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Crossfire War - German Fm to Visit Russia - Target Georgia - Iran

By Willard Payne

Crossfire War - BERLIN WATCH - Eurasia Theatre: Berlin - Moscow - Washington - Tokyo/Tehran - Tbilisi - Riyadh; German Fm Steinmeier to Visit "strategic Partner" Russia Dec. 20-21 - Meet With Fm Lavrov - Pres. Putin - Target Georgia - Iran - U.S. to Increase Naval Presence in Persian Gulf

Night Watch: BERLIN - Just one day after the news announced Germany has airlifted enriched uranium to Russia the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is due to arrive in Moscow Wednesday to begin a two day visit and meet with Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin. Berlin refers to Moscow as its "Strategic Partner", an extension of the century's old and massive economic relations between them. It reflects their growing concern over Tehran's final preparations for (f)allout warfare as Iran conducted large scale war-games maneuvers all this year. [IRNA]

I suspect Berlin - Moscow - Washington have long known Tehran has had nuclear weapons for some time since Iran's nuclear program is 20 years old and has been employing the Russian scientists that went south when the Cold War ended in 1990. The concern revolves around Iran's production of nuclear warheads for their Shahab missiles. There have even been reports for the past few years, mostly through Reuters, that Iran has been working on long -range ballistic missiles. A couple of years ago an Iranian official stated that once you produce ballistic missiles it is easy to add more stages and increase their range.

It has already been announced that the topics under review, during the Foreign Minister's visit, will be bilateral relations, developing events in West Asia (Middle East), of which Tehran is the driving force, and energy security, which Tehran is a threat to and not a long term one, but one that could explode tomorrow. Tehran could easily attack and disrupt commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf in order to cause an economic crisis in the entire industrialized world.

A year ago Iran increased its economic relations with Georgia as disputes between Moscow and Tbilisi increased due to questions over territorial issues. At the same time the war in the Northern Caucasus in Chechnya and Daghestan was winding down. It was no secret Tehran had been supporting Islamic militant units there which had been fighting Moscow since 1994. That is the real reason Moscow keeps delaying the completion of the Iranian nuclear facility at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. It could have been completed and operating at least two years ago. Now Moscow is saying perhaps by late 2007. By that time Iran's foreign policy, the Jihad, could have run its offensive course and Tehran will then enter into more serious negotiations with Moscow to end the war as the two merge their foreign policies and a lot of their economy.

But now, with the dispute between Tbilisi and Moscow becoming worse this year, causing the current military standoff in the Kodori Gorge, in the South Caucasus, Tehran's support of Tbilisi has increased Georgia's defense budget. Berlin - Moscow - Washington are aware that the Georgians are more heavily armed than the Chechens - Daghestanis ever were and with the action moving south, in Iran's direction, then it is quite possible that as soon as Russia makes its attacks against Georgia then Iran responds by not only sending supplies to Georgia but also in attacking the West, which supports and finances Russia. Industrial groups in the West and Japan are depending on Russia to protect its access to energy sources in the Caucasus-Caspian region, a crossroads of energy pipelines.

As part of Washington's effort in guaranteeing energy supply lines MSNBC reported this morning that the Pentagon was planning to increase its naval presence in the Persian Gulf. Two carriers and their escorts have been on station for about two months now and they have been monitored by Iranian military surveillance drones. It was late in October the Chairman of the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace arrived in Moscow for a four day working visit. These coordinated Allied moves between Berlin-Moscow-Washington are a result of their constant planning. It is because of these war preparations Tokyo withdrew recently a $10 billion investment from Iran and also from a Persian Gulf oil field. Recently crossfirewar.com reported Moscow-Tokyo have also been planning strategic-military cooperation. When Tehran announced in late 2004 that they wanted China to be the main importer of Iranian oil and gas instead of Japan, Tokyo changed its military policy almost the very next day and made it more offensive.

I do not believe Tehran is going to sit back and let the Allies attack first. That was the message given more than two years ago from one of Iran's defense officials when Washington and the West-Russia became more critical of Tehran's nuclear program and Bush started discussing an attack on Iran being "an option on the table."

Night Watch Information Service
http://www.crossfirewar.com