Sir, – The Russian commitment to deliver "one of the world's most advanced air defence systems" to Iran by year's end ("Putin unblocks sale of S-300 to Iran", April 14th) is evidently another phase in Vladimir Putin's ambitious plan to re-establish Russia as an equal actor in the Middle East. It is yet another example of a renewed Russian military expansion that reinforces last year's aggression against the Ukraine, which was essentially the modern-day manifestation of an imperialist land-grab conducted under the imprimatur of its new tsar.
Mr Putin’s rush to ally Russia with Iran and supply it with a missile system, which without too much effort could be diverted from a putative defence system to an offensive one capable of carrying nuclear warheads, also substantiates Israel’s concern about a nuclear Iran.
The Israeli intelligence minister Yuval Steinitz articulated the Jewish state’s long-standing fear about Teheran’s military expansion, arguing that the sale of S-300s to Iran “was a direct result of the legitimisation that Iran is receiving from the nuclear deal”.
By effectively ruling out an Israeli defensive first-strike, it negates the military strategy of the Jewish state, leaving it vulnerable to Iranian aggression. This is Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s doomsday scenario, and while it remains only a theoretical proposition at the moment, the determination of any Israeli premier, past, present and future, has always been predicated on a single principle, “Never again”.
This resolve should not be glibly dismissed as alarmist by western commentators, and Russia’s highly dangerous game of brinkmanship should concern all of us in a way that has not happened since the height of the Cold War. – Yours, etc,
Dr KEVIN McCARTHY,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.