May 14: The Day Cold War II Was Launched

Ja wątpliwości już raczej nie mam.

The White House blandly depicted the telephone conversation between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday, May 13, as producing agreement to step up moves for new sanctions against Iran over its suspect nuclear program. In their wide-ranging exchange, they were said to have noted "good progress and "agreed to instruct their negotiators to intensify their efforts to reach a conclusion as soon as possible."

While the Iranian issue was certainly broached, Obama and Medvedev's conversation was far from bland and its wide range covered a minefield.

A high-placed Washington source told DEBKA-Net-Weekly that Obama took Medvedev to task and told him he must rein in Syrian President Bashar Assad to save the Middle East from an imminent full-scale war.

The US president was prompted by an intelligence update reaching him shortly before the phone call, in which the watchers tracking the flow of smuggled Syrian weapons into Lebanon had spotted Scud missiles moving across the Syrian-Lebanese border into Hizballah hands - in defiance of ominous US and Israeli warnings.

Damascus had been tipped off by Moscow that America and Israel would take no action, provided the transfers went forward slowly and only a few at a time.

Yet Medvedev, who had just returned from Damascus, promised to comply with Obama's request.

But instead, Moscow delivered a shocker. Just a few hours later, Friday morning, May 14. Mikhail Dmitriyev, head of Russia's Federal Agency for Military Cooperation, announced the sale to Syria of MiG-29 fighter jets, Pantsyr short-range air defense systems and armored vehicles.

He did not say exactly when the transaction was signed, suggesting only that it was finalized during Medvedev's visit to Damascus the week before.

President Obama and his senior advisors were forced to acknowledge finally that Moscow's sole motive now was to grind its own axe, just for starters in Iran and Syria. (See DEBKA-Net-Weekly reporting in this issue and on May 14: Russia Tries to Push US aside on Iran).

Washington would therefore be well advised to discount Russian leaders' promises, including support for tough sanctions against Iran. And rather than curbing Assad, the Kremlin was acting to boost him with a fresh injection of arms and backing for his anti-American tactics.

The negative messages from Moscow coincided with a White House re-evaluation of the president's "grand bargain" policy which made a point of treating Moscow as nuclear friend and partner and a willingness to revive the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement shelved two years ago by his predecessor George W. Bush to protest Russia's conflict with Georgia.

White House analysts came up with a grimly unequivocal diagnosis, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Washington sources disclose: The president's year-old policy of fair cooperation with Russia was counter-productive - if not downright damaging.

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