by George L. Simpson, Jr.
1st part of 2
Recent years have witnessed the rise of irregular but frequently intensive opposition to U.S. global preeminence by Russia and China. In their own ways, and in pursuit of their own interests, each of these authoritarian governments has established an informal alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran. For its part, the Khamenei regime in Tehran continues to view the United States as the "Great Satan" and works against American interests by engaging in international terrorism,[1] aiding in attacks on U.S. and coalition personnel in Iraq[2] and Afghanistan,[3] working to derail any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,[4] and most of all by seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
There is a long history of conflict between Russia and Iran, so why is Moscow now warmly regarded by the Islamist regime, and why does Moscow, in turn, court Tehran? Furthermore, what explains Iran's new alliance with China? Has a new axis, opposed to the United States and Europe, formed, and if so, what are its roots and ramifications?
A New Geostrategic Axis?
Russian commentator Andrei Volnov has called the de facto Moscow-Beijing-Tehran alignment "a new geostrategic axis."[5] While such a characterization is more metaphor than reality, a trilateral combination, based on the common goals of promoting economic self-interest and reducing U.S. influence, certainly has been built on the foundations of fairly recent but significant bilateral ties between the two countries and Tehran. Thus, Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, notes that Moscow's ties with the Iranian regime "reflect a geopolitical agenda which is at least twenty years old."[6] Russia is engaged in what might be called "strategic opportunism" as it constantly fishes in troubled waters with the goal of identifying vulnerabilities that its policy makers can exploit.[7] Similarly, one can trace Beijing's increasing links with Tehran to the first years of the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s.[8] For its part, Iran has followed a consistent anti-America and anti-Israel path since its 1979 revolution.
Proponents of an informal alliance from the Russian Federation, China, and Iran present it as a reaction to the unilateralism of the United States and alleged U.S. aspirations for global hegemony. They consider the United States a significant rival and a threat to their long-term security. Consequently, Russia's goal, according to Cohen, is to engage in a "balancing strategy" that will knock the United States down a notch and thus revise the international status quo. While Cohen makes this point for Moscow's policy, it is an equally apt characterization of Beijing's approach as well.[9]
The View from Beijing
The leaders of China and Iran feel that they are the proud heirs to two great and ancient civilizations that have been humiliated and made victims of Western imperial aggression. They believe that Washington's "hegemonism" represents the unjust continuation of long-standing Western efforts to keep them weak and subordinate.[10] Hence, Sino-Iranian relations are bound by what Asia and Middle East analyst John Calabrese calls a "kinship of nationalisms."[11]
Perhaps more importantly, an understanding of economic issues further explains China's lukewarm support for the United States in its disputes with Iran. China, which has one of the world's fastest growing economies and which has designs on becoming an economic superpower, is today the world's second largest consumer of oil. Nearly 60 percent of its oil is imported from the Middle East. Iran, which possesses about 10 percent of the world's proven petroleum reserves, replaced Saudi Arabia as the leading supplier of oil to China in May 2009. Indeed, since reaching an agreement in October 2004, Beijing and Tehran have penned energy deals that purportedly are worth more than US$120 billion.[12]
Furthermore, Iran's oil producing facilities and equipment are in serious need of modernization. Beijing's willingness to invest in this vital sector of the Iranian economy (as much as 90 percent of Iran's export income comes from oil) is crucial to the fiscal well-being of the present Islamist regime, which, according to official estimates, faces an 11 percent unemployment rate and inflation exceeding 13 percent.[13] Thus, the China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil producer and supplier, signed a deal in January 2007 worth $3.6 billion to develop Iranian offshore gas fields. As recently as June 2009, the same company put its name to a $2 billion contract for development of the northern section of Iran's Azadegan oil field near Ahvaz.[14]
Despite U.S. pressure to keep Iran economically isolated, China has leaped into the void created by U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution. In 2003, trade between the People's Republic and Iran reached a record $4 billion, and that figure soared to $16 billion in 2006 and $29 billion in 2008.[15] Crude oil constitutes 80 percent of China's imports from the Islamic Republic with mineral and chemical products making up most of the remainder. Beijing's exports are more diversified, with machinery, electrical appliances, textiles, vehicles, and aircraft comprising the most important commodities in demand from Iran.[16]
Before 1997, Beijing had, for more than a decade, been Iran's most important partner in helping the Islamist regime develop its nuclear capability. As China expert John W. Garver writes, China's cooperation with Iran "was extensive, sustained over a fairly long period, and of crucial importance to Iran's nuclear effort."[17] The Chinese have apparently retreated from their policy of direct cooperation with the mullahs on the nuclear front since that time.
The View from Moscow
One might think that the long history of conflict between Russia and Persia would preclude Iran from seeking Russian aid. As far back as Peter the Great (r.1682-1725), tsars and tsarinas have nibbled at Iranian borders in the Caucasus and the Caspian region. Over time, first the Romanovs, then the communists intervened more and more in Persian affairs, with the latter going so far as to establish short-lived "People's Republics" in Kurdish and Azeri regions of Iran. Despite this, the courtship continues.
Russia also has economic reasons to back the Tehran regime. Russia's trade with Iran is more modest than China's but nevertheless significant. Total trade between the two countries equaled $3.2 billion in 2008 with analysts predicting even higher numbers within a few years. As both countries are major energy producers, they share a common interest in establishing pricing policies for oil and natural gas as well as manipulating these markets to their advantage.
