Most summit meetings these days are uneventful, because of the primacy given to protocol and publicity rather than to substance. But last week’s meeting between the leaders of Iran and Russia, on the sidelines of the Caspian Sea summit in Tehran, was a qualitatively different affair.

The timing of Iran’s initiative for a summit of the five Caspian Sea littoral states that brought President Putin to Tehran -- the first visit by a Russian leader in 60 years -- represented a major success for its efforts to break out of the isolation that the U.S. has tried to impose on it.
Moreover, the Iranians chose wisely to relegate to the background such thorny issues as Caspian Sea ownership and ‘legal regime’, focusing their energies on shared interests, trans-boundary issues and trade. This was to the advantage of Iran, given its relatively minor energy interests in its sector of the Caspian Sea.
If Iran was the beneficiary of the summit, President Putin was its star. Betraying no evidence of being a ‘lame-duck’ president, Putin warned against military action against Iran, while declaring that it was wrong to ‘think about the possibility of using force’. More importantly, he emphasized that it would be irresponsible to ‘talk about the possibility of using our territory for other countries to carry out aggression or military action against other Caspian littoral states’.
No less significant was his support for Iran’s right to nuclear energy, adding that Russia supported the right of all NPT members to ‘research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful ends, without discrimination, within the framework of this treaty and the mechanisms of the UN nuclear watchdog’. For good measure, Putin also reminded the world that ‘Russia is the only country helping Iran to construct a nuclear power station for peaceful ends’ and reiterated that Russia would honor its commitment to complete it.
Putin’s unequivocal support for Iran caught Washington by surprise. In response, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iranian leaders of ‘lying’ about their nuclear program while the Pentagon reiterated that Iran was providing weapons to insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This was followed by President Bush warning that Iran must be barred from acquiring nuclear weapons to avoid the prospects of a third world war. Vice President Cheney, long recognized as a ‘hawk’ on Iran, stepped in with the declaration that the U.S. ‘will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons’.
What upset the Bush administration even more was that Putin’s visit to Tehran took place only days after Ms. Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had held a comprehensive dialogue with their Russian counterparts in Moscow. Both sides claimed that they wished to defuse the mounting tensions between them, but the Moscow meeting failed to bridge their differences, with the U.S. anti-missile defense shield proposal and the Russian threat to abandon the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, resulting in a public spat between them.
Putin’s statements in Tehran are significant for they represent a departure from Russia’s oft stated policy of working with the U.S. and the other P-5 states to maintain diplomatic pressure on Iran. Washington’s harsh reaction confirms the impression that this development represents a failure of its policy towards Russia, as much as it demonstrates the skill and resolve with which Putin has advanced his country’s interests, even when playing with a weak hand.
Putin’s assertive foreign policy may have upset many in the West but it has endeared him to his people, for it is taken ‘as a sign of the strengthening of Russia’s role and authority on the world stage’. But it is not only in Europe that Putin wants to demonstrate Russia’s influence. Central Asia and the Middle East have not escaped his attention either.
Relations with China in particular occupy centre-stage in Putin’s strategic plans for the region, both bilaterally and in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In fact, Sino-Russian collaboration confronts the West with a formidable challenge.
As Putin ends his second four-year term, the Russians are deeply appreciative of the peace and order imposed by him. But what has endeared Putin to most Russians is the element of ‘pride’ that he has restored to the country. What the U.S. sees as ‘aggressive’ or ‘nationalist’ policies are viewed by Russians as ‘independent’ and ‘sovereign’ policies.
The U.S. must learn to strike a balance in its relations with Russia and treat it as a responsible major global power, just as it treats China as an economic giant and a major political player. The U.S. must also recognize that the Russians will no longer brook ‘guidance’, and certainly not any ‘interference’ in their internal affairs. That era is over now.
Meanwhile, Iran has become an obsession with the Bush administration. It has also emerged as a major issue in the foreign policy debate for the U.S. presidential candidates. While some Democrats are accusing Bush of raising the specter of a global war, Hillary Clinton has opted to give the president ‘a virtual blank check’.
Nevertheless, many Americans remain skeptical of U.S. allegations against Iran’s nuclear program. In an op-ed piece, Scott Ritter, a former UN arms inspector, asserted that ‘a careful fact-based assessment of Iran demonstrates that it poses no threat to the legitimate national security interests of the United States’.
Putin’s comments highlighted the growing differences between Russia and the West, especially the United States. While the latter seeks more unilateral and multilateral sanctions to punish Iran for its nuclear program, the former believes that diplomacy is the only way to solve the stand-off; especially as it remains skeptical about western claims that Iran’s nuclear program is military in nature.
In fact, it is U.S. interventionist policies and Washington’s proclivity to unilateral action that has propelled Russia and Iran to come closer. With both under pressure from the Bush administration, the Tehran summit’s results represent a major success for them. Iran, described by Putin as an ‘important regional and global power’, has been provided with some much-needed breathing space that it will be able to put to good use, thanks to the skill with which it pursues its multi-faceted diplomacy.
It will also try to use the summit declaration as a stepping stone to full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, seen increasingly as a security counterweight to NATO and U.S. ‘hegemony’.
On the other hand, it is clear that Moscow is now prepared to enter into a new strategic relationship with Iran that is likely to have a profound impact on the region. This is one development that needs to be monitored closely by us as well.
Source: DAWN