Iran is Putin’s depreciating asset

The Islamic Republic’s theocrats have failed to convince their youth to go forth and multiply, limiting the nation’s shelf life as a strategic ally

By David Goldman, ASIA TIMES

Iran is dying, and no one knows it better than Vladimir Putin, who worked successfully to raise Russia’s fertility rate, unlike Iran’s theocrats, who have failed to persuade Iranians to have children.

Russia’s relationship to the only Shi’ite state of significance is less an alliance than a dalliance, motivated by Moscow’s fear of Sunni radicalism and its desire to establish a strategic beachhead in the Middle East.

But Iran is a depreciating asset whose value will disappear within a 20-year horizon. The question is not whether, but at what price Russia will trade it away.

February 10, 2017 | 3 Comments »

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  1. The existence of Assad in office is the red rag to assorted bulls that are unlikely to be too bothered by an Alawite (semi)independent NW Syria breaking up that bit of Sykes Picot ME if Assad is pensioned off tot he Crimea to practice ophthalmology.

  2. Typo:

    “nothing its government can do will make much

    different

    at this late stage.”

    Author contradicts himself: “it violated international law in

    seizing Crimea by force

    and

    instigating a civil war

    in the Donbass.” Can’t have it both ways. It’s either a foreign invasion or a civil war.

    “Russia may have … legitimate claim on Crimea…”

    If it does, then how can either of the above two actions be illegal?

    Also Russia didn’t invade; it was already there by Legal agreement, naval base and all.

    “Alawites get to have their own state in the northwest. Give Basher Assad a villa in Crimea and put in someone else to replace him – anyone you like. The Sunni areas of Syria will become a separate enclave, along with enclaves for the Druze.”

    Isn’t Assad an Alawite? So they get to give up the country and have an enclave? Didn’t Putin just shore up the Syrian Government? Now he’s supposed to go war against it?

    The Ukrainians will never go along with a referendum. This whole conflict started when the EU/Obama engineered a coup against the lawfully elected President of the Ukraine — who fled to Russia — brought to power these Ukrainian nationalists who unilaterally threw out the Constitution that gave Crimea Autonomy and the right to Federate with whoever. When the current arrangement was negotiated in 1990, Crimea had a choice; because of geography, they opted to loosely federate with Ukraine despite closer affinity to Russia. Crimea is 60 percent Russian. They legislated that all business had to be constituted in Ukrainian. They started a cold war with Russia and started the process of joining the EU. They began inviting the descendants of Tatar Muslims expelled by Stalin back (at least some of who will be Jihadists.) They renamed streets after Ukrainian war criminals with lots of Jewish blood on their hands from the Civil War to WWII, including Nazi collaborators. The locals went to war and Russia supported them. It’s the UN, EU, US, that are violating international law not Russia.

    This author makes so little sense on the things I can check that I’m a little leery about taking his word for the things I can’t. “anecdotal?” from who? where? Is it a secret? Or just a “reliable source”, maybe “Deep Throat” or perhaps, the Coast* himself?

    *”David Steinberg – disguised as a normal person: The Coast, Bullshit, and Nixon” (1970)

    https://youtu.be/H9EVEM3_5Rs