"Will Russia supply Iran with the advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system? That is the most important -- and persistent -- question regarding Russia's ongoing arms sales to Iran. The repeated rumors and confusion regarding a possible sale indicate that Russian policymakers are divided over the issue. It also illustrates the degree of mistrust between the Russian and Iranian national security communities over the subject of bilateral arms transfers in general, and disagreement over the extent to which Moscow should support Iranian defense aspirations over American and Israeli objections in particular....
Judah Grunstein adds,
"... In a nutshell, it would make an airstrike by Israel against Iranian nuclear installations even more difficult to pull off than it already is. That's why Israel is currently lobbying so strongly to get Russia to forego on the deal.
If you really think an Israeli strike would be a good way to provoke a regional conflagration, the S-300s would have been an effective deterrent -- were they already in place. I'm guessing that in the current climate, any move to deliver them would probably be factored into Israeli military planners' strategic calculations, most likely as justify for accelerating any action."
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