History, Religion, Politics, Culture, and Travels in the Islamic World
Report that Russia is providing ISR to Iran is poppycock. China is Iran’s trusted partner. China has 9-10x satellite fleet of Russia. Tehran knows Kremlin is untrustworthy and could turn off the switch in the middle of a war. A roundup of my essays on Iran-China cooperation in space-based intelligence technologies
Iran, Russia, and China have stakes in bloodying the US in the Mideast. Trump painted himself into a corner: if his “big, beautiful armada” does not yield benefits that would allow him to “declare victory” and skedaddle, he looks weak (TACO Trump). If Iran concedes, it looks weak. Israel sees the buildup of US assets as an opportunity it shouldn’t waste: they may strike to drag US into a war.
Elon Musk’s shutdown of Starlink prompted me to as ask, “why are Russian soldiers using Starlink? Don’t they have satellite-based comms?” Yes and no. Russia has systems for “Command, Control, and Communications (C3), but no satellite-based network comparable to USA’s and China’s prolific and multifaceted networks used for C3 and ISR.
Recently-declassified meeting memoranda reveal Putin’s worrisome opinions of Iran: “rogue state,” “they’re quite nuts,” “they are not primitive people: it was quite a surprise to me.” Putin plots with Bush to curtail Iran’s uranium enrichment; and raises with Bush the possibility of military strikes on Iran: “Then we need to do something. What? Strike?” By “we” does Putin mean joint US-Russian strikes?
“Contain Iran,” “contain Russia,” and “contain China” are mantras in Washington, D.C. “Containment,” a concept introduced in George Kennan’s “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” (1947) and expanding on his celebrated “Long Telegram” (1946), has been misapplied by U.S. policymakers, from Vietnam to post-Soviet Russia to Iran.
A cheeky opinion piece on the “Putin Derangement Syndrome” (PDS) that has liberals losing their minds.
Twitterati have opined on the absence of prominent Iranian dignitaries from 80th anniversary commemorations in Moscow for the Great Patriotic War. However, the WWII era is not occasion for celebration in Iran, especially with respect to Britain and Russia. Millions of Iranians were killed during the Anglo-Soviet Occupation, 1941–46.
Trump’s “minerals deal” is a “nothingburger.” The bulk of Ukraine’s natural resources (oil, gas, diverse metals, etc.) are, or will be, under Russian control. There is nothing the USA, UK, and EU can do to change reality on the battlefield. The minerals in “rump Ukraine” can be exploited after the war, but the deposits are assuredly less valuable than the natural resources of “former Ukraine” that Russia will acquire.
Russia’s non-delivery to Iran of twenty-five Su–35 multirole fighters may be indicative of Russia’s reluctance to overtly arm Iran at a moment when Iran is threatened by Israel and U.S., thereby antagonizing Israel’s primary protector just when U.S.-Russia negotiations could yield diplomatic and economic benefits to Russia.
The death on 4 March 2025 of Oleg Gordievsky, British intelligence’s mole in the KGB, prompts me to write about his escape from the Soviet Union in July 1985, which had the hallmarks of a Hollywood thriller.
Perspectives 
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