In Plain Words.

Tillerson, that is US, or, rather, a cabal of lunatics that runs US foreign "policy" issues an ultimatum to Russia: Side with the U.S. and likeminded countries on Syria, or embrace Iran, militant group Hezbollah and embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad. 

Putin thought about this generous offer for about 10 minutes and then replied: Russia has data that new provocations are planned in Syria with the goal of putting the blame on Damascus for allegedly using chemical weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after talks with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday."We have information from different sources that these provocations - I cannot call them otherwise - are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern suburbs of Damascus where there are plans to throw some substance and accuse the official Syrian authorities," Putin said.

It looks like a pretty clear, black and white answer to me. Russia always fights jihadists and terrorists, not uses them. This is apart from the fact that one has to be a lunatic to side with lunatics. Putin, for all my very restrained attitude towards him, does not produce an impression of being a lunatic. Far from it, he seems to be a very thoughtful and calm man, who knows well why he was elected by his people, unlike it is the case with his American counterpart who turned out to be a conman and a wussy who didn't last even 90 days against the swamp he promised to drain and now tries to show how macho he is. As I stated not for once, Moscow is not a good place for issuing ultimatums. This is apart from the fact which is being ignored by all those "likeminded" countries--the West has  committed a cultural and geopolitical suicide in Russia when spilled Russian blood in Ukraine. It seems like Russia has no illusions about that. 

If to discount a highly improbable, yet still possible, version that this whole situation is a political theater to cover up something more substantial and logical happening behind the stage, a very serious military alliance between Russia and Iran may begin to emerge very soon. At this stage, it seems to be a very logical and sensible step. Russia and Iran (through Azerbaijan and Caspian Sea) are tightly connected both by geography and now by common security objectives. Russia will not allow any kind of hostilities, much less regime change in her Caspian underbelly. Iran knows it and she has to make her moves in economic field to accommodate Russia's efforts. Iran may start with buying Sukhoi Super Jets 100s and signing the contract for deliveries of MC-21 passenger jets after their trials are over by 2019. This will be a very good step, while Russia makes sure that Iran's armed forces are properly armed. Iran's Air Force is in dire need of upgrade since the core of it, F-14 Tomcats, are long past their service life, not to mention those planes being obsolete. There is a lot Russia and Iran need to talk about and it looks like this discussion is ongoing as I type this. It's about time.

  

More:
http://tass.com/politics/940714ia has data that new provocations are planned in Syria with the goal of putting the blame on Damascus for allegedly using chemical weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after talks with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday.

"We have information from different sources that these provocations - I cannot call them otherwise - are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern suburbs of Damascus where there are plans to throw some substance and accuse the official Syrian authorities," Putin said.


More:
http://tass.com/politics/940714

Oh, Boo Hoo, Ambassador Ford.

One of the promoters of civil war atrocity in Syria, one of the most important promoters of Assad's removal, an operative (which is the current level of the US so called "diplomacy"). A slime bag, responsible for hundreds of thousand people killed in Syria is now expressing his "opinion" to CBS. He is everything, he is just not "diplomat"--a term whose meaning was hollowed out completely in State Department. 

The guy oozes lies and delusions from each pore of his body. I am sure Mr.Ford is a very pleasant man in person, he may even use a really good cologne, drink good Scotch and he, most likely, shaves every morning, and, I am sure, is a good family man but he is a war criminal and a waste of a human being despite being regarded by US "diplomats" as "good Arabist". He also has no clue on the warfare, and what wars bring. If he promotes this BS out of his ignorance--it is bad enough, but if he promotes this BS about chemical weapons in Syria and praising "good" missile strikes in full awareness of what is going on, then he is a willing enabler of jihadism and terrorism. Actually, he is. One has to be such an enabler to lie with the straight face while trying (trying?? Does he even have a humanity left in himself) to convince oneself that he doesn't have blood of thousand innocent people on his hands. But he does have it and he has to be reminded about this. And if not in the Syria's war crimes court which will happen, then in, who knows, higher courts which sometimes reach into dying moments to even those who disengaged their consciousness from reality completely, he will get a judgement. But then again, being a psychopath may spare one all the trouble, in the end this seems to be the most important quality required for current US political establishment. 

And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, be lauded as they were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and all humanity.

Leo Tolstoy, War And Peace, Chapter XXXVIII.

    

Glaziev And Colonel Wilkerson About The Same.

Famous Russian economist and one of the advisers to President Putin Sergei Glaziev gave today a large interview to a famous Russian portal Vzglyad . 

Russia For The United States Is Another Link In The Chain Of Chaos.  

While interview is in Russian, capabilities of Google Translate will be enough to give a good grasp of what Glaziev is saying.  I will limit myself only to one of his several theses:

  

Объективно Америка Китаю проигрывает конкуренцию. Я бы сказал, что экономическая схватка за лидерство уже состоялась. Китай уже победил в смысле формирования нового глобального центра экономического развития. Вместе с Индией, Индокитаем и, возможно, с Японией, которая тоже к этому ядру примкнет, новый центр уже сформирован.

