Most of the international visits by senior statesmen that we read and hear about these days are of a routine nature. Gordon Brown has been to Washington, Angela Merkel is going to Paris, Condoleezza Rice is just back from Jerusalem. Within the 27-strong European Union hardly a day goes by without the president or prime minister of one member state visiting another — and rightly so.
President Vladimir Putin has just been to Iran for a summit of Caspian Sea nations. This was by no means routine and could prove to have considerable significance. The last time the head of Russia was in Iran was in 1943, when Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator who stayed in power until his death in 1953, visited Tehran for a summit with Churchill and Roosevelt. This is a remarkable gap of 64 years and in those days the Soviet Union was a neighbor.
Relations have seldom been good. In an earlier century an angry Persian mob took pleasure in burning the Russian Embassy to the ground. Certainly the Russians and the Shah of Iran were poles apart. They regarded him as a puppet of the West; in some ways he was. The United States and the United Kingdom made mountains of money selling the Shah every modern weapon he could wish for.
President Putin showed courage in proceeding with his planned visit to Tehran, after the Russian security services claimed that Islamic fanatics were preparing to assassinate him during his stay.
The Economist (Oct. 20) reported that:
“As far as Mr. Putin is concerned, Russia has its own interests, which differ from America’s. Russia is worried about Iran becoming a nuclear power: Iran is far nearer Moscow than Washington, and a nuclear power to the south is the last thing Russia wants. Nor does Mr. Putin take lightly Iran’s threat to wipe out Israel. He told a European Jewish Congress in Moscow that Russia and Israel were the two countries most threatened by a nuclear Iran.”
If Putin really believes that last sentence it was an intriguing insight into Russian-Iranian relations in 2007.
President Putin told the summit of Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, that:
“It is important ... that we not only not use any kind of force but also do not even think about the possibility of using force.”
I presume he had in mind French President Nicolas Sarkosy’s declaration, on Aug. 27 that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable and unless the world could halt that program the choice would be “an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran.”
There have been suggestions that America would like Azerbaijan to allow it to use its airfields should it decide to bomb Iran.
On the face of it President Putin’s visit was a success for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was invited back to Moscow. The two leaders appeared to get on well. Russia has important commercial interests in Iran. Russia has recently invested $750 million in Iran through Gazprom, Russia’s energy company, and remains a major supplier of arms. The Kremlin will feel relieved that Iran has not so far got involved in Chechnya.
But President Putin clearly kept his wits about him, and did not offer his support for Iran if it should be bombed by the United States. Putin and Ahmadinejad failed to reach agreement over a date for the completion of a $500m nuclear reactor at Bushehr which Russia is assisting with. According to The Times (Oct. 17):
“Moscow has accused Tehran of failing to make timely payments for the project. Iran has accused Russia of bowing to Western pressure over the plant ... Moscow has delayed delivery of nuclear fuel for the station as part of this dispute.” The United States and the European Union believe tougher sanctions on Iran is the card to play. The Europeans are anxious to keep talking to the Iranians, while the Americans are only talking to the Iranians in a strictly limited way over Iraq.
The Russians are busy carving out their own independent foreign policy on Iran and other matters. Russia will continue to support Iran’s peaceful nuclear program purely to generate electricity. Russia takes a convenient line over the calls within the Security Council for tougher sanctions on Iran. They are not ruled out but perhaps diplomacy should be given more time. Meanwhile there is business to be done with Iran. Russia is not proposing to side with Iran, but it is not proposing either to side with the United States or the European Union. It wants to play the world in its own way and to have increased influence and respect.
This approach by Russia has infuriated the Bush administration. President Bush has responded by turning the screw on the business activities of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Corps.
