Putin, Iran, and Europe in a Post-NATO World | The American Spectator

Russia and the Globalist left are working to diminish Trump’s hand in his latest high-stakes gamble with Iran. Moscow is helping Iran conduct surgical strikes in the Middle East while leftist governments in Europe slow-walk support for the U.S. and try to block American access to NATO bases.

Since launching Operation Epic Fury 10 days ago, the U.S. and Israel have destroyed Iran’s navy and air force, much of its missile capacity, layers of its genocidal leadership, and blown up Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities across the country. Trump is now threatening to target their energy infrastructure. But Vladimir Putin is enabling savage Iranian retaliatory strikes on the vulnerable Gulf Arab states hosting U.S. bases in hopes of leveraging them to support a Moscow-brokered peace deal that would frustrate U.S. objectives.

Putin’s chief diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, was in Abu Dhabi last weekend to discuss the plan with officials of the United Arab Emirates, which Iran has hit with almost 300 missiles and some 2,000 drones over the past ten days. Its oil industry is being destroyed, and the IRGC warns that its banks and financial centers are next.

Lavrov and the UAE foreign minister Abdullah Bin Zayed issued a joint statement calling for a “negotiated solution” and “an end to all attacks on Iran and the Gulf States.” It was timed with declarations by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian “apologizing” for the missile strikes and promising to stop the attacks if U.S. bases are shuttered.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Spain’s socialist president, Pedro Sánchez, has been threatening to block the key U.S. logistical hubs of Moron and Rota that are crucial for air and naval deployments to the Middle East. He has mobilized militant antiwar protests to boost far left support for his corrupt government that’s “been hijacked by a radical leftist minority,” says Spanish navy admiral Juan Rodríguez Garat. (RELATED: What’s Wrong With Spain? It’s Pedro Sánchez.)

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer initially denied U.S. use of military facilities in the U.K., breaking the historical “Special Relationship” with Washington in which Britain often led the way in struggles against totalitarian rogue states. At one point, he was denying American use of the British Indian Ocean island base of Diego Garcia, required by U.S. strategic bombers to land and re-provision outside Iranian missile range for continuous bombing runs.

European leaders are clearly intimidated by their growing Muslim populations, containing Hezbollah cells brought in by mass migration policies they themselves have implemented. Pro-IRGC demonstrations led by self-declared members of the special Quds Force unit, which continue to be permitted to come to the U.K., are planned in London.

Putin diverted Russia’s satellite fleet away from Ukraine and towards the Arabian Peninsula in the days preceding the launch of Epic Fury. A precipitous drop in Russia’s daily missile strikes on Ukrainian cities could be noted as Russia’s surveillance satellites became focused on the billion-dollar THAAD air defense network installed by the U.S. to shield Israel and Arab allies from Iranian Fattah and Khorramshahr ballistic missiles recently upgraded with Russian and Chinese precision technology.

Iran’s initial strikes hit the vital THAAD radars designed to intercept ballistic missiles that fall from space at hypersonic speeds. “Only a fleet of high orbit spy satellites like Russia’s could have directed precise strikes on the complex radar network,” a Space Warfare expert and former senior “Star Wars” analyst at the RAND Corporation told The American Spectator.

Satellite images of bombed-out THAAD installations obtained by CNN indicate that they were struck almost simultaneously in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar within hours of the first wave of U.S. and Israeli air strikes targeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

As U.S. and Israeli warplanes struggled with Iran’s Russian S-300 air defenses to reach their targets, IRGC missiles and drones hit THAAD radar sites at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, and two other bases in the UAE.

The TPY-2 transportable radar system linked to THAAD’s battery in Jordan, split across five 40-foot trailers, was targeted by multiple Iranian missiles on March 1. Satellite imagery shows several 13 ft. craters around the wrecked vehicles and antennas.

Iranian spies on the ground may have played a role in gathering intelligence. But high-resolution satellite surveillance would be necessary to map THAAD’s radar network installed by the U.S. in late February as the backbone against expected Iranian retaliatory strikes, which came sooner and with more precision than Pentagon planners may have anticipated.

Iran has only a small satellite fleet with limited capacity, which would need Russian assistance and technical guidance for surgical strikes at such a scale, defense experts have told the Washington Post.

Putin denied giving satellite intelligence to Iran in a phone call to President Trump last Monday, according to the chief White House negotiator with the Kremlin, Steve Witkoff.

But it would be out of character for Putin to pass up the opportunity to get back at the U.S. for the satellite intelligence that the CIA regularly passes to Ukraine for its strikes on objectives deep inside Russia. An Iran war benefits Russia in other ways. It forces the U.S. to divert air defense assets from Europe to the Middle East while jacking up depressed prices for its oil.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth says that Russia and China are “not a factor” in the current conflict. But their support for Iran could prolong the war and seriously test America’s regional and NATO alliances.

Iran’s air defenses, combining Russian SAMs with Chinese anti-stealth radar technology, have failed to shoot down a single U.S. or Israeli warplane. Recently provided offensive missile and drone technology, however, has achieved results.

An Iranian Shahed drone that flew over the Mediterranean to hit the British air base on the island of Cyprus had a Russian motor. New Russian weapons entering Iran also include hundreds of man-portable Verba SAMs and Mi-28 helicopter gunships, which the IRGC will use to extinguish internal uprisings that Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have openly encouraged.

Iran signed a recent deal with China to acquire long-range CM-302 anti-ship cruise missiles that could selectively target Western shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. According to the Washington Post, Chinese cargo vessels loaded with missile components are headed for Iran.

U.S. air dominance and American aircraft carrier groups positioned around the Gulf may complicate major deliveries of new arms. But covert routes could be opened through neighboring Afghanistan, where China now controls the U.S.-built Bagram air base abandoned by President Biden.

Iran’s remote northeast frontier with Afghanistan, which has been largely untouched by U.S.-Israeli bombings so far, could be turned into an IRGC redoubt and resupply hub.

Back in Europe, Pedro Sánchez is refusing to take calls from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for failing to defend him in front of Trump when the U.S. president threatened to cut trade with Spain. The Spanish president has been urging other European leaders to stand up to Trump in the name of “upholding International Law.”

But EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seems to be standing up to the woke leftists pervasive in European institutions. She told a gathering of EU diplomats in Brussels this week that “Europe cannot be the sole protector of an international order that no longer exists. We are faced with a new world reality in which the strongest prevail.” (RELATED: Trump the Wolf Topples von der Leyen From Her Pony — Saint Paul Style)

U.S. air dominance and American aircraft carrier groups positioned around the Gulf may complicate major deliveries of new arms. But covert routes could be opened through neighboring Afghanistan, where China has access to the U.S.-built Bagram air base abandoned by President Biden.

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