Rooyesh

VLADIMIR PUTIN is an erudite man. During a meeting with Germany’s Angela Merkel in Wiesbaden on October 15th, he noted that this was the spa town where Dostoyevsky played and lost at roulette.

Yet in Tehran the next day, he kept his knowledge of 19th-century literature quiet, choosing not to mention a Russian poet and diplomat, Alexander Griboyedov, who was killed in Tehran when the Russian embassy was destroyed by a mob.

Russia’s deep-rooted apprehension about Iran echoed in the news spread by its security services on the eve of Mr Putin’s visit that Islamic fanatics were plotting to kill the Russian president. This added spice to Mr Putin’s attendance at a summit of Caspian countries. (The last Russian leader to come to Tehran was Stalin in 1943, for a summit meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt.)

On the face of it, Mr Putin gets on with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; he even invited the Iranian president to Moscow. Talking to a Russian news agency, Mr Ahmadinejad insisted that Russia and Iran were natural allies. As for Mr Putin, he noted that “Russia is the only country that has assisted Iran in implementing its peaceful nuclear programme.” And, in a dig at the West, he said “we should not even be thinking of making use of force in the region”, and that no Caspian country should allow its territory to be used by a third country as a military base against another.

This chumminess may seem just another example of Russia’s anti-Western foreign policy, especially as it came soon after a frosty meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates, respectively America’s secretaries of state and defence. Mr Putin kept the two waiting for more than half an hour, and then poured scorn on America’s planned missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. He also repeated Russia’s threats to pull out of the INF treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles, unless its curbs are extended to other countries.

Certainly Russia’s foreign policy has not been helpful to America. But it was never meant to be. Russia only reluctantly signed up to two United Nations sanctions resolutions against Iran, and it has so far refused to back a third. Mr Putin claims that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, and argues that further sanctions will do no good to anyone. Less helpful to the West has been the sale of Russian anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

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. This week Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, flew to Moscow to discuss Mr Putin’s ideas for breaking the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as well as the Palestinian peace process.

Yet Russia has no wish to alienate Iran, either. Iran has kept out of Russia’s military conflict in Chechnya and has not intervened in either the Caucasus or Central Asia. Russia wants to keep it that way, and also to protect its own commercial interests in Iran. On this basis, to be seen to back even a hypothetical attack on Iran by the Americans would be suicidal. Which is not to say that Russia would side with Iran in any military conflict. “An American pilot hit by a Russian-made rocket would not be in Russia’s interest,” comments Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Centre in Moscow.

This is also why, for all his apparent friendliness, Mr Putin trod carefully in Tehran. He went out of his way to explain that his visit was planned five years ago as part of a five-country summit, not a bilateral trip. He did not pledge Russian support for Iran in case of a military attack, and he refused to set a date for the delivery of the nuclear fuel for the Bushehr nuclear reactor complex that Russia has helped Iran complete. “I only gave promises to my mother when I was a little boy,” Mr Putin sneered in answer to an Iranian journalist.

Mr Putin’s visit to Tehran is an example of the sort of independent foreign policy that the Kremlin favours these days. When Mr Putin telephoned George Bush immediately after the September 11th, 2001 attacks he made the choice to ally Russia’s interests with those of America. That alliance no longer holds. Russia may not be with Iran, but it is not with America and Europe either. It continues to oppose missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic (see article), not because they threaten Russia’s own nuclear capacity, but because they do not sit with the Kremlin’s world view. “What Russia craves is respect. It does not want to be a junior partner—it wants to be an equal,” says Mr Trenin. That makes Russia less ready than it once was to cede to Western pressures.

Russia is, of course, entitled to pursue its own interests. What is less clear is whether it will serve these in the longer term by distancing itself from the West. An aggressive energy policy in Europe has backfired as the Europeans look for ways to protect themselves from Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas giant. Mr Putin’s independent foreign policy thus carries its own risks. He can only hope to be luckier than the famous 19th century Russian novelist was in Germany.

Source: Economist

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the world must not be “forced into retreat” against Islamic terrorists as it faced a situation similar to the Nazi threat before World War II.

In his first major speech since leaving office in June, Blair told a charity dinner in New York: “Analogies with the past are never properly accurate and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading but in pure chronology I sometimes wonder if we’re not in the 1920s or 1930s again.

“This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilizing countries whose people wish to live in peace.”

Blair’s speech Thursday came days after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated the Bush administration’s stance that “all options” must be kept “on the table” in confronting the threats posed by Iran. This was a reference to the option of using military action against the long-time U.S. adversary.

Addressing the issue of terrorists, Blair continued: “There is a tendency even now, even in some of our own circles, to believe that they are as they are because we have provoked them and if we left them alone they would leave us alone,” he said.

Blair, who gave strong personal backing to U.S. President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks, added: “I fear this is mistaken. They have no intention of leaving us alone.

“They have made their choice and leave us with only one to make — to be forced into retreat or to exhibit even greater determination and belief in standing up for our values than they do in standing up for their’s.”

Blair, who now represents the Quartet of the United States, Europe, Russia and the United Nations on the Middle East, said: “Unfortunately I tell you in all frankness that this struggle is far from over.

“Out there in the Middle East we’ve seen … the ideology driving this extremism and terror is not exhausted. On the contrary it believes it can and will exhaust us first.