Американцы проиграли войну экономическую, но не хотят смириться с тем, что мир изменился, их модель либеральной глобализации исчерпала себя. Мир заинтересован в модели сотрудничества с безусловным доминированием международного права и взаимных обязательств.

Translation: Objectively, America is losing competition to China. I would say that economic clash for leadership has happened already. China won in a sense of formation of a new global center of economic development. Together with India, Indochina and, possibly, Japan which will join this new core, the new center is already formed. Americans lost economic war but do not want to come to terms with the fact that the world has changed, American model of liberal globalization completely exhausted itself. The world is interested in the cooperation model with unconditional domination of the international law and mutual obligations.   

Glaziev is unequivocal in stating that missile attack on Syria was a message to Russia. I do agree with Glaziev. Now comes this very interesting interview of Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on April 7th:

   

In which he makes a number of very interesting and well-informed statements, among which his statement (starting at 13:50) about the danger of McMaster and Mattis and his desire for "going out more slowly than precipitously" echo very much what Glaziev says. In the end, Wilkerson, being a smart and principled, and well-connected, man understands the trend very well. United  States is fading and here is a conundrum:

1. If United States fades "slowly" and in an organized fashion she will not lose the status of superpower and will remain an extremely influential actor of the real (not neocon contrived) new world order, just one among other superpowers;

2. Precipitous, as Colonel Wilkerson characterizes it, that is "power" scenario of "fading" may result:

a) In the worst case scenario: US unleashing a thermonuclear           war with all horrendous consequences globally and for the US herself.    

b) Conventional conflict, which, as Publius Tacitus observes at Colonel Lang's famous blog:

If Russia decides to call our bluff and escalate things Trump will likely preside over a public humiliation that will explode America's military delusions of grandeur.

The good news here, however, is the fact that Russia's MO is unchanged--Russia will always try to avoid war, that is until the war becomes inevitable. Russia will call bluff only when it warrants it. This position is also a position of strength but also of vulnerability, since the good ol' boys (and girls) from D.C. are not bound, as latest events show, by knowledge, understanding of the warfare, in the end, by simple human decency. I do not want to speculate now on the mindset of people such as McMaster or Mattis (I can, and fact is, I can back some of my conclusions with facts) but it is becoming exceedingly clear that Washington's obsession with power expressed through military means is a constant sublimation of internal weakness. This is apart from US being de facto an Israel's army.

I am intent on buying McMaster's "Dereliction Of Duty" just to get a "feel" of his mind (I am long past the point when Vietnam War interests me) but based on the totality of facts of the last several months it is absolutely clear that US does think that she can clear Russia away, including  from the path towards some form of confrontation with China. If McMaster, who seems now emerging as a big wig in terms of decisions on applications of  military power, thinks that he is ready to face a world drastically different from what he ever encountered, I think he will have to get ready at  some point of time write "Dereliction Of Duty-II"--a favorite "stab in the back" military cliche'. Meanwhile, Russia apparently continues on clearing jihadists from Syria and the last I heard "stick and carrots" doctrine of foreign policy so loved in D.C. is not only obsolete, it is dead. As for Trump himself, well, no better description is possible than in Greg Johnson's superb piece at Unz Review, to which yours truly was invited to contribute by Ron Unz.       

Iran's Angle.

This news caught my attention today: 

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran's Hassan Rouhani said in a phone call that aggressive U.S. actions against Syria were not permissible and violated international law, the Kremlin said on Sunday.

Evidently, Putin didn't even bother to try to speak to any "Western" so called "leaders" and seems to be unmoved by the stream of statements from the West, including Britain's official village idiot Boris Johnson's cancellation of his trip to Moscow. But there was another phrase that caught my attention:

   

A joint command center made up of the forces of Russia, Iran and militias supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the U.S. strike on a Syrian air base on Friday crossed "red lines" and it would respond to any new aggression and increase its support for its ally.
"What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well," said the statement published by the group on media outlet Ilam al Harbi (War Media).

I will abstain, for now, from going deep into Putin's (and Russia's) options but it is impossible to ignore the white elephant in the room and that is Iran. Some people think that China matters in Syria much--she does not. Iran does and what Iran knows damn well is that, God forbids, if Russia and US get into direct confrontation, Iran will become party to a war, regardless. So, why not then, in the face of such a possibility, start moving closer to Russia and, judging by sole phone call by Putin to Rouhani, Moscow doesn't mind this movement in the least. Depending on the next steps by Trump Administration, including Rex Tillerson's visit to Moscow, supposedly for presenting Moscow with ultimatum (a rather wrong place to do so), we may see some serious movements on Moscow's part in making Iran a much more better militarily equipped ally. 

