From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Thu Jul 30 2009 - 22:51:09 EDT
Russia and Iran join hands
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Asia Times
Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009
The United States may think of Russia as a strategic partner when it comes
to Iran. In reality, the geostrategic tensions between Washington and
Moscow are still powerful enough to warrant a common approach by Russia and
its eastern neighbor Iran with respect to a deterrent strategy towards the
intrusive Western superpower.
This week, a small but significant clue is on full display with joint
Russia-Iran military exercises in the Caspian Sea involving some 30
vessels. This is partially disguised by a benign environmental cause.
The maneuver, dubbed "Regional Collaboration for a Secure and Clean
Caspian", combines security and maritime objectives in the Caspian Sea, the
world's largest lake and also a main energy hub that is now the scene of
competing alternatives for energy transfer. It signals a new trend in
Iran-Russia military cooperation that will most likely increase in the near
and intermediate future in light of Iran's observer status at the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization. The continuing standoff over Iran's nuclear
program should affect this warming of relations.
Iran's willingness to join this exercise represents a complete about-face
from seven years ago. In May 2002, Tehran reacted sharply to a Russian
military exercise in the Caspian - held in the aftermath of a failed summit
on the issue - by refusing to even send a military observer to the
maneuver.
Despite all the ups and downs of Iran-Russia relations since then, the
weight of geopolitical and geo-economic considerations on both countries
has increasingly switched towards greater cooperation, much to the chagrin
of Washington, which is keen on isolating "nuclearizing Iran".
At a time when Russia feels undermined by US-backed pipeline projects in
the region, as well as dismayed by the absence of any compromise by the
Barack Obama administration on its planned installation of an anti-missile
shield in Eastern Europe, Moscow's intention to upgrade its military
connections with Tehran is calculated. The signal to Washington is that
Russia does not tolerate any direct or indirect "regime change" scenario
with respect to Iran, a major pillar of anti-US sentiment in the region.
The two-day military exercises are being closely watched by the region's
other littoral states - Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan - as well
as neighboring states in the Caucasus and Central Asia, some of which are
aligned with the West and are wary of a new level of Russia-Iran military
ties.
Should Russia make good on its promise to put into operation the
much-delayed Bushehr power plant that it is building in Iran, a good deal
of present Iranian misgivings about Russia will disappear. After all,
Russia is Iran's sole nuclear partner and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
openly rebuffed Obama's attempt, in his recent Moscow visit, to link a new
arms limitation treaty with the issue of new sanctions on Iran.
Not surprisingly, on the eve of the Russia-Iran military exercise, US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed the US's toughening approach
toward Iran, by stating categorically that the US was opposed to Iran's
possession of a "full enrichment" program, even though this is allowed
under the articles of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran is
a signatory. Clinton's statement on Sunday is in sharp contrast with
Obama's statement during his tour of Prague, when he hinted that the US was
willing to accept Iran's enrichment program as long as it was fully
monitored by the United Nations' atomic watchdog, the International Atomic
Energy Agency.
A widening gap between Moscow and Washington over Iran is indisputable and
will likely impact the Obama administration's plans for tough new sanctions
later this year. Tehran has already been slapped with several rounds of UN
sanctions, as well as those imposed unilaterally by the US over its nuclear
program.
United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates, visiting Israel this week,
told his hosts that he would remain "hopeful" about the administration's
engagement with Iran for the next few months, hinting about an emerging
deadline for the "engagement" that has unnerved Israel and some moderate
Arab states as well.
Compared with the hypothetical US-Iran engagement, relations between Russia
and Iran are progressing toward a honeymoon born of geostrategic
considerations. The joint maneuver in the Caspian may prove a starting
point for more comprehensive military collaboration between the Russian and
Iranian navies, particularly if Moscow sets aside its previous refusal to
allow new Iranian naval vessels to enter the Caspian through the Volga
channel.
Russia's Caspian neighbors - above all Azerbaijan - may not like it, given
the dispute between Tehran and Baku over a Caspian oil field. Still, the
imperative of closer Russia-Iran cooperation to fend off Western influence
dictates the need to beef up Iran's naval presence in the Caspian.
An important question deals with the possible ramifications of closer
Russia-Iran military cooperation on the stalemate over the ownership of the
Caspian Sea. Most of the Caspian is already portioned out by bilateral and
trilateral agreements, involving Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Iran
remains unhappy over Russia's lack of cooperation on this matter. This has
been somewhat compensated by both countries agreeing on the common use of
Caspian surface water, going back to the 1921 Iran-Russia friendship
agreement. The earlier pact is the legal foundation for today's naval
cooperation between the two countries.
Meanwhile, the predominant sentiment in Iran is that Moscow must make some
concessions to Iran on the thorny issue of the Caspian's legal authority in
order to gain Tehran's full confidence. Even Iranian officials in charge of
Caspian affairs are unclear about what exactly Russia can do about a
situation that is partially controlled by the other Caspian littoral
states.
Blaming Russia for the stalemate over Caspian legal rights is a favorite
pastime of some of Iran's reformists, who despise Moscow's early embrace of
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad after the June 12 presidential elections. Such
criticisms must be tempered by a cold calculation of Russia's limits of
influence on the other Caspian states which have carved up the inland sea
among themselves.
Another question raised by the maneuvers pertains to the Persian Gulf,
considered a de facto "American lake", where France has entered the scene
via a deal with the United Arab Emirates for a permanent military base.
Iran's weak response to France's arrival, inexcusable by Iran's foreign
policy standards, may be balanced by similar Iran-Russia military exercise
in the Persian Gulf.
As such, the Caspian joint maneuver may well turn out to be the harbinger
of a broader agenda that includes the concept of a gas cartel.
Asia Times
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