News of the Truly Bizarre

Here are two news items that, taken together are bizarre.

1. The semi-official Fars News outlet, which has ties to the Iranian government, reported on Tuesday that Iran, Russia, China and Syria are to conduct joint military exercises in Syria next month.

2. According to the Daily Telegraph, British insurance company Standard Club has ended insurance coverage for the Russian ships that were carrying arms to Syria. This cutoff is required by the EU sanctions on Syria. As a result, one Russian ship has changed course and is no longer heading to Syria.

Can these stories be real? Will there actually be Chinese, Russian and Iranian troops coming to Syria in July? The United Nations is pulling out its observer force since it is too dangerous for them in Syria, but Russia and China are coming for war games? No way. If Russians and Chinese actually come to Syria, it will be to support Assad, and only for that reason. And would Russian ships turn back from delivering arms to Syria if they loss their insurance coverage? That also does not seem likely, but I do not know enough about the identity of the cargo ships involved to know for sure. Certainly, actual Russian ships would keep going; maybe the ships are just chartered from some non-Russian company that requires insurance as part of the deal.

We will have to see what happens on these stories in the next few days. My guess is that the "war games" are just a figment of the Iranians' imagination and that somehow the Russians will get their arms to Syria.