Stratfor's Peter Zeihan on the Iran-Russia nexus:

For the past several days, high-level Russian and American policymakers, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Russian President Vladimir Putin's right-hand man, Sergei Ivanov, have been meeting in Moscow to discuss the grand scope of U.S.-Russian relations. These talks would be of critical importance to both countries under any circumstances, as they center on the network of treaties that have governed Europe since the closing days of the Cold War.

Against the backdrop of the Iraq war, however, they have taken on far greater significance. Both Russia and the United States are attempting to rewire the security paradigms of key regions, with Washington taking aim at the Middle East and Russia more concerned about its former imperial territory. The two countries' visions are mutually incompatible, and American preoccupation with Iraq is allowing Moscow to overturn the geopolitics of its backyard.

The Iraqi Preoccupation

After years of organizational chaos, the United States has simplified its plan for Iraq: Prevent Iran from becoming a regional hegemon. Once-lofty thoughts of forging a democracy in general or supporting a particular government were abandoned in Washington well before the congressional testimony of Gen. David Petraeus. Reconstruction is on the back burner and even oil is now an afterthought at best. The entirety of American policy has been stripped down to a single thought: Iran.

That thought is now broadly held throughout not only the Bush administration but also the American intelligence and defense communities. It is not an unreasonable position. An American exodus from Iraq would allow Iran to leverage its allies in Iraq's Shiite South to eventually gain control of most of Iraq. Iran's influence also extends to significant Shiite communities on the Persian Gulf's western oil-rich shore. Without U.S. forces blocking the Iranians, the military incompetence of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar could be perceived by the Iranians as an invitation to conquer that shore. That would land roughly 20 million barrels per day of global oil output -- about one-quarter of the global total -- under Tehran's control. Rhetoric aside, an outcome such as this would push any U.S. president into a broad regional war to prevent a hostile power from shutting off the global economic pulse.

So the United States, for better or worse, is in Iraq for the long haul. This requires some strategy for dealing with the other power with the most influence in the country, Iran. This, in turn, leaves the United States with two options: It can simply attempt to run Iraq as a protectorate forever, a singularly unappealing option, or it can attempt to strike a deal with Iran on the issue of Iraq -- and find some way to share influence.

Since the release of the Petraeus report in September, seeking terms with Iran has become the Bush administration's unofficial goal, but the White House does not want substantive negotiations until the stage is appropriately set. This requires that Washington build a diplomatic cordon around Iran -- intensifying Tehran's sense of isolation -- and steadily ratchet up the financial pressure. Increasing bellicose rhetoric from European capitals and the lengthening list of major banks that are refusing to deal with Iran are the nuts and bolts of this strategy.

Not surprisingly, Iran views all this from a starkly different angle. Persia has historically been faced with a threat of invasion from its western border -- with the most recent threat manifesting in a devastating 1980-1988 war that resulted in a million deaths. The primary goal of Persia's foreign policy stretching back a millennium has been far simpler than anything the United States has cooked up: Destroy Mesopotamia. In 2003, the United States was courteous enough to handle that for Iran.

Now, Iran's goals have expanded and it seeks to leverage the destruction of its only meaningful regional foe to become a regional hegemon. This requires leveraging its Iraqi assets to bleed the Americans to the point that they leave. But Iran is not immune to pressure. Tehran realizes that it might have overplayed its hand internationally, and it certainly recognizes that U.S. efforts to put it in a noose are bearing some fruit. What Iran needs is its own sponsor -- and that brings to the Middle East a power that has not been present there for quite some time: Russia.

Option One: Parity

The Russian geography is problematic. It lacks oceans to give Russia strategic distance from its foes and it boasts no geographic barriers separating it from Europe, the Middle East or East Asia. Russian history is a chronicle of Russia's steps to establish buffers -- and of those buffers being overwhelmed. The end of the Cold War marked the transition from Russia's largest-ever buffer to its smallest in centuries. Put simply, Russia is terrified of being overwhelmed -- militarily, economically, politically and culturally -- and its policies are geared toward re-establishing as large a buffer as possible. As such, Russia needs to do one of two things. The first is to re-establish parity. As long as the United States thinks of Russia as an inferior power, American power will continue to erode Russian security. Maintain parity and that erosion will at least be reduced. Putin does not see this parity coming from a conflict, however. While Russia is far stronger now -- and still rising -- than it was following the 1998 ruble crash, Putin knows full well that the Soviet Union fell in part to an arms race. Attaining parity via the resources of a much weaker Russia simply is not an option.

So parity would need to come via the pen, not the sword. A series of three treaties ended the Cold War and created a status of legal parity between the United States and Russia. The first, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), restricts how much conventional defense equipment each state in NATO and the former Warsaw Pact, and their successors, can deploy. The second, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), places a ceiling on the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles that the United States and Russia can possess. The third, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), eliminates entirely land-based short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles, as well as all ground-launched cruise missiles from NATO and Russian arsenals.

The constellation of forces these treaties allow do not provide what Russia now perceives its security needs to be. The CFE was all fine and dandy in the world in which it was first negotiated, but since then every Warsaw Pact state -- once on the Russian side of the balance sheet -- has joined NATO. The "parity" that was hardwired into the European system in 1990 is now lopsided against the Russians. START I is by far the Russians' favorite treaty, since it clearly treats the Americans and Russians as bona fide equals. But in the Russian mind, it has a fateful flaw: It expires in 2009, and there is about zero support in the United States for renewing it. The thinking in Washington is that treaties were a conflict management tool of the 20th century, and as American power -- constrained by Iraq as it is -- continues to expand globally, there is no reason to enter into a treaty that limits American options. This philosophical change is reflected on both sides of the American political aisle: Neither the Bush nor Clinton administrations have negotiated a new full disarmament treaty. Finally, the INF is the worst of all worlds for Russia. Intermediate-range missiles are far cheaper than intercontinental ones. If it does come down to an arms race, Russia will be forced to turn to such systems if it is not to be left far behind an American buildup.

Russia needs all three treaties to be revamped. It wants the CFE altered to reflect an expanded NATO. It wants START I extended (and preferably deepened) to limit long-term American options. It wants the INF explicitly linked to the other two treaties so that Russian options can expand in a pinch -- or simply discarded in favor of a more robust START I.

The problem with the first option is that it assumes the Americans are somewhat sympathetic to Russian concerns. They are not. Recall that the dominant concern in the post-Cold War Kremlin is that the United States will nibble along the Russian periphery until Moscow itself falls. The fear is as deeply held as it is accurate. Only three states have ever threatened the United States: The first, the United Kingdom, was lashed into U.S. global defense policy; the second, Mexico, was conquered outright; and the third was defeated in the Cold War. The addition of the Warsaw Pact and the Baltic states to NATO, the basing of operations in Central Asia and, most important, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine have made it clear to Moscow that the United States plays for keeps.

