It’s been about nine days since multiple news organizations, including MS NOW, reported that Russia provided Iran with information that could help it strike American targets. One U.S. official told MS NOW point-blank, “Russia is providing intelligence help to Iran.”
There’s no longer any real doubt about whether the reporting is accurate. Iranian officials have publicly confirmed Russia’s “military cooperation,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz acknowledged Russia’s wartime “strategic partnership” with Iran and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a matter-of-fact sort of way that Russia “is providing intelligence to Iran to better attack and kill American troops.”
The question is less about whether Russia has assisted Iran and more about what Donald Trump intends to do about it.
The initial reaction from the American president and his team was to express total indifference, despite the severity of the allegations. This was soon followed by news out of the White House that the Republican administration agreed effectively to reward Vladimir Putin’s regime by temporarily easing oil sanctions on the country — twice.
For good measure, let’s not overlook the frequency with which top members of Team Trump have publicly vouched for Russia’s trustworthiness and echoed Kremlin talking points in recent days.
But in case this weren’t quite ridiculous enough, Trump has continued to find new ways to make the problem worse. In his latest interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, for example, the president conceded that he believes Russia “might be” assisting Iran, but said Putin’s regime deserves a pass because the United States has assisted Ukraine.
“You know, it’s like, hey, they do it and we do it, in all fairness,” Trump said. “They do it and we do it.”
Over the weekend, he went further, telling the Financial Times, “You could also make the case that we helped Ukraine to an extent. It’s hard to say, ‘You’re targeting us, but we’ve been helping Ukraine.’”
Just so we’re clear, the incumbent American president, during a war, is both echoing Putin’s talking points for him and excusing an adversary for helping a different adversary target American troops and assets.
If there’s a precedent for anything like this, I’m not aware of it. Trump is no doubt aware of concerns that he has been compromised by Moscow, and he’s not exactly going out of his way to temper those fears.
As for the White House’s decision to offer Russia sanctions relief while it helps Iran target Americans, the move hasn’t just drawn criticisms from Capitol Hill, including from Democrats and some Republicans, but it also has generated pushback from some of the same countries in the region that Trump has “demanded” help from.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Putin “can barely conceal a smirk” as the war in Iran continues. There’s little question as to why.
