The deal for a state of the art air defense system for Iran has been completed.  Russia is delivering according to the report an S300 system, although the report says the variant is not known.  There is a very broad range of capabilities of the S300 system, but obviously this is yet another indication of Russia’s new effort to rebuilt its status on the world stage.  Russia is an aggrieved (not just dissatisfied) revisionist power and is aligning itself with other revisionist powers in order to undo the current status quo.

Putin is pushing a different Reset Button.  One that is meant to undo the post Cold War world order.  Russia has raised the costs of any attempt to prevent Iranian nuclear breakout.  Russia is able to play Arab off against Persian, Sunni off against Shia, by selling arms to both sides and peel the Arab states from the U. S. sphere of influence.  Russia can’t lose in the scenario.  Russia will have leverage with the Saudi regime, who has held the price of oil down in its conflict with Iran.  Lifting the price of oil fixes all the petrostates’ finances.  Russia would even be in a position to become the nuclear purveyor to Saudi Arabia in the event of an Iranian nuclear breakout.

The status quo, works to the benefit of West against East, North against South, a rising China and an aggrieved Russia pose great challenges.  The Reset Button has been pushed and now its going to take a tremendous amount of coordinated work in the West to prevent the unraveling of the (mostly) benign liberal world order.  Authoritarian states are feeling their oats and doing something about it.