By Sanxuan

It's the eighth day of the conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran. The myth of the "divine troops descending from the sky" of the US and Israel is gradually being broken.

Actually, before the war, the outside world did not have high hopes for Iran. After all, in previous Middle East conflicts, Iran was always the one who silently suffered losses. When provoked by Israel, it would fire a batch of missiles in response and then declare an end to the conflict.

Iran strikes US military base

But this time, Iran seems to have unlocked some kind of cheat code. Although its overall strength is still significantly inferior to that of the US and Israel, it has inflicted great damage on its enemies. Especially the US military bases in the Middle East have been hit with precise strikes by Iranian drones and missiles.

With Iran's satellite and intelligence capabilities, it would be difficult to obtain such accurate coordinate information. According to reports by US media citing informed officials, the relevant intelligence was provided by Russia to Iran.

A source familiar with the matter revealed that since the start of the war, Russia has been cooperating with Iran, providing it with coordinates of US forces, including the locations of American warships and aircraft.

This way, Iran's limited stockpiles of missiles and drones can play a bigger role. Although the ammunition is not abundant, each strike hits the most core and expensive assets of the US military, forcing Trump to seriously consider the cost-effectiveness of continuing the war against Iran.

President Putin of Russia and President Pezeshkian of Iran

There is no denying that Russia's intelligence capabilities are also somewhat lacking compared to those of the US and Israel, mainly because of its limited satellite system. However, compared to Iran, it is still much better, so even though Moscow's assistance is limited, it is enough to cause considerable trouble for the US and Israel.

Regarding the possible cooperation between Russia and Iran to strike US forces, the United States has made very cautious statements, never mentioning Russia's role in it.

The White House spokesperson stated that the Iranian regime is being destroyed, which can be seen from the decreasing number of missile attacks by them, and the US will eventually achieve its goal.

The Pentagon and CIA also avoid mentioning Russia, instead constantly emphasizing that the US has "won big," and that Iran will surrender soon.

Trump looking embarrassed

After all, even if Russia has indeed been involved, it is only providing covert intelligence support to Iran at this point, and has not officially entered the fray. If the US were to make a big deal out of unverified reports against Russia, it might provoke Putin and lead to further cooperation between Russia and Iran, which would be counterproductive.

Moreover, the US has no grounds to criticize Russia. In the past four years of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the US has provided a lot of intelligence about Russian forces to Ukraine, which is an official fact.

Last year, after Trump had a row with Zelenskyy, the US temporarily suspended intelligence support to Ukraine as a lesson to Ukraine.

In comparison, Putin has been quite restrained. If the US and Russia really broke up, it would definitely not be good for the US. Although the Russian army is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, it could secretly supply weapons to Iran. If that were to happen, it would be even harder for the US and Israel to withdraw safely.

Putin and Trump

However, at present, none of the parties seem to want to involve external countries. As a nuclear power, Russia would risk turning a local conflict into a larger-scale war if it were involved in two regional hotspots simultaneously. All sides are trying to avoid such a situation.

In short, this is a game where "the US makes the first move, and Russia follows up." Russia has suffered a lot from the US's silent provocations in the past, and now it is taking back a win through Iran, which is a kind of balance. If Trump were to blame Putin over this, it would be rather ungracious.



Original: toutiao.com/article/7614338852009951759/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.