When Mideast analysts who know what they’re talking about (i.e. Stratfor) have previously gotten all giddy about prospects for peace in the Mideast, I have always had this kneejerk roll-eyes reaction. Not that their relatively pricey news isn’t worth it (far, far from it). But from my vastly less informed viewpoint, there are simply too many people invested in continuing the “stable disequilibrium” of the Iraq mess–both inside and outside the Middle East–for Mideast “peace” to be anything but an accidental, inevitably-aborted pregnancy.
For example, if Baghdad ever stopped cannibalizing itself, Kurdish independence would be jeopardized. The Kurds are probably not involved in any Iraqi sectarian problems right now, but they have 100,000 very well-equipped and well-trained soldiers. The Kurds could easily scuttle Iraqi unification if they wanted to.
The rest of our Gulf “friends” have enjoyed a half-decade windfall from oil’s “structural upward volatility” in oil prices, primed by Alan Greenspan and sparked by the Iraq war.
Ratcheting up Gulf tensions, and thus upping the perceived risk premium of oil, is easy for Iran. Sunni actors for their part tremble at the Iranians’ rise (a derivative of the Iraq mess) but they have no complaints about higher risk premia for oil, as long as it’s not their pipelines getting bombed.
Iraq has also been a godsend to the Saudi royal family, because Iraq has effectively imported all radicalized Saudi youths who would otherwise have followed in Juhaiman al-Utaibi’s footsteps. For the Saudis, although Iraq has powered international volatility by abetting the rise of Iran (bad), Iraq has soaked up the blood of every Saudi kid who would otherwise be throwing Molotov cocktails at the Saudi royal family (very good). (The best measure of supposed Saudi internal reform, btw, will be changes in the proportion of Saudis among the Iraqi body count.)
But the actor with by far the least to lose and the most to gain by sparking the Mideast powder keg is Russia. Russia is the world’s number 2 (I believe) oil exporter. It instinctively distrusts the United States on a visceral as well as a strategic level. Although it is no longer communist, Russian commodities interests (i.e. the people who run Russia) find Americans as their main competitors in global export markets, the Rusal-Alcoa rivalry being just one example.
So, the Russians have a lot of reasons to keep the Mideast on fire. Iran does too, for its own reasons. An alliance was born.
However, Soviet-Iranian relations have never been very stable. Stalin even occupied Iran in 1945, withdrawing only after the United States threatened one-way nuclear war over the issue. Iran’s current “friendship” with the Russians is very skeptical and opportunistic. Much as the Americans and Russians always, regardless of changing historical tides, find themselves fighting each other, so it is with Iran and Russia on a somewhat smaller scale.
Presumably, once the Americans are bled white enough to quit the Mideast, Russo-Iranian competition for Syria, Azerbaijan and the Central Asia ’stans (”the Great Game”) will be the decisive factor in the Iranian-Russian relationship. It’s a lot like with Sauron and Saruman in the Lord of the Rings, with Saruman, the weaker warlord, happy to align himself with the “Great Satan,” but only to the extent that it helped Saruman.
This long-run ‘inevitability’ has manifested itself in Russia’s ‘assistance’ for Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr. The Russians, who built the reactor themselves, are basically one fuel shipment away from revving up an autonomous Iranian nuclear program. Russian intelligence and armaments exporters are up to their eyeballs with the governments of Iran and Syria. However, when it comes to nuclear technology (to Iran), the Russians have been a much more capricious counterparty, constantly inventing new reasons to delay completion of the reactor. The Russians know they will lose a lot of leverage over Iran once the fuel is shipped, thus a mini-soap opera of Russian hemming, hawing, intransigence and general bad-faith behavior.
Unfortunately, the Russians are highly alarmed at the progress of American-Iranian negotiations. There is obviously a huge lobby in the United States to wind the war down in acceptable fashion. There is a large Iranian lobby, as well–even among the military, which is intricately involved in all parts of the economy. The American financial embargo of Iran has caused Iranian economic growth to be much lower, and inflation significantly higher, than it otherwise would be. The Iranian opportunity costs for ongoing hostilities are rising, if not as rapidly as for the United States.
Iran needs more concrete, long-term reasons for being a Russian proxy in the Mideast, than structurally upwardly-volatile oil prices and broken promises from the Russians over the Bushehr reactor.
It now appears that Sauron is willing to give his Saruman the ultimate ring of power in order to maintain the tempo of tension in the Mideast.
Analysis
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Nov. 30 signed into law a bill that formally suspends Russian cooperation with the West on the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. On the same day, the International Atomic Energy Agency approved a shipment of Russian nuclear fuel for transport to the Russian-built Iranian reactor at Bushehr.
The CFE — a treaty that regulates how much conventional weaponry NATO and former Warsaw Pact states can have, and where — is the cornerstone of Eurasian security architecture. … But registering Russian displeasure with the treaty is one thing; leaving it is another.
Similarly, the Bushehr reactor — so long as it is not yet on line — is Russia’s primary lever for inserting itself into Middle Eastern events. But as soon as it goes on line, the West has no reason to engage the Russians on Iranian issues, and Iran shifts from needing tutors for its nuclear program to having the infrastructure in place to be self-taught. In the Russian mind, ending that influence could be worth the cost if it locks Iran and the United States into a protracted struggle.
The bottom line is that both leaving the CFE and making Bushehr operational are not rhetorical moves, but bridge burners that will force other powers to adjust their long-term security policies. …
Russia feels forced to take such actions because its world is quickly evolving in a direction it greatly fears. The European Union and NATO take up Russia’s entire western horizon and show few signs of being finished with their enlargements. The United States might have achieved some breakthrough in the past week on both the Israeli-Palestinian issue and relations with Iran. Simply put, things are coming to a head. …
[...] Russia is ending the budding US-Iran [...]