What Is This World Coming To?

The United States under President Barack Obama has switched sides and is now joining Russia in opposing international economic sanctions against Iran.

Former US President George W. Bush was the international community’s chief proponent of strong economic sanctions against Iran, but Obama has doggedly stuck with a much softer approach since being elected last year, despite continued Iranian defiance and provocation regarding its nuclear program.

European and other industrialized nations recognize how dangerously close Iran is coming to acquiring nuclear weapons, and what the recent post-election crackdown in Tehran says about the mentality of its government, and want to introduce new sanctions at Wednesday’s G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

But US officials have said Obama will actively oppose any new sanctions, and an Italian newspaper cited Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as saying he wholeheartedly backs the US president in that endeavor.

Meanwhile, Israeli government officials told The Washington Times on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly hesitant about asking Obama for a green light to strike Iran, fearing that an outright rejection of the request could put an end to the military option.

London’s Sunday Times reported earlier this week that ultimately, Israel may not need America’s go-ahead to strike Iran. According to the report, Saudi Arabia, which stands to lose nearly as much as Israel if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, is willing to turn a blind eye to Israeli aircraft passing through its airspace.  From Israel Today Headlines

Thousands of troops, backed by hundreds of tanks, artillery and other heavy weaponry, began rumbling through the North Caucasus on Monday, as Russia began its largest military exercises since last year’s war with Georgia.

The Caucasus 2009 war games are being seen by many experts as a warning shot for nearby Georgia, where the government says it has rearmed armed forces and where NATO recently wrapped up its own exercises.

Experts say the exercises may also be signal to the United States that Russia will give no ground on its efforts to maintain an exclusive sphere of influence in Georgia and other former Soviet republics. The games run through July 6 — the day that President Barack Obama arrives in Moscow for a highly anticipated summit with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev.

Defense Ministry officials say more than 8,500 troops will take part, along with nearly 200 tanks, armored vehicles, 100 artillery units and several units from Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet.

After promising to “push the reset button” on relations with Moscow, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a  gift from the Obama administration.   It was supposed to be a joke, but it backfired.  (What’s with the administration and gifts, anyway?)

The gift was supposed to be a red button labeled “reset” to symbolize the moronic suggestion by President Obama that US-Russian relations can be simply reset — even with a button mislabeled “overcharge.”

According to Israeli intelligence,  Hezbollah has added the advanced shoulder-fired SA-18 missile to its arsenal of anti-aircraft weapons.

The Lebanese daily Al Akhbar said Hezbollah intends to take measures to stop Israeli overflights. On July 31, the pro-Hezbollah newspaper quoted a militia source as saying that Hezbollah was “close to adopting practical measures that will force Israel to cease the overflights.”

The SA-18s, with a range of 5.2 kilometers, were provided to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria, officials said. They said Iran also plans to equip Hezbollah with longer-range air defense systems designed in China and Russia.

“There is a reinforcement on the other side, and it’s not by chance that we are training intensively on the Golan Heights and on a major scale,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. “There has been a very significant reinforcement of Hezbollah in recent years, and we are examining the possibility that the balance of power has shifted with the introduction of sophisticated weapons from Syria.”

On Aug. 12, Israel’s military, in a move closely monitored by neighboring Syria, held a major exercise on the Golan Heights. Officials said the exercise envisioned a Hezbollah and Syria attack on northern Israel.

One option for Hezbollah was to procure mobile SAM systems, such as the Pantsyr-S1E from Russia. Officials said Hezbollah could deploy the Pantsyr from Iranian or Syrian stocks in Shi’ite areas of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, where the militia was believed to keep heavy weapons and long-range rockets.

Only hours after Russia agreed to a cease-fire brokered by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian forces pushed deep into Georgia, capturing the strategic town of Gori, less than an hour from the Georgian capital at Tblisi.

Thick black plumes of smoke rose from Gori as panicked residents — including the doctors and patients of the local hospital — fled to Tbilisi in packed cars and minivans. Most locals had already abandoned Gori after it was heavily bombarded by Russian forces on Tuesday, just before Presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and Nicholas Sarkozy of France announced a provisional cease-fire.

With Russian tanks securing Gori, Ossetian militias and Russian cossacks began pillaging stores and homes, fleeing residents and Western eyewitnesses said. Some Georgians attempting to escape said they were told by irregulars to abandon their cars and valuables at gunpoint, and forced to walk toward Tbilisi. At least one vehicle of Western journalists was also seized at gunpoint by Russian-allied irregulars.

The EU and US are in discussions over the best way to ‘punish’ Russia for its invasion of Georgia.

For now, the US has decided to ditch an important NATO naval exercise with Russia that was due to begin on Friday. The annual exercise usually includes Britain, France, Russia and the US.

But the odds-on favorite solution being to kick the Russians out of the G-7 plus Russia. (That would make it the G-7 without Russia. That will teach those crazy Ivans!)

The G-7 plus Russia didn’t fit, anyway. The Bible speaks of the existence in the last days of two different governing authorities, which the Prophet Daniel and the Apostle John each represent as a beast with seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads represent economic authority, the ten horns represent political power.

The EU has absorbed as many as 27 nations, but there remain just ten FULL members of the European Union, which is as close to a revived form of the Roman Empire as has existed since the Fall of Rome to the Goths and Vandals in the 5th century.

The G-7 consists of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.

Russia continues its push well beyond the borders of South Ossetia and into Georgia itself. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says that all Russia is trying to do is bring its ‘peacekeeping mission to its logical conclusion.” Whether that logical conclusion includes the existence of an independent state called Georgia remains to be seen.

Noted one blogger, Georgia certainly identifies with — and considered itself an ally of — the West. After fighting broke out, Georgian state television even switched from the national news to the anti-Russian, Cold War classic flick “Red Dawn.” So it’s understandable that the people there are begging for Western help — they’re even looking for Israel to pressure Russia. But despite strong words from U.S. bigwigs, it’s become increasingly clear that nobody is coming to Georgia’s aid. “Georgians are wondering, where is NATO? NATO isn’t coming. Deal with it. Saakashvilli staked his presidency on it and failed.”