Russian roulette in Tehran

This should not come as a surprise; Russia has limited interest in maintaining good ties with Israel, because of the influences attributed to it regarding US decision makers and public opinion. The Russians also know that alienation towards Israel will turn them into an irrelevant player in the Mideast arena.

However, these considerations are not enough to prompt Moscow, which views itself as a superpower, to change its global policy or even its Middle Eastern policy. What could not be achieved by President Bush and EU leaders will not be achieved by the Israeli PM. 

The warm reception Olmert received at the Kremlin and the personal connection he created with Putin should not be taken lightly. It can't be bad and may even prove useful in curbing the transfer of Russian-made arms to Hizbullah and Hamas.

Yet on the issue of the Iranian nukes, it was clear to Olmert and his entourage that Russia has does not intend to change its policy. It will continue to assist Iran build the Busher reactor and develop nuclear technology; it will also continue to thwart any initiative for sanctions that will make Teheran to think twice whether it is worthwhile for it to continue with its uranium-enrichment efforts.

The issue of striking Iranian nuclear sites cannot even be discussed with the Russians.

The question is why? What leads Russia to position itself on Iran's side and confront the West, while its leaders declared more than once that they do not wish to see another country going nuclear on their border?

The standard Russian answer to this question is long and complicated, and the gist of it is as follows: If we do not stand by Iran and won't be  partners to its nuclear program, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, who are hungry for cheap oil will inevitablu do so. These countries will not monitor the Iranians and won't use their influence in Teheran as we do in order to moderate its regime.

This answer is baseless, if only because Iran has already received from Pakistan the critical know-how it needed for uranium enrichment while the Russians were building the Busher reactor.

The Russians are well aware of this, but they continue to use the same argument, and even expand it to a proposal to build additional reactors for Iran that would allow it to acquire plutonium as well. These are odd considerations, and an even odder policy on the part of a superpower that insists on claiming that it is concerned by the possibility that its neighbor, with its radical leadership, would possess nuclear capabilities.

'They're threatening you, not us'

I recently heard from German experts and a Russian figure familiar with the president's considerations a possible explanation for the contradictions between the official Russian position and the policy pursued by the Kremlin in practice. The people I spoke with were united by the opinion that in contradiction to official declarations, Moscow is not really concerned by an Iranian bomb.

Officials in Teheran know that nearby Russia has enough nuclear weapons and missiles that can wipe out the whole of Iran, if it only dares make threats, while Iran is only able to inflict limited damage on Russia. In addition, Russia learned to live with a nuclear threat during the years of the Cold War, and it coexists comfortably with additional third-world nuclear nations: China, North Korea, India, and Pakistan.

Another country with limited nuclear capability, as Iran will become, does not change the level of security threat on Russia according to the same school of thought. What's more, Russia has good ties of all kinds with Iran, and the diplomatic assistance currently granted by the Kremlin minimizes even more the probability of a threat.

"The Iranians threaten you and the Americans in the Persian Gulf, not us," the Russian expert told me. And this is in fact the whole story. Russia is not overly concerned by Iran's nuke program and believes this is a problem for Israel and the US, and to a lesser extent for European countries. In any event, it is not a Russian problem.

Russia's partial cooperation with Western efforts to bring about an end to uranium enrichment in Iran matches perfectly the level of threat Russia feels on the part of a nuclear Teheran, and also stems from an additional consideration: The hope of benefiting from the proposed compromise solution to the crisis, according to which Iran will enrich uranium on Russian soil. Put simply, Russia is holding both hands of the stick and is trying to take advantage of all possibilities.

European officials believe that the Russian policy can be changed, and that this is only a matter of a price tag. Russia is angry in the face of the NATO and EU expansion eastward to countries that in the past were Soviet allies and satellite states. For Russia this constitutes a strategic threat 10 times more severe than Iran's nuclearization.

In addition, Russia is upset by the fact that Washington is assisting "hostile" parties and politicians to gain power in countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union and are perceived by Moscow as being in its "backyard" – Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, and more.

American intervention is those countries is perceived in Moscow as a direct attempt to undermine it and its influence. There are also economic interests, such as the oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Europe, which the US is attempting to place through areas and countries that do not belong to Russia; Moscow wants this piece of the pie for itself.

All this shows that if the West seeks Russian assistance on the Iranian issue, it will have to recognize Moscow as a superpower with interests and areas of influence – no longer a poor relative in the dignified group of the eight industrial nations. Washington will also have to lower its profile in Eastern Europe and stop slamming Russia in matters related to human rights and democracy, as Vice President Cheney recently did.

Israel has an interest in seeing such change in American policy, but it is doubtful whether it will happen during the Bush era. Therefore, we can assume that in the next two years at least, Russia will continue to show consistent support for Iran, who on its part will continue to enrich uranium uninterruptedly.