IRAN

THE CRADLE—According to media sources quoting military specialists, Iran will soon get 24 fourth-generation twin-engine, super-maneuverable fighter jets that are mostly used for airpower missions.

The Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet, according to the Russian company United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), “combines the qualities of a modern fighter (super-maneuverability, superior active and passive acquisition aids, high supersonic speed and long range, the capability of managing battle group actions, etc.”

A. MARTYANOV—The Iron Dome is nothing but a short to very short-range system designed specifically to fight slow ballistic “dumb” projectiles from Palestinian “Katyushas” and is not designed to operate in the modern battlefield. But the political factor is understandable and Israel is in a geostrategic pickle because she can see how her main sponsor and “defender”, meaning enabler, the United States is teetering on the edge of political and economic catastrophe and the only country which can mitigate Israel’s “regional issues” is Russia.

PEPE ESCOBAR—What would it take for Kurds to understand no state – be it Iran, Syria or Turkey – will offer them land for their own nation? Parameters could eventually change in case Iraqis in Baghdad finally manage to expel the US. Before we get there, the fact is Iran has already turned West Asian geopolitics upside down – via its smart cruise missiles, extremely effective kamikaze drones, electronic warfare and even state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles. Empire “planners” never saw this coming: a Russia-Iran strategic partnership that not only makes total sense geo-economically, but is also a military force multiplier.

RAMIN MAZAHERI—But since when has American politics made moral sense? America has always been a deeply reactionary country – its founding revolution was merely against foreign control and not in favor of a progressive reordering of society – and thus its politics has always been defined by hypocrisy, zero memory and even less understanding of this thing we share called human history. The Democrats’ Russophobia made Russia the target, but the Democratic Party’s truly autocratic and anti-democratic commitment to “forever war” is the root cause of their undeniable electoral defeat this week.

When the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected Mossadegh government in 1953, it brought rent-a-mobs into the streets of Tehran to provide cover for the coup. Were the riots that broke out in Iran last week the latest iteration of the CIA’s rent-a-mob coup strategy?