President Vladimir Putin of Russia has reportedly served notice that if the United States launches a military strike against Iran, Moscow will regard it as an attack on Russia itself, raising the specter of a revival of the Cold War between the two nuclear-armed giants.
Putin issued his warning during a closed-door, face-to-face meeting with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, near the end of the Russian president's visit last month to Tehran -- the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II -- for a summit of the five Caspian Sea nations, according to the Internet news site Asia Times Online, citing high-level diplomatic sources.
He stopped short of saying explicitly what Russia would do if the U.S. struck Iran. But by stating that an attack on Iran would be tantamount to an attack on Russia itself, Putin strongly hinted of retalitory measures by Moscow.
Meanwhile, American officials were stunned by the unexpected appearance of a Chinese submarine which showed up undetected in the middle of recent U.S. Navy exercises in the Pacific -- leaving Washington wondering if, in the event of a U.S.-Russian confrontation over Iran, Beijing would also intervene on Tehran's side.
Putin, Khamenei Reportedly Agree on Plan to 'Nullify' U.S.
Putin and Khamenei agreed on a plan to "nullify" the Bush administration's increasingly bellicose rhetoric against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear development program, the sources said, amid growing concern that Washington is preparing to launch a pre-emptive military attack -- perhaps in the form of a tactical nuclear strike -- against Iran.
The Russian president told his Iranian host that "an American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia," Asia Times Online quoted its sources as saying.
At the Caspian Sea summit meeting, Putin publicly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said countries bordering the Caspian Sea must jointly back any oil pipeline projects in the region.
Putin said none of the five nations’ territory "should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region" -- a clear reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. was planning to use the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.
“We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state,” Putin said.
The private Putin-Khamenei meeting following the summit was extraordinary in and of itself, for Iran's supreme leader rarely receives foreign dignitaries, even a head of state with the stature of Putin. The Russian president told the ayatollah that he may hold the "ultimate solution" regarding Iran's highly controversial nuclear program, the sources said.
For his part, Khamenei insisted that his country's nuclear program was strictly for civilian purposes and vowed that it would continue, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported. But he did tell Putin, "We will ponder your words and proposal."
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