Russia plays a double game over
Iran By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
A draft United Nations resolution calling
for sanctions on Iran has been dealt a severe blow
by China and Russia and, given the absence of any
evidence of nuclear-weapons proliferation by Iran,
the momentum for UN action against Iran has begun
to fizzle. This raises the possibility that Iran's
nuclear dossier may return to its proper venue -
the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The
Moscow-Beijing duet against sanctions follows the
argument
that as long as Iran's
nuclear activities, sanctioned by the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), are under the
IAEA's inspection regime
and lack any evidence of
military diversion, the justification for punitive
measures by the United Nations is lacking.
Of the two, China has now taken the lead
in pointing out the stark contrasts between Iran
and North Korea, with various Chinese officials,
including its envoys to Washington, Moscow and the
UN, hammering the key point that unlike North
Korea, Iran is a member of the NPT community, has
renounced nuclear weapons and has been cooperating
with the IAEA.
The same point has been
articulated in Iran by, among others, its former
chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, stating
in a recent interview that "Iran simply wants to
produce fuel for its nuclear reactors and is
presently at the research and development phase.
So what is all this noise about?"
Rowhani
said a draft UN resolution now in circulation that
proposes to ban the sale of nuclear and missile
technology to Iran stems from the "anger of US and
Western countries toward Iran's status and
influence in the region and the world".
The draft is in response to an earlier
Security Council resolution demanding that Tehran
suspend uranium-enrichment activities by August
31. The council was to meet on Friday in New York
to finalize a resolution.
According to
Rowhani, the purpose of an "Iran sanction
committee" envisaged in the draft is to "apply
pressure on Iran" and to reverse the country's
growing influence: "Iran's influence in Iraq,
Palestine, Afghanistan and among the Arab people
of Persian Gulf enjoys a privileged status."
Interestingly, the joint announcements by
China and Russia on the proposed sanctions
coincide with a major international conference in
Tehran of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
which has accepted Iran as an observer. The SCO
comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
In his opening
speech at the conference, Iranian Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki drew attention to the
underlying reasons for his country's expressed
interest in joining the SCO as a member, citing
its shared security interests and outlooks with
SCO members, such as the need for a "multipolar"
world order.
Such overtures by Iran are
bound to ingratiate it further to the
veto-wielding powers of China and Russia, both of
which have referred to their "strategic relations"
with Iran playing an increasingly prominent role
in the global calculus against US "hegemony".
Consequently, instead of opting for even
milder, symbolic sanctions, the net effect of
which may turn out to be purely negative in light
of Iran's promise to curtail its cooperation with
the IAEA in response to any sanctions, a more
prudent course of action by the US and its
European allies would be to agree to bring the
Iran nuclear issue back to the IAEA. This is the
appropriate forum to deal with what the IAEA's
chief, Mohammad ElBaradei, has referred to as
"issues of concern".
Yet such a logical
and necessary move, which might prompt Iran to
readopt the intrusive Additional Protocol of the
NPT, is for the moment held back not only by the
adamant US push for sanctions but also by
lingering Russian doublespeak. This hints at a
built-in ambivalence on Moscow's part, giving rise
to speculation in Iran that Russia might be
contemplating a bargain with the US over Iran, as
it has done on a number of occasions.
Russia's doublespeak This is a
clear sign of Russian doublespeak: on Tuesday,
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told the press, "We
do not have information that would suggest that
Iran is carrying out a non-peaceful [nuclear]
program." This is consistent with what Russian
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated,
such as when he said that based on information he
had received, he was convinced "Iran does not have
the intention to build a nuclear bomb".
Yet on Wednesday, Ivanov told Russian
television: "We don't want to have another nuclear
state on our southern borders. It's obvious."
Ivanov then echoed the same sentiment of some
Russian parliamentarians who have openly hinted
that Russia might back the draft UN resolution.
Ivanov's sudden accent on the potential
nuclear threat from Iran puts him in sharp
contrast with, among others, his country's foreign
minister. Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly gone on
record indicating the information corroborating
the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program,
much like Putin quoted above. Clearly, there is a
policy quarrel over Iran in Kremlin's halls, and
Moscow may switch to the United States' side. In
that case, the pertinent issue is what will happen
to Moscow's cherished "strategic partnership" with
Tehran.
Strategic partnership
revisited Both Putin and his top
foreign-policy advisers have repeatedly gone on
record regarding the importance of Iran as
Russia's "stable partner for a long time", to
paraphrase Putin. As Russia's neighbor in the
geo-economically important Caspian basin, Iran has
been a stable market for Russia's goods, nuclear
technology and conventional armament.
This
is not to mention Iran's recurrent stability role
in Central Asia and the Caucasus, reflected in
Tehran's mediation in the recent civil war in
Tajikistan and its steadfast refrain from
criticizing Russia's harsh measures in Chechnya.