He added: “America and Europe should not be divided, we should stand up together.

“The values we share are as vital and true and, above all, needed today as they have been at any time in the last 100 years.”

Source: Time

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert flew to Moscow on Thursday in a surprise visit to discuss Iran’s nuclear program with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who just returned from talks with Iranian leaders in Tehran.

The two leaders also were expected to discuss an arms deal that Russia is to sign with Syria, and Russia’s role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts. Olmert’s one-day visit was announced only after Putin had returned from Iran, where he vowed Tuesday to support Iran’s pursuit of nuclear energy and warned “outside forces” — hinting at the United States — against using force against Tehran. Olmert “will be very clear on the Israeli position that in no way can Iran achieve nuclear capability, that Iranian nuclear capability threatens the world, including Russia,” Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Thursday.

In announcing the one-day trip Wednesday, she said it had been scheduled several days earlier. Israel considers Iran to be a threat to its existence, while Russia is a major provider of technology for Tehran’s nuclear program, which the West strongly suspects is directed at the development of nuclear weapons. President Bush said Wednesday that he wanted to get a readout directly from Putin about his visit to Iran and issued a stark warning that a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger World War III.

While in Tehran, Putin made an unspecified proposal concerning Iran’s nuclear program to the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported. Officials close to hardliners within Iran’s ruling Islamic establishment said they believed the proposal involved a “timeout” on sanctions if Iran suspends uranium enrichment. On Thursday, however, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Putin “did not say any word” about the nuclear program during his meeting with the supreme leader, IRNA reported. Olmert’s talks with Putin also were expected to address new arms deals — reportedly Iranian-funded — under which Moscow would supply Syria with advanced surface-to-air and anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has not previously sold to other countries. Israel says Russian arms sold to Syria and Iran have been used by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

Another possible item on the agenda could be last month’s airstrike deep into Syria, in which the Israeli aircraft slipped past Russian-made Syrian air defense systems, hit their target and then left unchallenged. Syrian President Bashar Assad has said Israel bombed an “unused military building” in the Sept. 6 raid. Israel has been extremely secretive about the affair and only recently relaxed censorship to allow Israel-based journalists to report that Israeli aircraft attacked a military target deep inside Syria. The visit was announced as visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Israeli and Palestinian leaders as part of preparations for a U.S.-hosted peace conference in November or December. Rice was heading for London seeking support from Jordan’s King Abdullah II for the conference after telling Israelis and Palestinians they have a new “moment of opportunity” to forge peace, despite the obstacles.

Source: Time magazine

European governments are deeply divided over how far and how fast to go in imposing new sanctions against Iran, in what could undermine a new U.S. effort to mobilize allies to act outside of the United Nations, according to European officials.

At a meeting in Brussels on Monday, European Union foreign ministers agreed to consider modest steps but not necessarily the kind of dramatic moves that Washington is now considering, the officials said. The session over what Europe should do to pressure Iran was described by officials as “fractious,” “intense” and with “a bit of blood left on the carpet” from the debate. Britain and France, which initiated the call for joint European action, back tough new multilateral sanctions outside the U.N. Security Council. But other countries, notably Italy and Austria, want significantly less serious steps. Germany fell somewhere in between, said European and U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the debate is not public.

Squeezing Iran through diplomatic pressure and sanctions has become one of the Bush administration’s top priorities because of questions about Tehran’s nuclear objectives. “My intent is to continue to rally the world, to send a focused signal to the Iranian government that we will continue to work to isolate you in the hopes that at some point in time somebody else shows up and says it’s not worth the isolation,” President Bush said in a news conference yesterday. But the Bush administration has been increasingly concerned about the international community losing momentum, since Russia and China — which both wield vetoes on the Security Council — have delayed a third U.N. resolution, originally expected to happen this summer, until the end of the year or early next year.

Moscow and Beijing also oppose U.S. efforts to significantly increase pressure on Tehran after it failed to comply with two earlier resolutions demanding suspension of a uranium-enrichment program that can be used both for nuclear energy and to develop the world’s deadliest bomb. In response, Washington and Europe last month signaled their intent to organize a parallel process for tougher steps against Tehran. The Bush administration also hopes to bring in other major powers that do business with Iran, such as Japan, Australia and Canada. But there are already cracks across the Atlantic. While the United States is considering a package of actions that will effectively punish Iran for its intervention in Iraq as well as for its suspected nuclear program, the Europeans do not want to “confuse” the two issues, said a well-placed European official familiar with the debate. Bush administration officials, for example, want to designate Iran’s elite Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism under a presidential executive order.

But in European eyes, the Quds Force is linked mainly to arming, training and funding militant factions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. “We want to keep our eyes on the nuclear file,” said a second European official. The 27-nation European Union is also unlikely to move with the speed preferred by the Bush administration, which fears time will work in Iran’s favor if it is developing a nuclear weapons capability. The European Union will not even introduce proposals until its next meeting in mid-November and a vote may not happen this year, European sources added. A senior administration official said yesterday that Washington was not trying to “foist” a specific formula. “We have not suggested that they emulate exactly what we may or may not do,” he said. A senior U.S. official in Europe said there is no U.S.-European split. “They’re accepting our premise and just haggling over the details,” he said, but he acknowledged differences over specific steps.

Source: Robin Wright, the Washington Post