Asia Times: COMMENTARY: The roots of Russian-Iranian rapprochement



	March 27, 1999	atimes.com

Central Asia / Siberia

COMMENTARY: The roots of Russian-Iranian rapprochement
By Paul Goble

Russia increasingly views Iran as a potentially important ally in three key areas. But in every one of them, Moscow's cooperation with Tehran puts the Russian government at odds not only with the U.S. and Turkey but also with the post-Soviet states of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

To the extent that Moscow seeks to extract additional financial resources from the West or to maintain ties with the southern members of the CIS it must sometimes play down or otherwise restrict its cooperation with Iran in certain areas, including in that country's growing nuclear power industry.

But such actions in no way change Moscow's calculations about the continuing utility of Iran in achieving Russia's foreign policy goals. Consequently, any concessions to the West that Russian Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov may announce on nuclear issues are likely to be balanced by Russian efforts to firm up its links with Iran in other areas.

That is the message of an article about Russian-Iranian relations that appears in the current issue of the prestigious Russian foreign-policy journal, International Affairs. Written by Viktor Vishnyakov, chairman of the Russian State Duma's Subcommittee for Issues of International Law, the article suggests that Russia views Iran ''as a potential ally in many of the most important areas'' of Moscow's foreign policy.

First of all, Vishnyakov says, Moscow sees Iran as playing a key role in Central Asia and the Caucasus. It does not challenge Russia's role there, nor does it oppose any expansion of Turkish influence in the region. Moreover, it generally shares Moscow's views on the status of the Caspian Sea and hence on possible pipeline routes to transport oil and gas from these regions to the West.

Consequently, Iran helps Moscow to shore up its influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus by helping both to prevent the countries in those regions from gaining the wealth and independence that exports would give them and to block the introduction of Western influence into a region that Moscow continues to view as its proper sphere of influence.

Second, the Duma leader argues, Moscow views Iran as another aggrieved outsider state that will join with Russia in opposing U.S. power. Drawing on the ideas of 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Aleksandr Gorchakov, which Primakov has said should guide Russia's current approach, Vishnyakov says that such an alliance will allow Russia to revive its power on the international stage.

While Vishnyakov himself does not make much of this particular argument, he does not have to. Three other articles in the same issue of International Affairs are entirely devoted to Gorchakov - including one by Russia's current foreign minister, Igor Ivanov - and at least three more make reference to the 19th century prince who is rapidly becoming the Russian foreign-policy theorist for the 21st century.

Third (and this is the point to which Vishnyakov devotes most of his attention), Russia values Iran both for ''cooperation in developing modern technologies'' - a euphemism for nuclear power - and as a purchaser of Russian military equipment. Iran's purchases of such military products, he says, ''make it possible to enhance Russia's role in solving regional problems."

Indeed, Vishnyakov opens his article with the claim that Russia's expanding ties with Iran are responsible for Tehran's willingness to explore closer ties with Baghdad's Saddam Hussein. He argues that those ties will contribute to regional stability but are likely to be seen by many countries, including the U.S., as pointing in a very different direction.

Vishnyakov also suggests that Iranian purchases of Russian military equipment and expertise in nuclear power can help Russia reconstruct itself, providing Moscow with both the cash and cooperation it needs to overcome its current economic difficulties.

And lest any third country think it can block the expansion of Russian-Iranian ties by extracting one or another concession, Vishnyakov warns, as the Duma did last year, that Moscow will view such ''attempts to meddle in mutually advantageous cooperation between Russia and Iran in economic, science, and technology and other areas'' as both ''unlawful'' and ''unacceptable."

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