The Americans see it as in their best interest to slowly grind Russia into dust. Those among our readers who can identify with "duck and cover" can probably relate to the logic of that stance. So, for option one to work, Russia needs to have leverage elsewhere. That elsewhere is in Iran. Via the U.N. Security Council, Russian cooperation can ensure Iran's diplomatic isolation. Russia's past cooperation on Iran's Bushehr nuclear power facility holds the possibility of a Kremlin condemnation of Iran's nuclear ambitions. A denial of Russian weapons transfers to Iran would hugely empower ongoing U.S. efforts to militarily curtail Iranian ambitions. Put simply, Russia has the ability to throw Iran under the American bus -- but it will not do it for free. In exchange, it wants those treaties amended in its favor, and it wants American deference on security questions in the former Soviet Union. The Moscow talks of the past week were about addressing all of Russian concerns about the European security structure, both within and beyond the context of the treaties, with the offer of cooperation on Iran as the trade-off. After days of talks, the Americans refused to budge on any meaningful point.

Option Two: Imposition

Russia has no horse in the Iraq war. Moscow had feared that its inability to leverage France and Germany to block the war in the first place would allow the United States to springboard to other geopolitical victories. Instead, the Russians are quite pleased to see the American nose bloodied. They also are happy to see Iran engrossed in events to its west. When Iran and Russia strengthen -- as both are currently -- they inevitably begin to clash as their growing spheres of influence overlap in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In many ways, Russia is now enjoying the best of all worlds: Its Cold War archrival is deeply occupied in a conflict with one of Moscow's own regional competitors.

In the long run, however, the Russians have little doubt that the Americans will eventually prevail. Iran lacks the ability to project meaningful power beyond the Persian Gulf, while the Russians know from personal experience how good the Americans are at using political, economic, military and alliance policy to grind down opponents. The only question in the Russian mind pertains to time frame. If the United States is not willing to rejigger the European-Russian security framework, then Moscow intends to take advantage of a distracted United States to impose a new reality upon NATO. The United States has dedicated all of its military ground strength to Iraq, leaving no wiggle room should a crisis erupt anywhere else in the world. Should Russia create a crisis, there is nothing the United States can do to stop it.

So crisis-making is about to become Russia's newest growth industry. The Kremlin has a very long list of possibilities, which includes:

• Destabilizing the government of Ukraine: The Sept. 30 elections threaten to result in the re-creation of the Orange Revolution that so terrifies Moscow. With the United States largely out of the picture, the Russians will spare no effort to ensure that Ukraine remains as dysfunctional as possible.


• Azerbaijan is emerging as a critical energy transit state for Central Asian petroleum, as well as an energy producer in its own right. But those exports are wholly dependent upon Moscow's willingness not to cause problems for Baku.


• The extremely anti-Russian policies of the former Soviet state of Georgia continue to be a thorn in Russia's side. Russia has the ability to force a territorial breakup or to outright overturn the Georgian government using anything from a hit squad to an armored division.


• EU states obviously have mixed feelings about Russia's newfound aggression and confidence, but the three Baltic states in league with Poland have successfully hijacked EU foreign policy with regard to Russia, effectively turning a broadly cooperative relationship hostile. A small military crisis with the Balts would not only do much to consolidate popular support for the Kremlin but also would demonstrate U.S. impotence in riding to the aid of American allies.

Such actions not only would push Russian influence back to the former borders of the Soviet Union but also could overturn the belief within the U.S. alliance structure that the Americans are reliable -- that they will rush to their allies' aid at any time and any place. That belief ultimately was the heart of the U.S. containment strategy during the Cold War. Damage that belief and the global security picture changes dramatically. Barring a Russian-American deal on treaties, inflicting that damage is once again a full-fledged goal of the Kremlin. The only question is whether the American preoccupation in Iraq will last long enough for the Russians to do what they think they need to do. Luckily for the Russians, they can impact the time frame of American preoccupation with Iraq. Just as the Russians have the ability to throw the Iranians under the bus, they also have the ability to empower the Iranians to stand firm.

On Oct. 16, Putin became the first Russian leader since Leonid Brezhnev to visit Iran, and in negotiations with the Iranian leadership he laid out just how his country could help. Formally, the summit was a meeting of the five leaders of the Caspian Sea states, but in reality the meeting was a Russian-Iranian effort to demonstrate to the Americans that Iran does not stand alone. A good part of the summit involved clearly identifying differences with American policy. The right of states to nuclear energy was affirmed, the existence of energy infrastructure that undermines U.S. geopolitical goals was supported and a joint statement pledged the five states to refuse to allow "third parties" from using their territory to attack "the Caspian Five." The last is a clear bullying of Azerbaijan to maintain distance from American security plans. But the real meat is in bilateral talks between Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the two sides are sussing out how Russia's ample military experience can be applied to Iran's U.S. problem. Some of the many, many possibilities include:

• Kilo-class submarines: The Iranians already have two and the acoustics in the Persian Gulf are notoriously bad for tracking submarines. Any U.S. military effort against Iran would necessitate carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf.


• Russia fields the Bal-E, a ground-launched Russian version of the Harpoon anti-ship missile. Such batteries could threaten any U.S. surface ship in the Gulf. A cheaper option could simply involve the installation of Russian coastal artillery systems.


• Russia and India have developed the BrahMos anti-ship cruise missile, which has the uniquely deadly feature of being able to be launched from land, ship, submarine or air. While primarily designed to target surface vessels, it also can act as a more traditional -- and versatile -- cruise missile and target land targets.


• Flanker fighters are a Russian design (Su-27/Su-30) that compares very favorably to frontline U.S. fighter jets. Much to the U.S. Defense Department's chagrin, Indian pilots in Flankers have knocked down some U.S. pilots in training scenarios.


• The S-300 anti-aircraft system is still among the best in the world, and despite eviscerated budgets, the Russians have managed to operationalize several upgrades since the end of the Cold War. It boasts both a far longer range and far more accuracy than the Tor-M1 and Pantsyr systems on which Iran currently depends.

Such options only scratch the surface of what the Russians have on order, and the above only discusses items of use in a direct Iranian-U.S. military conflict. Russia also could provide Iran with an endless supply of less flashy equipment to contribute to intensifying Iranian efforts to destabilize Iraq itself. For now, the specifics of Russian transfers to Iran are tightly held, but they will not be for long. Russia has as much of an interest in getting free advertising for its weapons systems as Iran has in demonstrating just how high a price it will charge the United States for any attack.

But there is one additional reason this will not be a stealth relationship.

The Kremlin wants Washington to be fully aware of every detail of how Russian sales are making the U.S. Army's job harder, so that the Americans have all the information they need to make appropriate decisions as regards Russia's role. Moscow is not doing this because it is vindictive; this is simply how the Russians do business, and they are open to a new deal. Russia has neither love for the Iranians nor a preference as to whether Moscow reforges its empire or has that empire handed back. So should the United States change its mind and seek an accommodation, Putin stands perfect ready to betray the Iranians' confidence.

For a price.

How would Russians react to a picture of George Bush proudly shaking hands with Shamil Basayev in Grozny? While the whole world condemns the maniacal despot in Tehran, Vladimir Putin makes friends with him and seeks to protect him. It's barbarism, pure and simple. The Tehran Times reports:

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Iran will lead to an important leap in Tehran-Moscow relations, and at this juncture, when the West is making the utmost efforts to isolate Iran, it is even more important, Central Asia expert Hossein Ahmadi said here on Sunday.

