Thomas Wictor

The phrase “thrown under the bus” likely has its origins in minor-league baseball, according to William Safire. Players were bused to “away games.”

In fact, its original meaning could be have been quite literal: be on time for the bus, or you will be thrown underneath it, into the storage bays. He says the metaphor has also been used as a way to say “get with it, or get lost,” as in “you’re either on the bus, or you’re under it.” He isn’t quite sure when the meaning of the phrase crystallized into the act of “summarily and decisively rejecting someone.”

To me, it brought to mind tossing someone in front of a moving bus so they stuck to the windshield.

Then the person slid down and went under the wheels.

It’s clear now that Russia has thrown the Iranian mullahs at the windshield of a bus, which ran right over them: bumpty-bumpty-bump!

As I posted last night, the Russians aren’t bombing terrorists in Syria who pose a threat to Bashar al-Assad. Also, four Russian Kaliber cruise missiles fired from ships in the Caspian Sea landed in Iran, damaging buildings and causing injuries. Although Russia denied that its missiles hit Iran, the Iranians admitted it.

Then the Israeli media reported this.

Israel will provide Russia with intelligence information about opposition sites in Syria to facilitate Moscow’s military operations, Channel 2TV has reported. The Israeli network said that a senior delegation of Russian army officials will arrive in Israel on Tuesday to coordinate the military cooperation.

Channel 2 noted that the visit follows the meeting between Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.

It also revealed that Netanyahu and Putin have agreed on several issues in principle, including a Russian pledge to stop the flow of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah, as well as to allow the Israeli air force to carry out operations freely in Syria, even in areas where the Russian army is stationed on the Syrian coast.

Israel is likely to request Russia to coordinate its moves in the Mediterranean in a manner that does not affect Israeli submarines gathering intelligence about Lebanon and Syria.

Another report by Israel Radio on Sunday claimed that Tel Aviv will provide vital intelligence to the Russians in a bid to reduce Iranian influence in Syria.

You know what I think? Israel isn’t providing Russia with intelligence.

BEIRUT—A top Iranian military commander who played a crucial role in Tehran’s efforts to defend the Syrian regime was killed in the outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, Iran said Friday.

The announcement of Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani’s death came amid escalating Russian military support for ground operations involving the Syrian regime and Iran-backed forces on several battlefronts…

Gen. Hamedani was regarded in Iran as an authority on asymmetrical warfare. Some Iranian officials said his efforts were instrumental in allowing the Syrian regime to confront what Tehran and its allies view as a grand conspiracy by the West and its Arab allies to destroy their so-called axis of resistance.

A longtime commander in the elite military unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he is believed to have directly overseen the organization of pro-regime forces into groups such as the Popular Committees, which were later folded into the so-called National Defense Force.

I don’t know why everybody’s being so coy. Hamedani was second-in-command of the Quds Force. He was the right-hand man of Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force.

This is a catastrophe for Iran. You can’t overstate the magnitude. It’s much worse than the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) losing its second-in-command. Here’s what Iran says.

Iranian state media, quoting a statement by the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps], said Gen. Hamedani died at the hands of “Daesh terrorists” on Thursday while conducting advisory duties.

Although the statement used the Arab language acronym for the extremist group Islamic State to describe those responsible for Gen. Hamedani’s death, the circumstances weren’t disclosed.

I knew when I heard this that the Islamic State didn’t kill Hamedani. He wasn’t on the front lines with a rifle in his hands. Well hey, lookee here!

There were conflicting accounts Friday about whether the Iranian general was indeed killed by Islamic State.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition group monitoring the conflict through a network of activists inside Syria, said it learned that Gen. Hamedani was killed along with several of his companions by Islamic State as he led an operation to lift the group’s long-running siege of a major regime air base east of Aleppo city called Kweires.

But other local opposition activists say they have information that he was killed in a different operation—and that fighters other than Islamic State may have been involved.

No. Hamedani didn’t fight. He was a strategist. What he’d do is devise a plan, and then he’d delegate its implementation to colonels, who would pass it on to majors, captains, lieutenants, and sergeants. Hamedani wouldn’t have been allowed to lead operations. His experience made him a unique and totally irreplaceable asset of the Iranian armed forces.

Someone told someone else where he was, and then he and his staff were killed.

In July, the head of the Quds Force went to Russia.

Major-General Qassem Soleimani’s visit to Moscow was the first step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new Iranian-Russian alliance in support of Mr Assad.

As Russian warplanes bomb rebels from above, the arrival of Iranian special forces for ground operations underscores several months of planning between Mr Assad’s two most important allies, driven by panic at rapid insurgent gains…

“Soleimani put the map of Syria on the table. The Russians were very alarmed, and felt matters were in steep decline and that there were real dangers to the regime. The Iranians assured them there is still the possibility to reclaim the initiative,” a senior regional official said. “At that time, Soleimani played a role in assuring them that we haven’t lost all the cards.”

The Russians said, “Gracious! Of course we’ll help! Let’s work together. Make sure to tell us where your high-ranking officers will be at all times.”

Soleimani’s trip to Moscow was in direct violation of a UN travel ban, which Russia is required to enforce. However, neither the P5+1 nations nor the EU—who negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran—uttered a peep. It’s almost as though they didn’t care because the whole nuclear deal is a deception operation, and the Iranian mullahs aren’t going to be around for much longer. Or something.

The mullahs and Soleimani are used to stabbing people—including Putin—in the back. I wonder how they like it when it’s done to them?

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin

—Wilfred Owen

Speaking of trips, did you know about this fellow visiting Moscow?

On June 17, Saudi deputy crown prince and defense minister Muhammad bin Salman (a.k.a. MbS) arrived in Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin. The visit, which was kept secret until a few hours before he left the kingdom, follows a series of recent communications between Putin and the prince’s father, King Salman…

The Saudi Royal Court’s official statement announcing MbS’s trip described it as an opportunity “to discuss relations and aspects of cooperation between the two friendly countries.” The agenda likely includes oil, a sector in which the prince has become a key decisionmaker.

Oil? That’s so funny! Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is the DEFENSE MINISTER. He signed six cooperation agreements with Putin, including a military deal that will eventually result in the Saudis concluding a major arms purchase from Russia.

Most Arab states use Russian weapons. However, because of the endless instability that Iran causes, Arab economies are suffering greatly. Modern Russian weapons are expensive. If the Middle East settles down, it becomes a huge market for Russia. The Saudis, the UAE, and Egypt promise to be the first mega-buyers.

Keep in mind the words of former Saudi national security adviser General Anwar Ehski.

“We have to concentrate to solve the problem” in Syria, the general says. “But we don’t like Assad to stay. Because the people in Syria don’t want him to stay.”

Now the Kremlin is gradually coming around to Riyadh’s view of the conflict. “Russia is a great country,” he says, “but they don’t like to change their promises” to allies—in contrast to you-know-who. “Russia supported by weapons Iran and Assad in the civil war in Syria. But now Russia believes, has been convinced, that they are not in the right path. Saudi Arabia needs Russia in the Middle East, not to destabilize countries but to be a friend.”

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