Foreign Digest: Russia and Syria

Russia: Russia announced yesterday that it will station nuclear missiles in the former Soviet Republic of Belarus, from which it had launched its invasion of Ukraine last year. The forward positioning of the warheads validates the concern among Eastern Europeans, as well as their Western and American allies, about the strategic threat to them from a Russian conquest of Ukraine, which would allow Russia to station such weapons of mass destruction even further westward. Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark announced the formation of a joint defense pact in response to the Russian threat. Finland and Sweden have both applied for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and are being protected by it while their applications are pending. Syria: In retaliation for a deadly drone strike by Iranian-backed Islamist militants in Syria, the United States launched an airstrike late last week against their position. There have been scores of such attacks by the violent jihadists over the last few years. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the worst state sponsor of terrorism in the world, backs Syria’s tyrant, Bashar Assad against moderate rebels and Sunni Islamists in an eleven-year civil war that has killed over a half million people and forced the flight of millions of others. The U.S. defends Iraq and its Kurdish allies against the terrorists. Russia also backs Syria. Meanwhile, Israel against struck pro-Iranian targets in northern Syria.