What if Trump is meeting Putin to sound him out on a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran?

Democracy and Class Struggle says it was sickening to see Trump and Putin express concern for the security of Israel at the Helsinki Summit at the same time Israel was bombing and killing Palestinians in Gaza.

The re-establishment of Syrian Sovereignty over its own territory near the Golan Heights in the last few days is freaking out Israel and the anti Iranian War Drum beats loudly in Israel especially now that Hezbollah is so near the Golan Heights.

Therefore the question asked  by Charlie Smith in the article below is not invention - surmise or guess it reflects the reality on the ground between Israel and Syria.

Iran has been - is - the United States main target in the Middle East. 


What if Trump is meeting Putin to sound him out on a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran?

Putin isn't going to be thrilled by the idea of a more pro-American regime coming to power in the Persian country on his doorstep.

But the upside for Putin is that this type of military action would likely send the price of oil soaring, which would be extremely beneficial for the Russian economy.

According to a 2016 World Bank Group report, income from oil and gas accounted for more than a third of the Russian government's revenues.

Late last month, Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was in India meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and advising his country to stop buying oil from Iran.

“Sanctions are coming (on Iran) and we’re going forward on that, and with India and the U.S. building strong relationships we hoped that they would lessen their dependence on Iran,” Haley was quoted as saying by Reuters.

India has reportedly begun cutting oil imports from Iran. 

It's Iran's second-largest customer for oil after China.

In May, new Secretary of State John Bolton told CNN that Iran's actions were bringing America closer to war. 

To reinforce his jingoistic world view, a New Yorker profile on Bolton in March was entitled "John ('Bomb Iran') Bolton, the New Warmonger in the White House".

In fact, Bolton himself wrote an opinion piece himself in the New York Times in 2015 with this headline: "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran".

Iran's population exceeds 80 million. It's a major regional player affecting the balance of power between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Trump has clearly sided with its arch rival, Saudi Arabia. That was reflected in a US$110 billion series of American weapons sales agreed to in 2017.

Steve Bannon is out of the White House, but his support for aggressive U.S. action against China is continuing under Donald Trump.

China won't like an attack on Iran

Meanwhile, the president of the Asia Society Policy and former prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, recently spoke about China's global ambitions in a speech in Singapore.

"China took the idea of the New Silk Road and turned it into a multi-trillion dollar trade, investment, infrastructure and wider geo-political and geo-economic initiative, engaging 73 different countries across much of Eurasia, Africa and beyond," Rudd said. "China signed up most of the developed world in the first large-scale non-Bretton Woods multilateral development bank called the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), capitalized it and launched it so that it now has a balance sheet already approaching the size of the Asian Development Bank."

The New Silk Road, also known as President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, is designed to extend Chinese influence to an even greater degree through Pakistan, Iran, and all the way to West Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean.

The Chinese-controlled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is arising as a challenger to the World Bank, which is always headed by an American.

A U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran, followed by regime change, would seriously undermine China's grand plans.

It would also likely disrupt China's supply of oil, causing serious economic problems.

And this could come just as China's trade war with America is intensifying.


Source https://www.straight.com/news/1103016/worst-case-scenario-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin-summit