And speaking of hardware ...

From an article on PressTV:

In a recent article published by the Aviation Week, US officials speaking on conditions of anonymity claimed that Moscow is using Belarus as a route for selling the highly advanced air defense systems to Iran so that it can deny "direct involvement" in the affairs.

"The Iranians are on contract for the SA-20," one of the US officials was quoted as saying. "We've got a huge set of challenges in the future that we've never had [before]. We've been lulled into a false sense of security because our operations over the last 20 years involved complete air dominance and we've been free to operate in all domains."

Yep. That last sentence is what it's all about. Uncle Sam better get less squeamish if he wants to keep a-meddlin'. That is, however many S-300s, or even S-400s, Iran or anyone gets, the USAF would still overwhelm them sooner or later - but taking casualties in the one area they've had it over everyone else will be a bitter pill to swallow.

Or they could just go quietly. (Post upcoming on why they're going, quietly or not.) Aviation week article here, for those interested - it's pretty much all repeated by PressTV. So a step closer to Zhirinovsky's call for them to be equipped with the S-400.