Caution: Yet More Anti-Russia Hysteria Ahead

Today Moon of Alabama's Bernhard analyzed an article at the more-or-less sober Oil Price.com hysterically headlined Russia Gains Stranglehold Over Persian Gulf. The article, by one Simon Watkins, "a former FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author," starts with this hair-raising warning:

In a potentially catastrophic escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf, Russia plans to use Iran’s ports in Bandar-e-Bushehr and Chabahar as forward military bases for warships and nuclear submarines, guarded by hundreds of Special Forces troops under the guise of ‘military advisers’, and an airbase near Bandar-e-Bushehr as a hub for 35 Sukhoi Su-57 fighter planes OilPrice.com has exclusively been told by senior sources close to the Iranian regime. 

That much nonsense piled into one paragraph violated Bernhard's sense of order. He is German, after all:

Where to start?

1. The Persian Gulf is a lake with an average(!) depth of less than 50 meters. It is a place where one might use small and nimble midget submarines. But no one serious would put a nuclear submarine there.

2. Sukhoi Su-57 fighter planes have yet to be built. Those currently flying are test planes which still lack the required new engines. Russia recently ordered the first batch of Su-57 but the first deliveries will only be in 2022-24. 35 of these planes may be available in a decade or so. When they are they will protect mother Russia from NATO and not some Iranian oil wells.

3. Spetsnaz (not Spetsntaz) are expensively trained special forces. They do not do guard duty for bases.

4. Iran's constitution (pdf) does not allow the stationing of foreign troops. Article 146 is pretty clear about that: "The establishment of any kind of foreign military base in Iran, even for peaceful purposes, is forbidden."

[...] 

Bernhard was just getting warmed up. Skipping over a few more explanatory paragraphs we come to his exasperated summary of Mr Watkins' effort at playing intel analyst:

It seems that 'experts' working for western think tanks and random authors with mysterious "senior sources close to the Iranian regime" are not the best-informed people when it comes to Iran.

Each of the five points above demonstrates that the report is nonsense and that its author is not the least familiar with military and strategic issues. It is no wonder then that the rest of the Oilprice piece is a shoddy as its first paragraph.

[...]

The shoddiness, in this case, would be almost funny except that one doesn't need to be an expert on Iran or Russia to spot the article's glaring errors. One just needs to realize that the level of fact-checking at many news outlets ranges from zero to nil. The lack of editorial scrutiny makes it easy for self-styled defense experts and propagandists to run riot. 

Also not funny: whether by design or mere sloppiness, wildly untrue claims about Russia and its relationships with other nations have created a veritable genre of hysterical anti-Russian reports in the Western mainstream media; these make perfect excuses for Western NATO countries to stage provocations against Russia -- and also against any government that tries to maintain a friendly relationship with the Kremlin.

As to where all this manufactured hysteria can lead, Bernard inserts a grim proviso:

Iran needs weapons and Russia likes to sell those. That is about it. There may be some common maneuvers but those are symbolic and do not constitute an alliance. Iran is very proud of its independence and its parliament would not agree to one, while Russia [for its part] is not interested in overextending itself. Only a U.S. attack on Iran could change that.

********