Putin is slated to attend the 2nd Summit of Caspian Sea littoral states in Tehran on October 16 along with the presidents of the other four countries bordering the Caspian Sea, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. The heads of state are scheduled to discuss the sea’s legal regime and other regional and international issues. Some of the issues of common interest of Iran and Russia are their opposition to the U.S. presence in Azerbaijan and Georgia, their opposition to the proposal to demarcate the Caspian Sea, and their consensus on the need to confront Al-Qaeda’s activities and deal with the expansion of extremist Wahhabism and the resurgence of the Taleban in the region, Ahmadi told the Mehr News Agency. He also noted that now that the Islamist Justice and Development (AK) Party is in power in Turkey, the Iran-Turkey-Russia triangle can become a new alliance of powers in the region.

Russia and Central Asia expert Jafar Qamat told MNA that Russia is trying to connect the issue of the Caspian Sea legal regime to Iran’s nuclear issue. The main reason Putin is visiting Iran in the final months of his term as president is to resolve some of the problems in Tehran-Moscow relations, he stated. Putin wants to negotiate with Iran to clear up ambiguities about the nuclear program and to ensure that Russia is able to continue to play an influential role in the issue of the country’s nuclear dossier, he said. In the event that the UN Security Council issues a third resolution against Tehran, the most that Russia can do for Iran is to abstain from the vote, Qamat added.

Islamic Coalition Party member Hamid-Reza Taraqi stated, “Cooperation and interaction with Russia will increase Iran’s security, and reduce U.S. influence in the region” because Tehran and Moscow are both opposed to the U.S. plan to build more military bases in the region. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council with veto power and is a serious rival of the U.S. in the region; hence the United States is opposed to Putin’s trip to Tehran, he noted. The Russian president’s visit runs contrary to the U.S. policy to isolate Iran, and the agreement that that Caspian Sea littoral states are expected to make at the summit will be a crushing blow for Washington, he added.

Putin hunts diplomatic solution in Iran

Putin will show his preference for dialogue with Iran when he visits Tehran on Tuesday, amid calls from the West for stronger pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear program. Putin is the first Kremlin chief to visit Iran since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin went in 1943. But a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could give the Kremlin leader a chance to seek a peaceful compromise over Tehran's nuclear program and to demonstrate his independence from Washington on Middle East issues. "Putin is going to Iran to show the importance of continuing diplomacy," Kremlin deputy spokesman Dmitry Peskov said as carried by Reuters. Putin will tell Ahmadinejad that Russia accepts Iran's right to use nuclear energy but wants it to open up its nuclear program to international inspectors to prove it is peaceful, Peskov added. Iran says its program is intended to generate power so it can export more oil and gas.

Russia, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, has backed two sets of mild sanctions against Iran to encourage it to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But Moscow says it will not back further sanctions unless the IAEA says Iran is not cooperating or proves it is working on weapons. "We have no real data to claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which makes us believe the country has no such plans. But we agree that Iran's programs must be transparent," Putin said after meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week.

Critics say Moscow has other reasons for wanting to soft-pedal the Iran issue. These may include a large contract to build a nuclear power plant at Bushehr in Iran, as well as lucrative military deals. Another is that a standoff with the West over Iran would fit in with Moscow's newly assertive foreign policy aimed at building Russia's profile, particularly among developing nations, in the post-Cold War world.

Tougher sanctions

The European Union is expected to step up pressure on Iran next week, warning Tehran it will face tougher sanctions unless it halts uranium enrichment. As a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran has right to enrichment for civilian purposes. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the West after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday against sanctioning Iran bypassing the United Nations. But he also pledged that Putin would in Tehran "continue the current line of work with the Iranian leadership, which reflects the collective position of the Six (states in talks with Iran) and the UN Security Council." The six nations negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program are the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain. Russia argues that excessive pressure against Tehran could be counter-productive, as well as destabilizing the mainly Muslim region next to its southern borders. Ahead of Tehran, Putin will visit Germany on Sunday and Monday for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and a traditional business conference known as the "St Petersburg dialogue."

An editorial in the New York Times over the weekend exposed Vladimir Putin's mendacious arrogance as he threatens the West with a new cold war:

Vladimir Putin is a master at bluster and hyperbole, but his latest comments on Iran were especially counterproductive. This week, Mr. Putin asserted that “we have no real data to claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which makes us believe the country has no such plans.” In fact, there is no concrete proof of weapons development. But there is enough credible circumstantial evidence to be seriously worried.

There’s also no excuse for Iran’s continued defiance of a Security Council order to halt production of enriched uranium, usable for nuclear fuel or a weapon. Mr. Putin’s comments — and his opposition to tougher sanctions — will only feed that defiance and lessen the chances for the diplomatic settlement that Mr. Putin says he wants.

The Bush administration and Britain — their credibility after Iraq is shaky to say the least — aren’t the only ones who believe that Tehran wants to do a lot more than generate electricity. France, which strongly opposed the Iraq war, is also raising alarms. The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is the source of much of the data — and the questions — about Iran’s program.

Russia, meanwhile, has been all over the lot [LR: That's the mark of a psychopath, we've come full circle with today's posts] — one day siding with Washington and Europe on the need to contain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and the next one denying the threat. Russia’s geographical proximity to Iran makes at least some Kremlin aides nervous, but most of the time they seem more interested in Iran’s oil riches and its willingness to spend a chunk of that cash on Russian made weapons and other technology.

Such deals will likely be high on Mr. Putin’s agenda when he visits Tehran next week. But he should not let them blind him to the very real threat that would be posed by a nuclear-armed Iran. He could do a lot more good for Russia — and his own credibility — if he told the Iranians that they must halt enrichment and accept Europe’s and Washington’s offers of economic and diplomatic payoffs if they do.

The International Herald Tribune's John Vinocur explains how Cold War II is heating up over Iran, highlighting how obviously bone-headed the Bush administration's "trust Putin" mantra really was:

Suppose the Russians, as Iran's monopoly supplier of nuclear wherewithal, decided they could live with a few atomic weapons in the hands of the mullahs. Suppose the Russians, flush with money and superpower fantasies, believed that weakening and humiliating the United States was well worth the instability that might come with Moscow's refusal to help block Iran's drive toward nuclear arms. Where's the downside? From Vladimir Putin's point of view, it's win-win.

With Russia's obstructive tactics encouraging Iran to plunge ahead, he may figure the Americans will eventually strike Iranian nuclear installations. The Yanks would harvest opprobrium in much of the world. Still, if their strike does eradicate the Iranian nuclear program, that's fine, too. Russia's oil and gas prices are sure to shoot up. Russia becomes Iran's key reconstruction contractor, and sets out a rare claim to international righteousness.

What's irrational about the above scenario? Or its counterpart, which is that Russian now calculates the United States in the end will sit on its hands concerning Iran? Nothing. Multiple versions of them get discussed within the Bush Administration, all stamped, Non Whacko.

It's exemplary of the misery of the American situation.

