Medvedev Milks the Iran Standoff

The US, boxed in by a trigger happy Israel,  is frustrated about Russia’s refusal to support Iran sanctions. But let’s put Obama’s European missile defence gambit in perspective.

“If Russia is to give up Iran, the United States and the West have to offer something much bigger to Moscow than the scrapping of the missile defense system that never existed,” said Vladimir Sotnikov, an Iran expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences. And indeed, far from categorically abandoning the sale of S-300 anti-missile systems to Iran, Medvedev’s sole act of reciprocity has so far been to also remove some missiles that never existed, from Kaliningrad. Seems fair.

Russia does not want a nuclear armed Iran, so why is it not committing to sanctions? One explanation is that “Russia is enjoying the moment. Being a key player in the Iranian crisis confirms the Kremlin’s own view that Russia is once again a major world power. As soon as Moscow agrees to sanctions, Washington is unlikely to be so attentive”.

Another reason is that Russia knows that sanctions – though very good at creating civilian hardships – are far from effective at stopping countries from arming themselves (see Iraq).  So, being Iran’s closest big power trading partner gives Russia unprecedented leverage in the crisis to do something Western sanctions cannot: persuade Iran to back down.

“According to Rajab Safarov, director of the center for Contemporary Iranian Studies in Moscow, Russia has “sufficiently effective levers” to have an effect on Iran’s behavior. “Iran has an interest in good relations with Russia,” Safarov told reporters. “This means that Iran could listen to advice from Russia.”

Russia must also be careful not to unduly antagonise its large Islamic neighbour at a time when Dagestan and Chenchnya are experiencing resurgent separtist violence (two more senior Dagestani officials were gunned down on Sunday). While fighters have in the past been supplied by Saudi Wahhabis and groups tentatively associated with al-Qaeda, Medvedev-Putin cannot rule out the possibility of a spurned Iran (which is already being accused of supplying insurgents in Iran and Afghanistan with roadside bmobs) extending a destabilising hand to the militants.

At the same time, since the late 1990s, Russia has also cultivated close ties with Israel; in fact, diplomacy with this country may have contributed to Russia’s failure to make good, so far, on a contract to deliver the S-300 missiles to Iran. And Medvedev has hinted, albeit in a very lukewarm way, that sanctions against Iran may be ‘inevitable‘.

Whatever Russia will do in the end, its role in the Iran nuclear standoff is much more than mere grandstanding: in fact, Russia might be the only country with a key to its peaceful resolution.