More significant, however, is Moscow's role in the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The Russian government has assisted in Iran's construction of the $800 million Bushehr nuclear power plant and has helped the mullahs obtain nuclear knowledge.[18] As a result, Moscow, as well as Beijing, is at odds with Washington over how to deal with Tehran's efforts to gain a nuclear capability. China and Russia, both of which wield veto power on the United Nations Security Council, have consistently obstructed efforts in the U.N. to halt Tehran's drive to obtain nuclear weapons. While it is true that from time to time, both countries have called on Iran's regime (which is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), neither has supported effective sanctions or forceful measures to deal with the problem. Gennady Yevstafyev, a senior adviser at the Center for Policy Studies in Russia, has gone so far as to contend that "Washington closed its eyes to the creation of nuclear weapons by its strategic partner, Pakistan. But now it is threatening a war on its ex-strategic partner Iran for the same crime."[19]
Moscow continues to talk out of both sides of its mouth. Sergei Kiryienko, the director-general of Rosatom, Russia's federal atomic energy agency, has stated the official Russian position that "broad access to civilian nuclear power must be guaranteed while at the same time there must be a guarantee that weapons of mass destruction will not proliferate under any circumstances."[20] As recently as October 2007, then-president Vladimir Putin described a nuclear armed Iran to be a "strategic threat" to Russia when he met with leaders of the European Jewish Congress and with French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow. Yet the Russian leader went on to claim that there was no "objective data" proving that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons so that "we proceed from a position that Iran has no such plans."[21] What lies behind the inscrutable strongman's thinking is difficult to say for certain, but one can speculate that Putin's antipathy towards the United States as well as his desire to conciliate cronies within the Russian Federation's military-industrial complex goes a long way to explain this gamble.
China, Russia, and Iranian Weaponry
Arms sales to Iran by China and Russia, which the three countries insist are lawful, is another source of contention between the latter two and Washington.[22] Russia is Iran's biggest weapons supplier by a wide margin, though China is also an important source. Russia reportedly supports the Islamic Republic's development of ballistic missiles, which former Secretary of State Colin Powell warns have been redesigned to enable them to carry nuclear warheads.[23] Currently, the Iranian military is trying to develop the Shahab-6 missile, a variant of the North Korean Taep'o-dong-2C/3, which will have a range of 3,500 miles, putting Europe within its sights. There are unverified reports that the Russians have transferred rocket engine technology for this program and even some speculation that Moscow is helping Tehran with a missile that will have a 6,300-mile range, enabling it to reach the eastern seaboard of the United States.[24]
For its part, although the Chinese government denies as "groundless allegation[s]" reports about its role in supplying Iran with weaponry,[25] it is clear that it has transferred missile components and technology to Iran since the 1980s.[26] For example, Tehran has obtained Chinese-made anti-ship surface-to-surface C-801 and C-802 missiles, which pose a potential threat to Persian Gulf shipping and U.S. naval vessels in the region.[27].
According to the CIA and experts in the field, Iran is also trying to develop sophisticated biological and chemical weapons.[28] These efforts go back to the Iran-Iraq war when the Iranians were on the receiving end of Iraqi chemical attacks. Although Iran has ratified the Biological Weapons Convention, specialists believe that with the help of Russian experts, it is "in the advanced research and development phase" of weaponizing chemical toxins and living organisms.[29] For its part, China has helped in Iran's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by selling precursor and dual-use chemicals, as well as the technology and equipment needed to use them. Thus there is good reason to conclude that "the Iranian leadership intends to maintain a robust CW [chemical weapons] capability."[30]
Washington is concerned not just with Iranian possession of sophisticated weapons but with the prospect of Tehran transferring them to terrorist proxies, such as Lebanese-based Hezbollah. In fact, the group launched an Iranian C-802 missile during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, which hit the Israeli missile frigate Hanit.[31] According to Israeli press reports, the mullahs are currently supplying Iranian-made Zelzal and upgraded Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles to the radical Shi'i group.[32] In August 2009, Israeli president Shimon Peres claimed that Hezbollah currently had 80,000 Iranian-supplied missiles.[33] While neither Moscow nor Beijing is directly responsible for these developments, neither appears particularly concerned when the weapons or technologies they transfer to Iran find their way into the hands of terrorist organizations.
Finally, both Moscow and Beijing are aiding the Iranian military as it develops advanced conventional weapons. Despite Washington's strong objections, by late 2006, the Russia government had sold and begun delivery to Tehran of twenty-nine of its Tor-M1 air defense systems. Moscow argues that the $700 million sale is totally legal and asserts that these are "defensive" weapons.[34] Iran's acquisition of such a sophisticated and advanced system poses a threat to any potential U.S. or Israeli air attack to take out Tehran's nuclear facilities.[35] Iran has also acquired at least ten Russian-made Pantsyr-S1E self-propelled short-range gun and missile air defense systems from Syria.[36] In March 2007, the Russian investigative journalist Ivan Safronov died mysteriously after learning that Moscow's military-industrial complex was planning to transfer S-300VB missiles to Iran via Belarus.[37] These are Russia's equivalent to the U.S.'s Patriot missiles: The S-300VB is capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and has a range of 150 kilometers.[38] As of this writing, it appears that Iran has not received the weapons, but Iranian officials are eager to do so.[39] There are numerous reports that Russia and China have also covertly sold Iran an array of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), combat aircraft, sophisticated radar systems, and fast-attack missile vessels.[40] Some of the SAMs have apparently made their way to insurgents fighting coalition forces in Iraq.[41] Sources also claim that either China or Kyrgyzstan has sold the Iranians high-speed torpedoes originally produced by the Russians.[42]
George L. Simpson, Jr., is professor and chair of the history department at High Point University.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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