by Mark N. Katz
An article by Simon Watkins, entitled “Russia Gains Stranglehold Over Persian Gulf” and published by Oil Price.com on August 4, raises the concern that Russian-Iranian cooperation is turning into a genuine military alliance. In the article, Watkins reported that “senior sources close to the Iranian regime” told him about several ways in which Russian-Iranian military and economic cooperation are set to increase. These include plans for Russian use of two Iranian ports for its warships and nuclear subs, the deployment of hundreds of Russian military advisers to guard them, and Russian use of an Iranian airbase for its advanced Su-57 fighter aircraft—possibly for the next fifty years. In addition, these Iranian sources claim that Russia will sell S-400 air defense missile systems to Iran (the Russian sale of which to Turkey has served to further antagonize U.S.-Turkish relations). Further, Moscow will invest US$250 billion in the Iranian petroleum sector over a five year period, and in return Iran will give Russian firms preferential access to investment opportunities and other concessions (including purchasing Iranian oil at a deep discount from world market prices).
I have no doubt that Mr. Watkins is accurately reporting what these “senior sources close to the Iranian regime” told him. There is, though, reason to doubt that everything they told him is accurate or that Vladimir Putin is about to gain a stranglehold over the Gulf.
To begin with, it is highly doubtful that cash-strapped Russian firms would be able to invest US$250 billion in the Iranian petroleum sector, especially over the short period of five years. In addition to just not having this kind of money to invest, Russian petroleum firms are hardly likely to invest a lot of money just to increase the world’s supply of petroleum, which will only serve to enhance the downward pressure on oil prices that U.S. shale is already causing. If anything, Russian petroleum firms may be grateful that the Trump administration’s increased sanctions on Iran are serving to reduce Iran’s petroleum exports, and hence relieve the downward pressure on oil prices.
In addition, while the Trump administration’s economic sanctions on Iran serve to increase Iranian dependence on Russia, Tehran does not have to rely on Moscow alone. The European Union is taking some steps to continue trading with Iran despite U.S. sanctions, and China is highly likely to continue doing so as well.
Further, as Shireen Hunter recently pointed out in LobeLog, the Iranian constitution forbids granting base rights to foreign countries, and doing so would be highly unpopular with the Iranian public—as the August 2016 episode, in which the Russian defense minister announced that Russia was making use of an Iranian air base, showed. If the Russian Navy is going to make use of Iranian ports at all, Tehran will want to keep this as low-key as possible.
Why, then, would Iranian sources claim that Russian-Iranian military and economic cooperation is going to become more extensive than it is actually likely to be? An important part of the answer is undoubtedly that Tehran wants to warn U.S., European, and Arab Gulf officials that if the Trump administration continues to pressure Iran, Tehran can turn to Russia for support. But it is not at all clear that Russia would do any of the things that these Iranian sources claim it has agreed to do. Not only is Moscow unlikely to want to get involved in any conflict between the U.S. and its allies on the one hand and Iran on the other, but Putin may cynically see a benefit to such a conflict. A U.S. bogged down in an inconclusive conflict with Iran, after all, is going to be even less able than it is now to counter Russia.
Further, Moscow is undoubtedly aware that if Russia increases its military ties to Iran (as the “senior sources close to the Iranian regime” told Oilprice.com), this will result in pushing all those who (rightly or wrongly) see Iran as their primary enemy closer to the U.S. And Putin is unlikely to want to do this. Except in Syria, he has displayed a preference for pursuing an “even-handed” policy between opposing sides in the Middle East’s many conflicts, and while he strongly supports the Assad regime over its opponents in Syria, he has taken a more even-handed approach to the Turkish-Kurdish and Israeli-Iranian conflicts taking place there. Putin may want to support Iran against the U.S. to some extent, but not so much that this results in interrupting Moscow’s growing ties to the Arab Gulf states in particular. In other words, even in the unlikely event that Russia acquires a “stranglehold” over Iran, this will not allow it to acquire similar influence over the Gulf as a whole.
This is not the first occasion in which Iranian sources privately told a Western journalist or scholar about how U.S. pressure on Iran is pushing Tehran closer to Moscow. Such statements, though, will only be credible if and when the highest level Russian and Iranian officials make them publicly.
@KOOSHY,
I couldn’t have said it any better! Mr Katz like Ms Hunter has always had a bias opinions about the world outside of the US and his credibility is questionable at best. A very serious soul searching by the western world is over due! Unfortunately the easiest path for the West is to falsely blame others and utilize the lies as facts and then act on them militarily.
If I may add one more destroyed country to your good list and that is Syria. The created terrorist group by the Trio (Saudi, Israel and the US) are solely responsible for the civil war and destruction of Syria. Additionally, the other created terrorist group with the white helmets which were supplied with chemical weapons are solely responsible for entrapment of the innocents and the use of Chlorine gas on them while the innocents had no way of scaping to stay alive!
Bravo Russia, Iran and Hezbollah of Lebanon and Shame on the rest of us!
Kooshy
They began with Yugoslavia.
FYI
I think the new era of regime changes started with disintegration of USSR. The first color revolution and regime change began with The failed Tiananmen Square which since China was not yet a major economy / power they thought they can eliminate any future threat coming from China and therefore NK to pacific theater, while USSR was mostly done. That failure made necessary to destroy Yugoslavia to sure up the west against a resurrection of Russia. All there in Zbig’ GC but things didn’t work out well (wishful thinking’s) because they lost the narrative, mostly due to WW internet and their own savage inhuman post 911 actions which was broadcast by global access to internet. They have lost the moral high ground narrative and no longer need to parented.
So now comes showing the teeth and bullying the world, without hiding. All standard declining supper power( you read empire) status. This phase will pass to. Bolton is now the face of this nation without any national shame, what would one think that means to the rest of the world ?
Kooshy
Yes, they demonstrate no sense of honor.
I agree that some of the views of the author are very influenced by the classical U.S. vision perceiving itself as THE WEST. The experience by U.S. becoming by default the power, after WWII when the whole world was piles of rubble: Europe, Russia, China, Japan just flattened, is paramount to understand this bias. Plus it seems to me the author has likely influence likely from central Europe as well, not only with heavy anti-soviet’s beliefs but preferential views about the Middle East peace process as well. Many observers from other western sources like myself don’t agree at all with this U.S. = West assumption and on the contrary are living and witnessing the huge phenomenon of the decoupling of the Anglosphere from the rest of the world. Trump and Brexit are expressions of the same tectonic plate displacements. Europe and China are gaining relevant presence as Russia indeed. And contrary to the typical U.S. short sight background (cowboy vision, made archetypal by Bolton), they are carrying millennia of historical and cultural background and this, like the Roman-Vatican legendary diplomacy, creates language and style of international contacts that are frustrating to the bare-history ‘new comers’. Concretely, applying this to Iran crisis, we see this USA/Europe decoupling in action. With gaining strength this new world wherein we should include of course the Europeans, Russians, the Chinese, Japan, India and Iran itself, with other partners around the world (Canada, Mexico, Australia come to sight) the world would be an entirely different animal.