Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu, while in Shanghai, faced a sharp dressing-down from President Vladimir Putin Monday, May 6 and a warning that further Israeli attacks on Damascus would not be tolerated.  Putin said highly advanced Russian weapons, including S-300 air defense systems, would be supplied at speed to Syria. 

Amid detailed coverage of Korean crisis through North Korean and American moves, important Chinese and Russian military movements are ignored. Moscow and China are unlikely to bring Kim Jong-Un to heel until Washington agrees to link the Korean case to its disputed policies on Iran and Syria.

The evidence is piling up that the US, Russia, the European Union and even China are luring al Qaeda and affiliated jihadists to Syria to vent their trouble-making capabilities on its killing fields in the hope that they will not return.

Iran’s nuclear chief Abbasi is in charge of the conversion of the captured US Sentinel by Iran and the work of mixed Iranian-Russian-Chinese teams to transfer its secret systems to Iranian drones.

As Morsi scrounges for crumbs from affluent world leaders to ease Egypt’s economic distress, he runs up against a Salafist fatwa banning international credit on which interest is payable as a violation of Muslim tenets.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president while smiling at Washington in the hope of US aid, is also making eyes at Tehran.

The Saudis, not invited to join negotiations either on Syria or Iran, have gone ahead with their own plans for beating Iran to the nuclear draw.

Russian President Vladimir Putin started putting his plans for Russia to displace the US at key Middle East points at the Moscow nuclear talks and the G20 summit in Mexico where he enlisted China and Iran to defeat Washington’s plans. Starting out with a scheme of revenge for Libya, his ...

Tehran can afford to brush off diplomatic efforts to rein in its nuclear program for two reasons: 1) It is so far advanced that unless stopped, Iran will by December have enough enriched uranium for seven or eight nuclear bombs as well as complete dirty bombs, and 2) It ...

Military tensions around Syria shot up again Monday, June 18, with an Iranian report that a joint Russian-Chinese-Iranian exercise is to take place in Syria, called “the biggest of its kind ever staged in the Middle East,” with 90,000 personnel, 400 air planes and 900 tanks taking part.  debkafile: This would be the first time Russia and China have deployed substantial military strength in the Middle East. It points to their determination to deter a US-lead military operation against the Assad regime.

The Saudis offered Beijing $60 billion plus an oil bonanza for a single nuclear warhead.  China has agreed in principle to sell the Saudis medium-range Dong-Feng 21 ballistic missiles in return for the cash and/or having its oil requirements for the next 23 years guaranteed by Riyadh. The deal was ...

Beijing has distanced itself from the Assad regime, according to a secret exchange of messages with the Obama administration, revealed here exclusively by debkafile. China will no longer be a problem for America in dealing with Assad. That leaves only Russia, said the last message. Washington counts this change as a return on its nuclear appeasement of Tehran. The Chinese decided to accommodate US policy on Syria now that the loosening of the embargo on Iranian oil is in sight. Assad has started selling off gold reserves in Dubai.
 

Two Iranian traders were arrested in Kuala Lumpur for using counterfeit $100 bills for their purchases. Their suitcases with the equivalent of $356,000 in fake dollars were seized. They claimed they had been issued with the cash by the Iranian national bank in Tehran and had no idea the bills were not genuine greenbacks. Iran is threatening to sever trade ties with Malaysia over the incident.  US and Chinese secret agents are in the Malaysian capital to trace the fake currency’s provenance.

China and Pakistan are profiting hugely from sanctions-busting financial services to Iran, while Russia, India and Turkey also help cushion Tehran against the depredations of sanctions.

US stealth drones stay out of Iranian skies since the RQ-170 was downed now that American intelligence knows that a Chinese cyber team was responsible. The Obama administration is avoiding a reckoning with Beijing because Washington needs the Chinese on America's side – especially in a presidential election year.

India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, debkafile reports exclusively.  Our sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran's total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both will therefore substantially cushion the impact on the Iranian economy of the European decision of Monday, Jan. 22, to impose an oil embargo on Iran and freeze the assets of its central bank.

China took advantage of the US oil embargo on Iran to bid for Saudi oil instead. Riyadh agreed to provide oil in return for Chinese assistance in building a Saudi nuclear weapon program. Beijing no longer calls Iran its only strategic partner in the Middle East; Riyadh shares that privileged status with Tehran.
Until this week, the ayatollahs were sure Iran would play solo as the Persian Gulf region's only Muslim nuclear power. Now Sunni Saudi Arabia is about to share the stage.  
Meanwhile neither the ...

Iran is driving a hard bargain for granting Russian and Chinese teams access to the US stealth drone RQ-170 it captured undamaged last week. debkafile reports: The price, they were told, includes advanced nuclear and missile technology, especially systems using solid fuel, the last word on centrifuges for enriching uranium and the S-300PMU-1 air defense system, which Moscow has consistently refused to sell Tehran. Israel's prime minister sent foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to Moscow to try and stop the deal.

Iran's electronic trap for snaring the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, one of the world's most secret drone programs in almost perfect condition, must be accounted a huge military and intelligence coup and a landmark in the long tussle over Tehran's nuclear program. It may have acquired the technology for its ...

The Arab League was not first to make the Syrian crisis a regional concern. Big power rivalry got there first. The US and France, like the Sunni rulers, seek Bashar Assad's downfall, while Russia and China are propping him up as their firewall for the Islamic regime in Tehran.