Indeed, it was precisely in recognition of Iran's
constructive role that Putin consented to Iran's
observer status at the SCO.
But the whole
edifice of Russia's Iran policy, ramifying the
larger issues of Moscow's Middle East and Central
Asia policies, is now potentially jeopardized by
its doublespeak. This sends the signal that Russia
might move toward the US policy of isolating Iran
and ultimately dispossessing Tehran of essential
nuclear know-how and technology.
Iranian
President Mahmud Ahamdinejad reiterated his
country's peaceful nuclear intentions in a
telephone conference with Putin on Monday. And yet
despite Iran's reassurances, nuclear transparency
and burgeoning trade and security cooperation with
Russia affecting its troubled Muslim republics,
Russia is still wavering. It could commit a major
strategic error by bandwagoning with the US and
endorsing a revised version of the draft UN
resolution that refers to the "proliferation
threat" caused by Iran's nuclear program.
Is Russia bluffing, given Ivanov's
admission that talk of sanctions was helpful to
bring Iran back to the negotiation table?
According to certain Russia experts, Moscow is
merely applying a pressure tactic, and doing so
partly as a result of Putin's misgivings toward
the radical drift of Iranian politics. After all,
Putin's Russia has declared itself in congruence
with the West and despite talks of a "multipolar"
world by certain Moscow strategists, there are
limits to Russia's anti-Americanism, which puts
Putin somewhat at odds with Tehran.
Perhaps a more substantive foreign-policy
restructuring on Iran's part is required before
the realistic hopes for a more meaningful
Russia-Iran alliance. particularly via the SCO,
can be fathomed. A careful scrutiny of Russian
experts' view of Iran leaves no doubt that Moscow
is averse toward Tehran's language of threats
against Europe and its dismissal of the Security
Council. It prefers a more soft-power Iranian
approach with signs of genuine conciliation on the
nuclear issue. Otherwise, there will be
significant new limits on Russia's cooperation
with Iran, including on the much-delayed Bushehr
power plant, irrespective of their shared
"containment" policies toward US power.
Bushehr: Russia's trump, or losing
card? A focus of attention now is the
1,000-megawatt light-water reactor in Bushehr,
where construction of a Russian-supervised nuclear
plant has been under way for 11 years. It was
initially scheduled to go operational several
years ago.
Moscow has lobbied hard for the
exemption of this reactor from any UN sanctions
barring the transfer of technology to Iran. The
draft resolution, while permitting continued
Iran-Russia nuclear cooperation on Bushehr,
nonetheless bans the export of nuclear fuel, thus
potentially rendering the reactor incapacitated
when and if it is completed.
Unsurprisingly, there is a systematic
attempt in the US to raise the specter of Iran
"going nuclear" via the spent fuel from the
Bushehr power plant, this despite the fact that in
February 2005 Iran and Russia signed an agreement
on the return of spent fuel to Russia. Thus, to
cite an example, a recent commentary in the Wall
Street Journal completely glosses over this
agreement and claims that letting Iran have its
sole nuclear reactor was tantamount to "giving
Iran the bomb".
The Bushehr reactor may be
experiencing insurmountable technical
difficulties, since it began as a German
enterprise before being taken over by Russia. But
some voices in Iran have begun to wonder if the
real reason for the constant delay is something of
a tacit cooperation between Moscow and Washington.
Iran would naturally be entitled to a full
refund of the US$1 billion-plus that it has
expended on the project already, should the
Russian contractors ultimately throw in the towel
once their lame excuses are exhausted.
Already, the lengthy delay has marred the
prospect of additional Russian power plants for
Iran, as envisaged in a memorandum of
understanding signed in Moscow in July 2002.
Indeed, Russia has much to lose and little to gain
from the Iranian nuclear row.
For the
moment, however, with the Bushehr reactor
officially some "95%" completed and slated for
operation in late 2007, Moscow is tacitly using it
as a trump card to bring Iran into line with the
IAEA's and the UN Security Council's demands. This
is evidenced by US officials such as Nicholas
Burns, the under secretary of state, who
explicitly asked Russia to link Bushehr's fate to
Iran's response to the UN's demands.
However, this is a risky proposition that
endangers Russia's relations with Iran on a
long-term basis. What Moscow policymakers should
concentrate on as a viable alternative is how to
bring the IAEA back into the picture and save the
Security Council from yet another paralyzing
crisis.
This requires, in turn, that
Moscow jettison its doublespeak once and for all
and speak with one voice on Iran, instead of
showing more and more signs of an unhealthy
bipolar disorder when it comes to Iran.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear
Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential
latent", Harvard International Review, and is
author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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