Iran’s advanced S-300 air defense system, delivered by Russia following a July 2015 nuclear deal after years of delay, is now operational, state television reported on Saturday.
Iran had been trying to acquire the system for years to ward off repeated threats by Israel to bomb its nuclear facilities, but Russia had held off delivery in line with UN sanctions imposed over the nuclear program.
“The S-300 air defense system has been tested… in the presence of government and military officials,” the television said.
It said that the test at a desert base had seen several targets, including a ballistic missile and a drone, intercepted.
Iran’s activation of the defense system comes amid mounting tensions with the new US administration of President Donald Trump, who imposed sanctions after Iran tested a medium-range ballistic missile in January.
Russian military expert Viktor Litovkin told Radio Sputnik about the significance of the missile test and why Washington is concerned over Tehran's drills in the Indian Ocean.
The Iranian military has tested a brand new Nasir cruise missile during large-scale naval drills in the Indian Ocean that took place from February 26 until March 1. Commenting on the launch, Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan said that the cruise missile has hit the specified target with maximum precision.
The final stage of Iran's Velayat 95 drills took place in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and North of the Indian Ocean. The area of the drills covered two million square kilometers (over 770,000 square miles).
Various naval units, including submarines, missile-launching destroyers, surface and subsurface units, missile and electronic warfare systems, drones, fighter jets and marines took part in the military exercises. Missile tests, intelligence operations, deployment of submarines and rescue operations were conducted as part of the drills, involving a range of naval equipment including submarines and helicopters manufactured in Iran.
He added that the Iranian Navy is participating in the large-scale drills near the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically important "oil corridor" through which lies the main shipping route of Middle Eastern oil export. That's why the drills concern the United States, the expert believes.
"Iran wants to be the dominant country in the Middle Eastern region. Iran has 'an axe to grind' against the US allies [in the region], Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Israel. This annoys the US. Iran conducts exercises near the Strait of Hormuz where oil tankers belonging to the US replenish the supply of fuel. Iran, therefore, demonstrates that it can block this area at any time. Moreover, American warships are always in the Persian Gulf area, where a major US military base is located. Iranian boats have repeatedly approached American frigates and destroyers signaling an attack. Americans don't enjoy it," he explained.
By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade.
These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure, experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems.
When you add up the external costs of jobs offshoring that are imposed on Americans, the costs far exceed the value of the profits that flow to the One Percent. Clearly, this is an intolerable situation.
Dispossessed Americans rose up. They ignored the presstitute media, or perhaps were driven to support Trump by the hostility of the media. Trump was elected by dispossessed America, by the working class.
The working class is out of favor with the elite liberal/progressive/left which abhors the working class as racist, misogynist, homophobic, gun nuts who oppose transgendered toilet facilities. Thus, the working class, and their chosen representative, Donald Trump, are under full assault by the presstitutes. “Trump Must Go” is their slogan.
And well he might. Trump, in a fit of stupidity, dismissed his National Security Advisor, Gen. Flynn, because Flynn did what he should have done and spoke with the Russian ambassador in order to avoid a Russian response to Obama’s provocation of expelling Russian diplomats at Christmas.
Russians have been demonized and ascribed demonic powers. If you speak to a Russian, you fall under suspicion and become a traitor to your country. This is the story according to the CIA, the Democratic Party, the military/security complex, and the presstitute media.
Once Trump put Flynn’s blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself. At the present time, “the Russian connection” black mark is operating against Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions falls, Trump is next.
Let’s be clear. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sessions met with the Russian ambassador, just as he met with a number of other countries’ ambassadors. There is nothing unusual or surprising about a US senator meeting with foreign diplomatic representatives.
Those who accuse Sessions of lying are misrepresenting the facts. Sessions met with ambassadors in his capacity as a US Senator, not in his capacity as a Trump representative. As a former US Senate staffer, I can attest that it is perfectly normal for US Senators to meet with diplomats. John McCain and Lindsey Graham even fly to the Middle East to meet with terrorists.
Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA’s media whores are consciously and intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are despicable, the scum of the earth.
The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War. I know. I was there.
But if President Trump wants to defuse the extremely dangerous tensions that the reckless Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes have resurrected with a powerful thermo-nuclear state that only wants peace with the US, President Trump and any of his appointees who spoke to a Russian are unfit for office! This madness is the position of the idiot liberal/progressive/left, the CIA, the Democratic Party, the right-wing morons of the Republican Party such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and the two-bit whores that comprise the Western media.
Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are “Russian agents”?
I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and awareness left anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western media or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don’t expect to be alive much longer.
The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security Deep State that is driving the world to destruction.
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