On one hand, the Administration sticks to the notion - recall, please, George W. Bush's magnanimous first-term reading of Putin's soul in his KGB eyes - that somehow, someday, but in the nick of time, the Russians are going to come around to joining an international effort to halt Iran's nuclear drive. On the other hand, important areas of the administration are offering a hardened assessment of what Russia ultimately wants. After a couple of years of talking about how Putin's richer Russia (reasonably) craved respect, a senior administration policymaker, in a private conversation, now asserts the "overwhelming evidence" is a Russia that seeks to weaken the United States. Wherever possible internationally, he says, Moscow will work to stop America from achieving success. The hitch is that concerning Iran, these two administration notions, expecting good from Russia while regarding it as a gathering, noxious force, are contradictory to the point of incompatibility.

The summer showed just how much.

In June, the Americans said they expected a United Nations Security Council resolution in July that would add a new round of modest sanctions to those already in effect against Iran. It never happened. The Russians, with Chinese assistance, sidetracked the measure. Reality now says the United Nations is not going to be the place where Iran's nuclear dreams die. Almost in the same stride, the Russians in July used the threat of a Security Council veto to dismantle an American-backed motion on Kosovo's independence. The combined effect is not only an American defeat. It's a demonstration that, unlike in the Cold War, there are no clear limits on how far this Russia feels it can push this America. Forget the grandiloquence of Moscow's planting flags in the Arctic and re-establishing world-wide strategic bomber patrols.

But as the United States flails in Iraq, and faces a financial crisis that may affect command-economies and authoritarian regimes less than democracies, why shouldn't Russia see the Iran issue as a strategic hole for achieving a new global status? After all, Jacques Chirac, whose vision of a multipolar world consigning America to the role of everyone's opponent gets applause in Moscow, argued in his last months as French president that a few Iranian nukes shouldn't cause much lost sleep for anyone sharing his take on a remade global hierarchy. Chirac didn't say it, but he could have rationalized that a limited number of atomic weapons at Iran's disposal would be a reasonable price to pay for disabling an American world order that he, like Putin, reviles.

It's a reflection of America's current incapacities that Nicolas Sarkozy, who might have interesting notions of Putin's calculations from Élysée Palace files, two weeks ago detailed the Iran situation in a tougher and more concise way than Washington. Sarkozy knows that some Westerners who have talked directly to Putin have been told that Russia does not want a nuclear-armed Iran. He also knows the deceit of Russia's official position that it has no evidence indicating Iran's nuclear activities are anything but peaceful. Draw this conclusion: If Sarkozy has been informed that Putin will act to halt Iran's drive short of a bomb, then he would not be calling the prospect of Iranian atomic bomb capability the world's biggest menace.

There are, on good evidence, officials within the Bush administration frustrated by its own bollixed approach - hoping that the Russians will turn responsible after their "elections" next year while acknowledging Moscow is now in full confrontational mode. Assume they could only leap to praise Sarkozy for saying in a speech a couple of weeks ago what Bush would not: If sanctions fail, the alternatives are an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran. As for Russia, Sarko described its behavior as marked by a "certain brutality." The sanctions Sarkozy is talking about are hard, new measures outside the United Nations that would probably involve an ad hoc group including the United States, Britain, France and Japan at its core.

This approach specifically means forgetting about the Security Council, and giving up on Russia, barring sudden and unlikely cooperation. The sanctions have to be so penalizing, obviously disadvantaging Western banks and industry, to become truly dissuasive. This requires real resolve. It also requires the underpinning of a tacit yet palpable threat: if these measures don't work, there's real unpleasantness to come. With a phrase, Sarkozy marked out the Iranian choice with a sharper edge than the Americans have.

That's a significant advance.

But unless Bush first gets publicly tougher on Russia as Iran's protector and international obstructionist, the mullahs may take America's insistence on skirting this reality as the surest sign they can get that they're home free.

Displayed at the left you see a photograph of Shiri Negari, who was murdered on Tuesday, June 18th, 2002, by a Palestinian suicide bomber on her way to work. She was 21 years old.

Blogger Michelle Malkin took this photograph while participating in a protest against the visit by crazed Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia University in New York City for a speaking engagement; the lunatic was in town to address to the U.N. General Assembly at its opening ceremonies.

Shiri speaks from the grave in this image, attending the protest in spirit to remind those gathered that she, too, would have liked to address the students at Columbia, but was prevented from doing so by terrorists from Hamas who were funded by Iran's government, which is led by Ahmadinejad -- who in turn has called for a holy war against Israel wiping it off the face of the earth. All of the NATO allies are now furiously arrayed against Iran and, amazingly enough, France's new president is leading the charge to impose draconian sanctions to keep Iran in line. If France is willing to take action, you know that Ahmadinejad is just as extreme as he can possibly get.

One might well ask: Where does Ahmadinejad get the brazen hubris necessary to confront the overwhelmingly more powerful team of the United States and Europe in this haughty, contemptuous manner? His nation, alone, is far too puny to work up such suicidal pathos (look how easily the U.S. destroyed the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq). There's a clear answer: He gets it from Russia, and specifically from Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin. It is no overstatement to say that Russia is the real root cause of turmoil in the Middle East.


And make no mistake: turmoil in the Middle East is directly in Russia's interests. Even if it doesn't actually undermine U.S. security, it still creates the conditions of uncertainty which tend to keep international oil prices inflated, and those prices are the Kremlin's lifeblood. By supporting terrorist and rogue regimes in the Middle East, Russia not only gets the chance to vent its pathological hatred of America and her values, but more importantly supports the only pillar of its economy. Peace and stability in the Middle East are the last things Russia wants.

Recently, we published a drawing depicting Putin and Ahmadinejad as lovers, and the two truly are birds of a feather. Ahmadinejad is cracking down on Iran's universities, seeking to purge them of all secular influence, while Putin is developing the maniacal "Nashi" youth cult in Russia. Ahmadinejad denies that Iran has any homosexuals, and hence can't be accused of persecuting them, while Putin jokes about rape in front of a diplomatic delegation. Ahmadinejad says the Jewish holocaust never happened, and Putin says Stalin wasn't really so bad after all. Both are shutting down newspapers and arresting or killing journalists at breakneck speed, and centralizing their power whilst crushing local government. One could go on for days listing the barbaric outrages taking place in these two countries and pointing out their similarities; it's almost impossible to decide which one is a greater affront to democracy, almost as if they are engaged in a sickening pas de deux, the Fred and Ginger of atrocity, barbarity and vulgarity.

And the two are very literally in bed together where hatred of America, Europe and Western values are concerned. Recently, the U.S. military confirmed that Iran is providing missiles to the Islamic terrorists in Iraq which are being used to kill Americans on the ground there. While these particular missiles apparently came to Iran by way of North Korea, Putin's Russia is also providing Ahmadinejad's Iran with the technology it needs to develop nuclear energy, which Iran hopes will be the basis for its obtaining a nuclear weapon. Faced with the threat of Western attack should a bomb become possible, Iran has also obtained a missile defense system from Russia to thwart such an attack. Russia has continually refused to cooperate with Western moves to sanction Iran, providing it with the diplomatic cover it needs to continue killing American soldiers in Iraq as it seeks to exercise imperial control over that troubled nation.

And we must not forget that Russia is doing far more than making common cause with Iran in order to foment turmoil and instability in the Middle East. It is directly supporting Hamas itself, as well as Hezbollah and Syria, with diplomatic protection, weapons and lots of cold hard cash. And Russia's hostility is not limited to the Middle East; it is also providing weapons and diplomatic support to the crazed dictator Hugo Chavez in Venezulea, and seeking to cooperate with the abusive, anti-democratic communist regime in China.

