Thursday May 21, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

Word just came that the Russians have decided not to selling MIG-31's to Syria.

The Russians have decided to nix the deal that would add 8 new MIG- 31's to Syria's arsenal.

The MIG-31 is no ordinary flying machine.

The plane has a radius range of about 500 miles and can reach speeds of 1800 miles per hour.

The cost of buying these high flying, high tech fighter planes was half a billion dollars.

These fighter jets, often called "Fox Hound" would have been a huge improvement to the Syrian air force.

The Kommersant is the newspaper that reported that the deal was off.

The paper quoted two sets of sources giving differing reasons for the implosion of this deal.

Source # 1 said it was due to Israel's lobby. That ever since the rumors of the deal began, Israel and other Western governments lobbied Russian leadership to rethink selling such sophisticated military hardware to an unreliable and unpredictable government like Syria.

Source # 2 said the deal was scrapped because Syria could not come up with the money.

The second reason sounds more plausible than the first.

I think that Syria was asking Iran to foot the bill and stringing Russia along. Russia realized what was happening and made the preemptive move of canceling the deal.
Past experience with Russian deals to Iran shows us that Russia is impervious to international pressure and geopolitical arguments about good and evil hold no sway with the Russians. All that counts is the dollar.

Bottom line: This failed deal is good for the free world.

The relationship between Israel and the US remains very strong.

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