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Notes -
Is there any good credible reporting on the degree of aid from Russia to Iran? I'm hearing a lot of rumors, and a lot of deflections and non-denials from the administration, but I don't know to assess the credibility of anyone in this space.
It seems intuitive that Russia is the only real "winner" at this point in the war, and that Russia would want the war and the oil shortfall to go on as long as possible. And some of the reporting infuriates me as an American. But I don't want to get caught up in another internet circlejerk from liberal media.
How could they aid to Iran? There's not much material they can send them, and given complete US/Israel air superiority, any shipment beyond a pack of mules could be easily destroyed before it reaches its target. Also, Russia has its own war to fight, so they are not exactly bursting with extra resources to begin with. They could share some knowledge maybe - like technology, etc. - but short-term, nothing would really make much difference, as if Russia had some technology that Iran didn't, it'd be an advanced technology taking years to adopt and scale. Of course, Russia knows how to make all kinds of nukes, but Iran probably by now does too, at least in theory. It's the practice that US/Israel intend to make difficult for them, and Russia is not going to send them their nukes. Maybe Russians have some intelligence info, but given how deeply Mossad seems to be inside Iran's everything, it'd be stupid for Russia to share anything really useful, as it would only reveal Russian cards to Israel and thus to the US. So what aid could they really provide?
Oh yes, they could just let Khamenei live somewhere in Rostov, but I don't think ruling a country of the size of Iran from Rostov is a sustainable action, so if he leaves, he's probably done with being Iran's leader.
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Watch Caspian sea ports.
Any substantial support would have to go through there.
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Any reason to treat sharing intelligence with Iran different than sharing intelligence with Ukraine? I think that the Administration has - "yeah it is fair game" approach. I doubt that there is something physical with which Russia helps Iran - they don't have much to spare and shipping right now will be hard.
Not really; you'd hope that the US would at least indicate that they aren't friendly with russia about it; as opposed to the nothing that they are currently doing.
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Not particularly, except that Iran is pretty evil, Russia doesn't want Iran to have nukes either, and I'm American so I find killing Americans uniquely offensive. I can sit in a debate society in law school and say yeah that's fair game, I don't want the federal government to feel that way.
The biggest allegation would be that Khamenei jr is currently directing the Iranian government from Russia, which would be a lot worse.
Federal government has always felt this way. There didn't seems to be any bad blood towards Russians even though their military advisors helped kill a lot of US soldiers in Vietnam.
That is the greatest gift Russia could give you. So many communications that can be intercepted.
That’s an interesting way to describe the rest of the Cold War…
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