The ironies are almost overwhelming, of course. You can't get any more anti-Muslim than Russia's conduct of its war against Chechnya, and there is zero tolerance for dark-skinned non-Orthodox people in Slavic Russia, yet the hyper-Islamic Ahmadinejad and the ultra-Orthodox Putin both have no problem abandoning their supposed core values and ignoring this fundamental hostility in the short term (just the same way that it was easily possible for Stalin to enter into a secret pact with Hitler selling out Europe). Although these kind of alliances between rogue nations always lead ultimately to their destruction (both Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR were obliterated), in the short term the new Evil Empire means a great deal of trouble for the West if it is allowed to fester and grow. Immediate action is needed to prevent this from happening. A new Ronald Reagan must step to the forefront, and the upcoming U.S. presidential elections are the ideal place to start looking for her (or him).

It's time to give up the ridiculous, childish and arrogant idea that the only reason Iran and Russia are keeping company together is that our misguided policies have driven them together. The idea that by "engaging" these two regimes we could "convince" them to stop desecrating the globe with their barbarism is a flight of fancy, the easy way out, too good to be true. It's oh-so-comforting to imagine that we are so powerful that if we only say the right magic words, all our enemies will turn into friends, or at least harmless bystanders, that we don't have to fight -- and this is exactly what our enemies want us to think. They want us to drop our guard, "engage" them with meaningless rhetoric and allow them to consolidate, manipulate and destroy.

It was not kind words of understanding that brought down the USSR, it was direct confrontation. And it was simply insane for us to believe that simply because it had been defeated the USSR would slink away into the recesses of history, never to be heard from again. Would we have become happy communists if the USSR had won the cold war? Of course not. And Russia has not abandoned its fundamental hostility to our values or its desire to rule the world with its own brand of what's-good-for-you. It simply bided its time waiting for the chance to lash out, and rising oil prices have made it think (quite wrongly) that the time has come.

It was possible for us to turn Japan and Germany into friendly, democracy-respecting nations because we physically gutted their leadership and obliterated them militarily. No such thing happened in Russia after World War II, and today the "president" of the country is a proud KGB spy who spent most of life trying to destroy our democratic friends in Germany. As long as Putin and his ilk hold power in Russia, that nation will remain devoted to our destruction by any means possible. They are a mere shadow of their former might, and so the only way they can make serious trouble for is is by getting us to drop our guard. And so that is what they are endeavoring feverishly to accomplish.

That Vladimir Putin, presiding over a nation which loses up to 1 million from its population every year due to demographic crisis, and works for an average wage of $3/hour, would think he has the time and energy to spare to make common cause with one of the world's most despised despots, antagonizing the entire world into a cold (and perhaps hot) war, and that nobody within Russia would seriously challenge his doing so, is clear proof of the depth and breadth of Russia's abiding hatred for the West and its total inability to act rationally in the face of it. And what else should we expect from a man who spent his entire life in the KGB, learning not merely to hate the West but to destroy it by any possible means. Do we really believe he simply woke up, as if from a dream, when the USSR collapsed and abandoned his life's work? If so, we deserve to suffer for our stupidity, hubris and insularity.

We must fight back, and we must do so now. There are those who argue that it was wise to give Ahmadinejad the opportunity to speak at Columbia, since it helps to elicit his crazy views and lay them before the world, helps us to better understand how to deal with him. This is pure nonsense. Ironically, Columbia's own president said, introducing Ahmadinejad as a speaker: "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous." So much for respectfully allowing him to speak and eliciting his views! As David J. Feith & Jordan C. Hirsch of National Review put it:

It is naive to ignore the uses to which Ahmadinejad will put his invitation. Over the past years, Ahmadinejad's confrontational rhetoric and policies have resulted in diplomatic isolation and economic hardship for Iran. These developments are unpopular among Iranians. It is beneficial to Ahmadinejad and his regime, then, if he can claim to the Iranian people that his leadership is not hurting their country. If he can demonstrate that he is treated abroad as a respected leader, he will be better able to counter his critics at home. Columbia's invitation thus gives political assistance to Ahmadinejad.

By allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, Columbia has enabled his dictatorship and increased his power, not diminished it. The same happened when Putin was invited on Larry King. It would be one thing to extend such invitations if we were actively engaged in combat with our enemies, but we are not. As Anne Applebaum wrote in the Washington Post: "it was deeply naive to imagine that the Iranian president would enter into a 'vigorous debate' with students who were deploying their 'powers of dialogue and reason,' as Columbia University President Lee Bollinger stated before the event, or that he would answer the appropriately aggressive questions Bollinger put to him." Applebaum points out that Columbia didn't even insist on an exchange whereby Ahmadinejad would allow a strongly anti-Iranian Westerner to address a large group of students at one of Iran's most prestigious universities -- much less is Columbia devoting its resources to figuring out ways we can remove this maniac from his seat of power and oppression.

We must not do the same with Vladimir Putin, it's his only hope of defeating us with only the feeble resources of the neo-Soviet Union at his disposal. We have to stop asking for it -- or we're going to get it. Right between the eyes.

Writing in the Canadian Globe & Mail Andrei Piontkovsky, executive director of the Strategic Studies Centre in Moscow, offers the following analysis of the Russia-Iran nexus:

Recent reports of controversy over Russian funding of the construction of Iran's atomic power station at Bushehr has lead many people to the wrong conclusion. The New York Times, for example, reported that Russian officials had told Iran no fuel would be delivered to the station if enrichment continued, leading many to assume there was a change in Moscow's stand on Iran's nuclear aspirations, bringing it closer to the U.S. and European positions.

Before the printer's ink was dry on this assertion, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had branded it blatant disinformation intended to cast a shadow over the traditionally friendly relations between Russia and Iran.

There was a conflict over payment, it seems, but it resulted more from problems over the kickbacks that accompany practically every major Russo-Iranian deal. Evidently, some top Russian official had not received his cut.

Mr. Lavrov's indignation over the Times's commentary was entirely sincere, if rather naive. It is further confirmation that Moscow is happy to watch Iran continue toward possession of nuclear weapons. But with a different goal in mind.

For Moscow, the best-case scenario for an end to the Iranian nuclear crisis would be an Israeli and/or U.S. preventive strike against Iran's nuclear sites.

Why? In the first place, because an Iranian nuclear bomb is something the Russian leaders really do not need. Iran is, after all, the only state in the world with official territorial claims against Russia (part of the Caspian seabed is disputed).

In the second place, all the indignation of the Islamic world would be directed against Israel and the United States, which would also suit Moscow well.

Last, but not least, Iran would doubtless retaliate by destroying the Saudi oil platforms and blocking the Strait of Hormuz, interrupting the export of oil from the Middle East for a while.

The chekist oil barons who make up Vladimir Putin's retinue are already rubbing their hands in anticipation of this course of events. The 10 or 15 individuals who rule Russia nowadays, her current Politburo, also own Russia through their direct or indirect control of most of her oil and gas companies. How high might the price of oil go? To $200, $300 a barrel?