For now it is just a speculation but, I would say, with some merit to it. In the end, Iran does have boots on the ground in Syria and those are a substantial operational factor in the war in Syria. After all, Iran does have major mobilization personnel resources (Iran is a very young country)  and this does factor big time in the event of escalation of the conflict but for now we should leave this issue to diplomats. But the fact that Putin decided to speak to Rouhani is telling. Can we foresee now a possible full blown military alliance between Russia and Iran? If salvos by US against Syria's targets will continue we may witness something which seemed impossible even a year ago. But then again, could we have foreseen Trump's betrayal of his country and his submission to neocon war criminal cabal so fast? Even if to consider that this all might be (such possibility, however weak still exists) a political buffoonery for domestic consumption.  This, plus a total lack of any ability to calculate the consequences of actions.  

                

UPDATE:  Thanks to Vlad, who pointed this out yesterday, Anglo-American main stream media, being a sewer that they are, proved again that they are also a propaganda machine, which, as I stated not for once, gives Goebbels a bad name. The statement by Reuters (highlighted in yellow) turned out to be a complete BS. In fact an atrocious fabricated lie, as it is expected from "western media". This fact, however, does not change a significance of Putin speaking only to Iran's leader, on his request, which does signify a necessity for Iran to stop playing too much Oriental bargaining game and move closer to Russia who, strategically, is the only power which can guarantee Iran's peaceful development. 

Russian Defense Ministry To Suspend Communications Hotline With Pentagon as of April 8.

Earlier today (I am not even going to bother) I read Pentagon's statement that, no, Russia still maintains open lines. Evidently not anymore: 

Military attache in Moscow was summoned to the Defense Ministry to get an official note, according to the ministry's spokesman

Yet, as important as it is, I am still scratching my head after what happened in Syria. I really am flabbergasted: was it a "disposal" (отстрел--shoot off) of US old munitions? Possible. How probable--I don't know, but boy, one has to consider "embarrassment" factor when doing this. Old munitions do have propensity to fail but to such an extent? This is really fascinating. Did Russian Air Defense in Syria and other, you know, "means" had telemetry of those hapless Tomahawks? Undeniably so. The question remains--what happened to those, allegedly, 36 Tomahawks which never made it to targets. A rather fascinating question. Are we into this.... again!!! Bombing accordion factories as secondary targets:

            

Several Points Based On What Is Known About Aggression Against Syria So Far.

I will not write anything what is not known but:

1. The most startling footage of the morning was a footage of SAA's Air Base Shairat. It was startling in terms of lack of damage and of the runway which, for the lack of better word, was untouched. The dispersion of actual hits away from runway is also telling. 

In other words, the base, after cleaning the debris remains operational. This completely supports Konashenkov's (Russia's MOD spokesperson) claim that out of 59 BGM-109s launched against  Shairat only 23 struck targets. The damage to runway, as was stated as a main objective, is minimal to non-existent. Why 62% of Tomahawks never struck a stationary target? Make your own conclusions. What is known for sure now, is that there were no Pantsir AD complexes around the airbase, neither S-300 or S-400 engaged targets.  

2. For those who are still into this S-300, S-400 military toys business–those systems are in Syria not to defend SAA–they are there to defend Russian military contingent against any attack from the air. Those are primarily:

a) for monitoring Syria’s airspace;
b) to defend Khmeimim Air Base. 

3. Judging by Russian news and first steps by Moscow, Syrian Air Defense (as I predicted some time ago) will become, suddenly, way-way more up to date. This is what Konashenkov said today. What does it mean? Well, again, make you own conclusion but Syrians will (wink, wink) develop, suddenly, a very good expertise in shooting just about anything out there.

4. This all will have consequences and very unpleasant ones for US. Russia’s shutting down “deescalation” link with US forces in area is a good indicator that Mattis amd McMaster, if they want to implement some suicidal plan, will have to deal with a number of contingencies they most likely do not understand nor are capable of calculating. At this stage, Trump is merely a stooge and not a very smart at that--to launch airstrikes just before getting together with China's political top. How does he think China will react? Actually she already reacted in support of Assad. Chinese also remember insults.

5. Trump's "military advisers" judging by some competent opinions really do think that Russia will back down. Boy, talk about delusion and incompetence both political and military. But then again, neither Mattis nor McMaster make an impression of people who know what they are dealing with (they don't). I may (may, not will) review some scenarios in Syria. But...

Now it is official, US supports Al Qaeda (Al Nusra) and fights on behalf of terrorists. Even Russia's official village idiot Medvedev came out today swinging. Meanwhile Admiral Grigorovich is ordered back to Med and US is now officially sliding down to a catastrophe, the only question is if it will take the whole world with it or will completely bankrupt itself in a controlled manner, with minimal number of victims.

UPDATE: even considering the "reliability" of a source--this is now becoming a farce.

JUST IN: Syrian warplanes take off from air base hit by U.S., carry out strikes in Homs countryside - Syrian observatory for human rights. 
 

Well, It Is Official.

Syria has been attacked by US.

Two points immediately:

1. I see no reason for Rex Tillerson to go to Moscow, there is nothing to talk about there--US is not a treaty-worthy party, in fact US is run by (neocon) mafia and less and less resembles a normal state; 

2.  Litmus test for Putin, we'll see what he is made of. Recall what I stated when Murahovsky described the situation in September of 2016.

It is too early to make any conclusions but Trump is done as a populist US President, he is now officially at Israel's service.