Russia and Iran: Unfriendly Friends

Russia and Iran: Unfriendly friends
http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/01/02/russia_and_iran_unfriendly_friends/6525/

By MARK N. KATZ (Middle East Times)
Published: January 02, 2008

To the alarm of many in the West, Russian-Iranian relations seemed to improve dramatically in recent months. Appearances, though, can be deceiving.

Those arguing that Russia-Iran cooperation is increasing point to three recent indicators. One was that Russia's President Vladimir Putin made his first ever visit to Tehran in October 2007. Another was the sudden ending of Moscow's unwillingness to supply Tehran with atomic fuel for its Russian-built nuclear reactor -- ostensibly because of a payment dispute, but also due to strong American urging -- in December 2007 when Russia made two shipments to Iran. A third was the Iranian defense minister's announcement at the end of December that Moscow would supply Tehran with advanced S-300 air defense missiles. All of these led to much press coverage about how Putin is enabling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to defy the United States.

But disagreements between Moscow and Tehran have emerged that cast doubt upon the extent that the two governments are actually cooperating or can do so. Almost immediately after the Iranian defense minister announced that Russia was providing Tehran with S-300 air defense missiles, Moscow flatly denied this. Indeed, the Russian Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service issued a statement saying that the supply of these weapons to Iran "is not being considered and is not being discussed with the Iranian side at the moment." Moscow has thus, in effect, called the Iranian defense minister a liar.

In addition, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed U.S. President George W. Bush's viewpoint that the supply of Russian nuclear fuel to Iran makes it unnecessary for Tehran to enrich its own uranium -- something that Russia along with the United States and the European Union fear could result in Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Tehran, though, does not want to be dependent on Moscow for enriched uranium and so insists that it will enrich uranium inside Iran.

It is possible, of course, that Russia will continue to ship atomic fuel to Iran even if Tehran continues to insist on enriching uranium itself. And there have been other occasions when Moscow has denied it was considering the sale of a particular weapon system to a given country only to go ahead and sell it or a similar one to that country later on. But whether or not these issues are resolved, the fact that these -- and other -- Russian-Iranian disagreements have occurred reflects a larger problem in their relations that is unlikely to be resolved.

Both Russia and Iran have prickly regimes that much prefer to defy America and the West than to cooperate with them. But while this would seemingly give Moscow and Tehran an incentive to cooperate with each other, the prickliness of each of them makes this extremely difficult.

In addition, the two sides have very different views about how much each needs the other. Understanding that Iran regards America as its primary opponent, Moscow sees Tehran as dependent on Russia for support and protection against it. From the Russian viewpoint, then, Tehran should be willing to make concessions to Moscow -- such as agreeing to allow Russia to supply all of Iran's atomic fuel, and renouncing all efforts to enrich uranium itself.

Tehran, though, sees things quite differently. Iran has had troubled relations with Russia for far longer than with America, and there is deep distrust for Russia even among Iranians who distrust the United States. Iranians who see themselves as successfully defying the world's greatest power -- America -- see no reason why they should make concessions to Russia, which they view as a much lesser power.

Besides, Tehran strongly suspects that if it ever really came under serious threat of attack from the United States, Russia would do nothing to help Iran. This, of course, only further reduces the incentives for Iran to make any sort of concession to Moscow. Indeed, many in Tehran see Russia as needing to make concessions to Iran for fear of risking the loss of Iranian business to China, India, Europe, or even America (which many in Iran -- perhaps over optimistically -- see as dependent on Tehran if it hopes to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan).

What this suggests is that while neither Russia nor Iran is willing to cooperate with America and the West, they are not willing to cooperate with each other either. This actually presents an opportunity for America to take advantage of -- if only Washington recognized it as such.

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Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.