Iran Ready, Even Russia Agrees
Iran Ready, Even Russia Agrees
Medvedev gets rid of his former ally who is guilty of having protested against Moscow for supporting decisive UN sanctions against Iran.

Now, according to the perverse principle that says that if one who until now has lied or was mistaken admits

Russia has understood...with friends like Iran it is much better to rely on enemies.


something, it is true, and nobody will pull out in front of the blazing red light that flashes from Iran. Because now Medvedev, the Russian president, has also said it, and certainly not without Putin's permission: Iran is arriving at the conclusion of its race towards the atomic bomb. "It is", he says, “moving closer to possessing the capability that could in principle be used to build nuclear weapons”. This rhetoric is a bit diplomatic, but clear enough.

And Russia, together with China, who - before the Turkish and Brazilian Pasdaran rose against the sanctions at the Security Council - has always been the main enemy of those sanctions and Iran's best friend, as well as the one who put the spoke in the wheel of the United States in order to prevent arriving at a clear definition of the problem.



For example, at the Council in December 2006, the sanctions were eased on account of pressure by the Russians, and it was just the first of four rounds supported by Putin in Iran's favor. Due to the fact that Russia's friendship with Iran is one strategically linked to the ancient division between the world's great powers, the Cold War still exists and implies that the Middle East sees Russia deployed where once it could find the Soviet Union or in a relationship, certainly less evident today, with anti-Western powers against Israel, seen as America's long arm.



The Russian friendship with Iran has always been very pragmatic, made so by the construction of the indispensable Bushehr nuclear power plant, that will be active by this September. Russia cemented this  by sending a stream of experts on nuclear facilities, by weapons agreements such as the S-300 system, whose outcome is still uncertain, but that is nevertheless a ground air defense system intended to cover Iran with an invincible shield against possible attacks on its precious nuclear plants.



Russia had also, along with China and some Islamic countries, recognized the legitimacy of the new Iranian government in June 2009, when the whole world was seething with indignation at the suppression of the crowds in the streets, with assassinations and kidnappings. The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov  proclaimed that the Iranian elections were only an internal matter. And in order to thank him, shortly afterwards, Ahmadinejad went to Moscow and various treaties and agreements were signed.

Yet this has changed: a few months ago, in December 2009, the Russian representative to the IAEA took a more cautious position than usual towards "secret documents" that showed the construction of a nuclear weapon.



Putin's Russia has begun to seriously take offense vis-a-vis Ahmadinejad, especially when he dared to protest and even threaten the all-time ally at the moment in which Putin had decided in favor of the sanctions at the last round of the Security Council on June the 9th: the logic of Russian pride took over, Iran cannot dream of managing Great Mother Russia against new Islamic powers, which includes numerous Russian conflicts with Islam, for example in Chechnya, which is a very painful subject.

Moreover, even Putin and Medvedev, like Obama, especially after the latest findings by intelligence services (Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA, announced a week ago that Iran is already able to build two bombs) have grasped the risk - no longer postponable - of an Iran, which hasn't given the slightest sign of appreciating the soft line in all these months and years of Western pressure and Russian kindness. Obama has evidently changed his mind based on definitive information and even Russia has understood accordingly - and a bit perhaps in competition with respect to the world's leadership - that with friends like Iran it is much better to rely on enemies.




Israel, faced with a situation like this, might feel more serene now that there is a global policy of serious sanctions that block Iran's international trade and its acquisition of gasoline, which it is incapable of producing alone and which is supplied mainly by Russia and China.

On the other hand, one can read in this global pressure that is consolidating at present, the hint that the destruction of Iran's nuclear plants is by now not such an unrealistic and solitary hypothesis, and that perhaps Israel is not the only country thinking of it.

Translation by Amy K. Rosenthal