Too much in their lives depends on that number -- the regime's stability, their role on the world stage, their personal wealth. They will not repeat the mistake of past Soviet leaders who passively watched the oil price fall. They have, after all, plenty of scope for influencing the situation in the Middle East.

Every step of Moscow's Iranian policy in recent years has been aimed at moving events in this direction. By blocking or completely watering down Security Council resolutions on Iran, Moscow has facilitated Iran's nuclear program. By supplying Iran with TOR missile installations and negotiating over possible delivery of the more cutting-edge S-300 air-defence system, Russia is effectively hurrying Israel toward having to undertake a military solution of the problem. After the Russian anti-aircraft installations to protect Iran's nuclear sites are fully commissioned, a military strike by Israel will no longer be feasible; but the alternative to a preventive strike is to see nuclear weapons and their means of delivery placed in the hands of someone who, Israel believes, wants to see a "Final Solution" of the "Jewish Problem." This is totally unacceptable to the Jewish state and, if Iran does not halt its nuclear program, a preventive strike is highly probable.

There are moderates in the Iranian leadership prepared to negotiate the discontinuing of industrial enrichment of uranium in return for a guarantee of international deliveries of nuclear fuel, but the recent kerfuffle with Russia over payment for the construction of Bushehr has greatly undermined their position. Moscow, in any case, made no demand that enrichment of uranium should be halted before deliveries of fuel were resumed. That would have been constructive and would have strengthened the hand of the moderates.

Mr. Lavrov indignantly rejected any such approach and insisted that the problem was purely a misunderstanding about payment. Iran paid up, deliveries are being restarted, and the conclusion drawn from the incident by the Iranian establishment is wholly in favour of continuing with its nuclear project. The influential Iranian newspaper Resalat commented, "Russia's behaviour is the best reason why Iran must insist on enriching uranium and producing nuclear fuel itself . . . You can't spend billions of dollars [on building a power plant] and then have to beg others for fuel."

As regards the motivation behind Russia's behaviour in this recent financial dispute, the Iranian side understand that well and commented derisively.

When the head of the Russian Federal Atomic Agency, Sergey Kirienko, complained that "since the middle of January we have not receive a single kopek," his Iranian counterpart replied sarcastically, "It is true. We have never paid Mr. Kirienko a single kopek. Or a ruble either. For the past 15 years, we have been paying the Russians in dollars."

The nuances of how the Russian capitalist ministers behave may change, but their strategic aim remains unchanged. Moscow has consistently been the political, and now also the military, umbrella for the mullahs who are rushing to get their hands on nuclear weapons. The Kremlin fully understands that this will inevitably lead to military conflict. The war in Iraq has brought the Putin regime handsome political and economic dividends. Moscow is hoping that the feast will continue.

Kommersant reports:

Iranian General Mohammad Bagher Zolqadr, who cannot leave his country under the U.N. resolution, visited Russia all restrictions notwithstanding. General of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammad Bagher Zolqadr spent six days in Russia, deliberating with spokesmen of the RF government on cooperation in the fields of border control and eliminating aftereffects of natural disasters, the state media of Iran reported. As to Zolqadr, he attributed his clear neglect of the U.N. Security Council’s resolution to the lack of efficiency of the document. But the actual time of the general’s tour to Russia is yet unclear. Security Council passed the sanctions resolution March 24, 2007. Tehran called the document illegal and stopped any cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The bilingual zaxiblog on Livejournal has invited LR to cross-post the following analysis of the Iran quagmire:

This week zaxi drew a deep breath and read Russia’s first foreign policy review ever written for a president. It comically came on the eighth and – seemingly – final year of Vladimir Putin’s reign and added up to more than 100 pages.

zaxi was moved to such altruistic pursuits by Russia’s eye-catching decision to thumb its nose at Iran and hide the fuel from its first nuclear power plant. So a pity that Iran was not awarded a single full sentence here. Instead zaxi learned what might have driven BP to turn into a public relations arm of Rosneft in the face of being banished from Russia. This document is funny that way.

The modern world according to Sergei Lavrov was formed with the emergence of Russia as a rich power and the shattering of US hegemony against Iraq. The former was greeted with derision in Western quarters where Cold War fogies still roam. The latter spurred radical Islam.

But the crux of the argument made from the seventh floor of Stalin’s skyscraper on Smolenka is that none of this matters much – Russia has “new-gained foreign policy self-dependence” that must be exercised by protecting trade interests rather than trying to be liked.

The European Union is pretty much dismissed outright. It is a relic confused about its new world standing that Russia will treat accordingly. “The point of reference for Russian policy in Europe is made on bilateral relations.” And those will be primarily with France and Germany – “the leading European nations.” This phrase is typed in bold to emphasize that EU members “east of Vienna” are pesky novices trying to split Europe over Russia.

Britain gets its own mention as “an important but uneasy partner.” Its seems remarkable that a broad policy assessment still picks on London for giving refuge to “so-called new political immigrants.” Thus Boris Berezovsky and a former Chechen press secretary get more play here than Iran.

Human rights are useful – when conditions are right. “The artificial, forced democratization thrust upon from abroad” leads to “international anarchy.” The OSCE just avoids being called unprintable names.

Meanwhile the United States must be dealt with primarily because it has fingers stuck in so many sticky places. It has turned more pliable though now that its fake armor of invincibility lies scattered across Iraq. “With the Administration’s more sober views of its capabilities, there is potential for new, expanded cooperation with the US within frameworks of multilateral institutions – first of all, the UN.”

Thus Paris and Berlin get their personal dinner invitations. Washington must attend formal parties to meet Moscow while it sits flanked by friends.

Washington is advised to engage Moscow to resolve “deformed and dangerous” Islamic radicalism borne out of US policies. Yet Russia also doubts the existence of an “Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas link-up that supposedly threatens to destabilize the Persian Gulf.”

So it would seem unclear how Russia intends to help or where it sees the problem. The ministry’s sole recommendation for Putin on the Middle East is “to stimulate economic and energy diplomacy” there.

And yet… There goes Russia refusing to fuel a Bushehr plant it had spent 10 years building until Iran comes clean on its nuclear arms plans. This after years of reading a script that said clearly that Iran’s nuclear power and weapons were separate matters.

And there it votes with the West for a second round of Iranian sanctions. Moscow’s UN man then speaks of still more sanctions “when… if” they come being the fault of Iranian insubordination.

And there goes Iran calling Russia an “unreliable partner” and muttering about elephants having long memories.

So is this foreign policy review just a scary Russian fairy tale Moscow reads the West before kissing it good night?

Unfortunately – no.

US officials say Russia made the decision to keep fuel away from Bushehr until Iran opened up its weapons program at least two years ago. This was done out of pure self-preservation and reported directly to Washington – and obviously not to Tehran.

In the meantime Moscow desperately tried to convince Tehran to ship the processed fuel back to Russia in a transparent and verifiable manner. That failed along with the broader security talks. By now the 800 million dollar project stands almost completed and all but the last bills have been drawn. So Russia came up with a largely mythical Bushehr non-payment crisis to cover up its tracks and freeze the launch.

