can’t understand what all the fuss is about.
In
interviews in the last few days, the Russian foreign minister has
asserted Moscow’s obligation — never mind its right — to honor a
contract to supply President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria with
advanced S-300 air defense batteries, state-of-the-art systems that can
intercept fighter jets and cruise missiles.
The four-part
reasoning Lavrov advances: (1) Russia’s arms sales credibility would be
shattered were it to renege on the deal; (2) Russia has never made any
secret of its various contracts with Assad; (3) these are defensive
missile systems, not offensive weapons; and (4) the sales are not in
breach of international law or Russia’s own ostensibly stringent arms
sales regulations.
Lavrov, to put it politely, is being
disingenuous. His narrow legalistic reasoning collapses in the face of a
grisly reality in which his client, Bashar Assad, has spent the past
two years clinging to power by massacring his own people (and the often
extremely unsavory “rebel” forces who have joined the fight to oust the
Assad regime). Russia’s weapons sales to Assad are enabling that ongoing
bloodshed. And supplementing the regime’s arsenal with one of the
world’s most sophisticated air defense systems will make the butcher of
Damascus, who has remarkably managed to out-murder even his ruthless
father, more impregnable.
The wise and experienced former head of
IDF military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, remarked over the weekend that,
for all Lavrov’s bullish insistence that the S-300 sale will go ahead,
he is not convinced that Moscow will actually deliver the missile
batteries. Rather, in Yadlin’s assessment, the S-300s are just one piece
in the complex face-off over Syria now playing out between Moscow and
Washington. By insistently maintaining their military support for Assad,
said Yadlin, the Russians are saying to the Americans, “We lost Egypt;
you took Iraq; and you took Libya. You’re not going to touch Syria.”
And
the Americans, for their part, are publicly upbraiding the Russians for
that stance. On Friday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Martin Dempsey, slammed Moscow for strengthening Assad via the
S-300 and other arms sales. “It’s at the very least an unfortunate
decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering, so
it’s ill-timed and very unfortunate,” Dempsey told reporters at the
Pentagon.
What we have playing out over Syria, therefore, is a
mini-confrontation between the world’s only superpower, and its would-be
reviving former superpower enemy. Israel’s misfortune is to be caught
up in the middle.
Unnamed Israeli officials have issued
conflicting statements in recent days — we want Assad to stay; the
sooner he falls the better; and all manner of formulations in between.
The fact is that Israel feels the same moral indignation as any other
observer at the sight of this man being permitted to kill this many of
his own people for this long. And Israel knows there is every
possibility that whoever succeeds him could be more brutal, less
pragmatic, and more dangerous to Israel.
Unsurprisingly,
therefore, Israel has done its utmost to stay out of the Syrian civil
war, and would like to continue to do so. The problem is that the route
by which Iran supplies weaponry to Hezbollah, its proxy anti-Israel
militia, happens to run via Syria. And with Assad’s complicity, Iran has
turned Hezbollah into the world’s best-armed terrorist organization
with missiles that can hit, and cause immense damage, to just about any
target anywhere in Israel.
Twice this month, and on previous
occasions too, Israel has intercepted still more advanced Iranian
weaponry on its journey through Syria to south Lebanon. Those hits in
Syria have been carried out with high accuracy and low collateral
damage. No air defense system is impregnable, but the deployment of
S-300s would make such airstrikes far more complex.
With
Assad’s Syria protected beneath the S-300 umbrella, Iran would be
emboldened in its weapons transfers to Hezbollah, a semi-sovereign
terror group avowedly committed to Israel’s destruction. Israel would
feel obliged to find other means to prevent the improvement of
Hezbollah’s already formidable military capability. And tensions across
the already unstable borders between Israel and Syria, and Israel and
Lebanon, would be ratcheted up another few deeply worrying notches.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin, right, listens to Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu during their meeting at the Bocharov Ruchei residence
in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, Tuesday, May 14, 2013. (photo
credit: AP/ Maxim Shipenkov)
That’s why Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu reportedly told Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, when they
met for emergency talks about Syria last week, that the delivery of
S-300 batteries to Assad “is likely to draw us into a response, and
could send the region deteriorating into war.” Worryingly, Putin
reportedly responded by warning Netanyahu that any further Israeli
airstrikes in Syria could have the same result.
All of which, as Sergey Lavrov knows full well, is what the fuss is about.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-knows-exactly-what-the-fuss-is-about/
