russia going for preemptive strikes, page-11

re: russia will hit israel Hi Plustek,

Always a possibility but very, very unlikely.

The fundamentals of the M-E could well be changing due to the increasing influence of M-E based faiths /cultures in France, Russia and in Western China.

Beyond that, we have twice seen the elite Russian forces carry out hostage rescue operations.

This time, with upwards of triple the impact compared to the Moscow theatre siege.

Russia may well have highly trained, and skilled specialists. If so, however, they were clearly not in vogue in Beslan, or for that matter, in Moscow.

Russia has now vowed to attack against terrorists world-wide. This is a dangerous gamble because if terror again strikes at Russia and the Russians are unable to stop, or are slow, limited, or only mildly successful in striking back, then the entire Putin administration could well be at risk, and the prospect of the breakaway States in the Caucausus actually being able to break away will have increased dramatically.

Russia and Putin must succeed, otherwise Chechnya will soon be an independent state, not because of the actions of the rebel forces /terrorists, but because of Moscow's ineptness.

I would not be surprised, therefore, to see that elite American forces have been brought in (or will now be brought in) to assist the Russians. or, for that matter, that an even higher level of co-operation between Russia and the States will now emerge.

The likely prospect of this, therefore, is to see even greater pressure placed upon Iran, Syria and the PLO. But, in particular, Iran.

My view, therefore, Iran to soon become isolated in the M-E. No need for a pre-emptive Israeli strike. And, covert operations by combined Russian and USA elite forces to weed out local /global terrorism.

Rather than the making of WW3, this actually represents the formative beginning of a global counter-terrorism standing military force under the prospective auspices of the permanent powers of the Security Council. Query: NATO.