But this policy assessment report was released two years after that Bushehr decision. And this week Russia torpedoed a UN resolution demanding that Iran release the 15 British sailors it seized in what most agree were Iraqi waters.

This review in fact reflects the seismic shift in Russia’s relations with the West over that two-year span. And perhaps nowhere has this strategy changed more aggressively than in Moscow’s relations with the foreign energy firms.

BP at the moment sticks out like a sore Western thumb that still clings on to control of its Russian holdings. The Wall Street Journal reports that 29 percent of the giant’s oil reserves and 12 percent of its post-tax profits are in Russia – numbers set to implode with the imminent fall of the outsized Kovykta field into state hands.

The fate of Kovykta now seems sealed but BP still would like to lose it on best terms possible. More importantly it hopes to replace the band of billionaires making up its TNK partners in Russia with Rosneft. Not that the TNK partner necessarily want to go – it is just that the cards seem to be saying that their game will be up before Kovykta goes on line. The state (in the name of Rosneft) would thus give BP long-term security while – and this is the pipedream version of events – still allowing it to oversee operations.

And so BP sort of bid against Rosneft for the latest Yukos inheritance piece in hopes of making the auction look fair in the eyes of the blind and anyone desperately trying to look the other way.

The stake went to Rosneft at 800 million dollars below market value after BP placed a few perfunctory bids and then sneaked out of the room.

“This was 100 million dollars above the start price,” a BP spokesman told the Financial Times in manner of justification. “We would have to sell three billion liters of petrol in the UK to make 100 million dollars.”

To have somebody in the company believe this explanation holds water for FT readers illustrates the depths that BP has plumbed to accommodate its Russian existence – its perception of reality possibly altered after spending so many years in offices overlooking the truly imposing defense ministry.

Which brings zaxi to the public relations portion of Russia’s foreign policy report whose line BP was tracing so closely: “An important resource of this (public relations) work are the international companies that have business interests in Russia and which are suffering from the politicized information about Russia in the world media.”

Perhaps BP now too believes that Kovykta is slipping away because Russia wants to get even for all that unfair Western coverage. In any event – its bid not only lined Rosneft pockets (the auction could have been called off because no second bidder had the cash to take part) but also justified the treatment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky whose jailing BP did at one stage protest.

Yet BP cannot be expected to do Russia’s Western bidding alone.

“(W)e can fully rely on the support of influential circles within the Western community such as, for example, those in the conservative Christian-democratic spectrum,” the foreign ministry tells Putin.

So do not be surprised if Russia soon makes a guest appearance on the 700 Club.

Source: Ellustrator.

Has Russia thought better of providing nuclear power to Iran? Has Western pressure forced its hand? Is it all just a show to take the wind out of the West's sails? Did Russia dupe Iran, never intending to actually supply a working reactor? Or is Iran actually short of cash? Maybe it was the Iranians who duped the Russians, never intending them to get much influence in the Iranian energy sector, but rather only intending to use Russia to get it's foot in the door?

Publius Pundit is running two polls on these interesting questions where readers are invited to give their input. Stop by and do so if you have a chance, and feel free to leave your comments.

Here's Georgy Bovt's take on the mysterious goings on between Iran and Russia. Bovt is editor of Profil magazine, and his comments come from the Moscow Times. Which is worse, LR dares to wonder: That Russia is humiliated by being duped by Iran or that Russia is exposed as selling out its so-called ally, or that Russia and Iran are engaged in a concerted effort to dupe the world? The mind boggles.

Russia's relations with Iran have come to resemble its relations with Belarus. In both cases, the each side started out assuring the world of how much they had in common, how mutually advantageous their relationship was, and how they had established an equitable partnership. Most of all, they unfailingly added that all of this had been achieved in spite of the West, and the United States in particular.

Then these wonderful relationships unexpectedly began to fall apart. The declarations of love were replaced by accusations of underhandedness and evil intentions.

This happened with Belarus at the end of last year, when Russia got fed up with subsidizing its economy by selling it oil and gas at bargain prices. In a snap, all thoughts of Slavic brotherhood were forgotten as each side accused the other of acting in bad faith and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko attempted to blackmail Moscow by threatening to establish independent relations with the West. A similar problem appears imminent between Moscow and Tehran.

The problems with Iran date also to the end of last year, when reports began to surface that Iran was late on payments to Russia for the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Iran blamed the delay on its decision to convert its cash reserves from dollars into Euros. Two months have since passed without the promised payment, and Russia has declared it will halt construction on the Bushehr station. The Iranians provided assurances that some payment had been made, but that no further money would change hands until Russia delivered the first shipment of nuclear fuel. Moscow answered that deliveries of fuel were pointless at this stage, as the reactor was not yet ready to receive it.

This all look like political gamesmanship, especially given Washington's support for Moscow's calls that Iran stick to its contractual obligations. After all, business is business and the Iranians should accept that a contract is a contract.

There is also the creeping suspicion that Moscow is using the late payments as an excuse to pull out of the controversial Bushehr project altogether. Washington has long demanded just this, and blaming Tehran for everything would allow Russia to pull the plug without appearing to have bowed to U.S. pressure.

In a situation like this, most Soviet leaders would have waived the contractual obligations and finished building the plant just to spite the United States. But the current crew in the Kremlin isn't as interested in "altruistic" projects, and when the price tag for opposing U.S. policy becomes prohibitively high, it tends to opt for pragmatism. Nobody -- or at least nobody in Russia -- is ready to foot the bill for the Bushehr power plant.

Iran's motives are unclear at first glance. The Iranian government owes Russia something in the neighborhood of $200 million to $250 million, a sum it could produce instantly if it wanted to. The ultimatum regarding fuel deliveries appears to be deliberately impracticable, which gives the impression that the Iranians themselves are now less interested completing the construction at Bushehr. This could be because the project has become a political lightning rod. Iran doesn't want to incur any increased obligations in its relationship with Moscow or join it in an anti-U.S. crusade. It doesn't want to become dependent on Russia for its nuclear energy program as it doesn't entirely trust Moscow. The money withheld from Russia will probably be set aside for a different plant or to enable the Iranians to finish the Bushehr project themselves.

Russia comes out the loser here. It tried to play the "Iranian card" by building a special relationship with an unpredictable, fanatical regime strongly opposed to the United States. This was Moscow's way of demonstrating its independence or, using the terminology currently in fashion in the Kremlin, its "sovereignty" in foreign policy.

But one particular characteristic of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes -- whether run by Iranian mullahs or by a former chairman of a Soviet collective farm like Lukashenko -- is that they are unpredictable. They change the rules of the game according to their own whims and wishes, and without consultation.

Furthermore, they only understand one language -- the language of force. Had Russia acted in concert with the large international group trying to bring pressure on Iran -- as it did, for example, with the group of six nations addressing the issue of North Korea's nuclear program -- it would have left Tehran without maneuvering space and reduced its ability to blackmail others.

Whatever the case, canceling the Bushehr contract -- a move that looks increasingly imminent today -- would not have left Moscow in the awkward position in which it now risks finding itself. This is the result of naively placing all its hopes on Iran and vehemently rejecting every suggestion from Washington that Russia and the United States coordinate their policies toward Iran. Once the disagreement arose with Tehran, Moscow was stuck.

Bradford Plumer over at New Republic's blog The Plank writes:

So the New York Times reports today: "Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran's nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council." Smackdown! Or maybe not. According to Bloomberg, Russia is now denying that it ever issued such an ultimatum, and is really only withholding the fuel because of a dispute over late payments (which would make perfect sense). If anyone wants to parse all the various statements here, feel free. This bit from the Times piece, though, was intriguing:

The Russian Atomic Energy Agency, or Rosatom, is eager to become a major player in the global nuclear energy market. As Security Council action against Iran has gained momentum and Iran's isolation increases, involvement with the Bushehr project may detract from Rosatom's reputation.

That seems like as plausible a reason as any for Russia to decide to confront Iran over the latter's enrichment program. Although if the denials to Bloomberg are true, it hasn't really reached that point yet.

In a post entitled "Russia Plays a Murderous Game," Scrutiny Hooligans adds:

Russia, after years of arming Iran with conventional weaponry and nuclear technology, is now playing Mr. Nice Guy with the world community by threatening to withhold the nuclear material for Iranian power plants. Well so what, right? Just as long as Iran doesn't go nuclear, we can avoid war, right? You wouldn't think so if you look at the way the Russians are peddling arms to our rivals,

"Last year, Russia surpassed the United States as the developing world’s leader in arms deals, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). But Russia has increased military shipments to anti-U.S. states like Iran and Venezuela, not to mention potential adversaries like China, which concerns U.S. policymakers far more. Experts say Iran—as well as Syria—may have transferred some of these small arms to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas."

Russian behavior indicates that we've made things rather hot in Vladimir Putin's kitchen right about now. We need to keep up the pressure until Russia is forced to abandone its crazed machinations in Iran; it's the perfect (and essential) test case to demonstate Western resolve.

Writing in National Interest, Igor Khrestin, a Russian Studies researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, and John Elliott, a research associate in Russia and Eurasia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, expose the propaganda spewed out by the Kremlin's Dmitry Peskov over Russian support for Iran:

In a recent interview with National Interest online, President Putin’s first deputy secretary, Dmitry Peskov, firmly asserted that Russia is “the last country in this world that would want to have a nuclear weapon at its southern borders.”

The current Russian policy in the region, however, indicates otherwise. After Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani publicly mused in 2001 that the “application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel”, and despite an International Atomic Energy Agency finding that Iran was in non-compliance with the safeguards agreement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Mr. Peskov refers to Iran’s right to “peaceful nuclear energy.” As such, Moscow habitually rejects comprehensive sanctions against Tehran and has effectively stalled the process by brandishing its veto power at the UN Security Council.

With the nuclear issue on the backburner, the Iranian regime is actively equipping and training militia groups and death squads operating in Iraq—without forgetting to dole out generous support to Hizballah and Hamas for actively terrorizing the Israeli population. Contrary to its supposed “partners in the war on terror” in the West, Russia considers neither group to be a terrorist organization. Moreover, after gaining control of the Palestinian parliament, Hamas representatives took up President Putin’s generous offer to visit Moscow last spring. Conspicuously, just days before the visit, local authorities in provincial towns of Volgograd and Vologda shut down two regional newspapers for reprinting the infamous “Muhammad cartoons.”

The doublethink on Iran and its proxies reflects a wider struggle in elucidating Russia’s Middle East policy—how does a nation balance vulnerability to Islamic extremism in its predominantly Muslim backyard with the continued support for a regime that can potentially—and fatally—endanger global security?

Russian and Iranian interests are historically divergent, with perceived spheres of influence overlapping in the Caucasus and the Caspian. In 1828, when the Russian tsar sent a diplomatic mission to negotiate the settlement terms of the second Russo-Persian war (the Treaty of Turkmanchai, which stipulated Iran’s surrender of modern-day Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia), a frenzied mob massacred practically the entire delegation. Among those killed was chief envoy and famous Russian playwright Alexandr Griboyedov, whose crime apparently consisted of not removing his boots in front of the Shah.

Ideologically, the two states could also not be further apart. The 1979 Islamic Revolution may have shattered Iran’s alliance with the United States, but neither did it bring Tehran and Moscow any closer. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini purged leftists from the revolutionary coalition and considered the Soviet Union “godless.” In 1989, Khomeini penned a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev, urging the Soviet leader “to seriously investigate Islam—not because Islam or the Muslims need you, but because Islam can bring comfort and salvation to all people and solve the problems of all nations.”

While reality got in the way of realizing the Ayatollah’s dream, Iran did expand relations with Russia after the Soviet collapse. On August 25, 1992, Tehran and Moscow signed an US $800 million deal for Russian companies to build two nuclear reactors at Bushehr, as well as committed to sales of military hardware. During the lean and tumultuous 1990s, when oil prices bottomed out and Russia painfully deconstructed its command economy, the hard currency may have proved essential to prop-up the vast military-industrial complex. As Viktor Mikhailov, Russia’s then-minister of nuclear energy, stated: “What could Russia have brought onto world markets? We only had one strength: our scientific and technical potential.” Yet in 1995, after considerable American pressure, Boris Yeltsin halted weapons deliveries to Iran.

Economic considerations are hardly a concern for the current Russian government. The flow of petrodollars cleared all of the country’s external debts and bumped gold and foreign currency reserves to nearly $300 billion—with another $90 billion stashed in the rainy-day Stabilization Fund, accrued from windfall oil profits. With confident stride, Russia has begun to write off debts to poorer nations.

But one of the first steps of Putin’s presidency was to resume the sales of weapons to the Iranian regime. Recently, Moscow has landed somewhere around $1 billion for the sale of 29 Tor-M1 missile complexes, giving Tehran the ability to earnestly defend their “nuclear right.” While these sophisticated systems may not render Iran’s various strategic sites invincible, they nevertheless add a formidable layer of protection against potential U.S. or Israeli air strikes. On a visit to Jerusalem in 2005, however, President Putin firmly reassured the Israelis that “[Russia has] not taken a single step to disrupt the balance of forces and we will follow that pattern in the future.”

Russia’s resurgent realpolitik has not gone unnoticed in the Middle East. Recently, the Arab and Iranian press roundly lauded Russia’s assertive role in the region. But at whose expense? As BBC correspondent and Middle East expert Konstantin Eggert explained in Lebanon’s Daily Star: “The rationale for Russia’s new course in the Middle East lies in the same motivation that drives Moscow’s foreign policy as a whole: primarily, deep dislike of the United States combined with a desire to at least partly avenge Russia’s defeat in the Cold War.”

Moscow’s policy towardTehrancould also cost it in areas where Russia-U.S. partnership has blossomed. Congress may well decide to vote down the recent “123 agreement”, which allows greater collaboration in civilian nuclear energy. The Russian government, which agreed to host spentU.S.nuclear fuel on its territory, would stand to lose an estimated $20 billion. In addition, several Russian companies have already been sanctioned byWashingtonfor supplying hardware toTehran, including state weapons manufacturer Rosoboronexport.

With the gradually worsening state of affairs between Russia and the West, it now becomes the job of officials such as Mr. Peskov, but ultimately, President Putin himself, to convince Moscow’s “partners in the war on terror” otherwise.