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It should be abundantly clear that Moscow and Washington do not see eye-to-eye on the Iranian question. When Rice declared last Saturday that Iran had no need for even a civilian nuclear program, Lavrov countered that Iran had a full right to possess a nuclear fuel cycle. Meanwhile, Igor Ivanov, the former foreign minister who now heads the Kremlin's Security Council, is preparing a proposal to take to Tehran for the construction of a joint Iranian-Russian uranium enrichment facility for the Bushehr reactor.
Russia sees no reason to bring the Iranian file before the UN Security Council to discuss sanctions, not to mention more punitive actions, and Lavrov made clear that Russia's abstention during the Sept. 24 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which opened the possibility of referring Iran to the UN Security Council, was meant as a diplomatic courtesy to the United States.
For too long, we have pretended that disagreements between Moscow and Washington over what to do about Iran were "misunderstandings," that over time there would be a convergence between the Russian and American positions. It is very true that neither Russia nor the United States wants Iran to possess nuclear warheads. But beyond that joint position, there is no basis for a common Russian-American approach to dealing with Iran, and, in a sense, Rice's most recent failure reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of Russia's position and the nature of Iranian-Russian relations.
Ever since the end of the Cold War, and despite a recent rapprochement with Israel, the Islamic Republic has been Russia's most important partner in the Middle East. Much of this is due to economic factors. Iran has emerged as a valuable market for its cash-starved defense industries. Although the nuclear cooperation between the two states has garnered the most headlines, Russia has also been willing to sell Iran a large quantity of conventional arms, including sophisticated aircraft and submarines. In addition, unlike the West, which buys mainly raw materials from Russia, Iran is willing to purchase a variety of industrial goods.
The creation of new north-south transport corridors have given Russia virtual access to Persian Gulf ports and opened the possibility of vastly expanded trading connections not only with Iran but with other lucrative markets such as India. In short, there are powerful economic lobbies that support the expansion of Russian-Iranian ties and have no desire to see the imposition of economic sanctions that could deprive them of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in income. Given that reality, the notion that Russia would assist in applying significant economic pressure on Iran for its nuclear infractions is far-fetched and fanciful.
But even assuming that the United States was willing and able to "buy out" Iranian contracts with Russia, there is a more fundamental divide.
Washington assumes that the rest of the world shares its assessment of Tehran as an irresponsible, dangerous regime, based on its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, its refusal to recognize Israel and its support for groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Russia has a far different view. Iran kept a low profile in Central Asia after the breakup of the Soviet Union and worked with Russia to end Tajikistan's devastating civil war in 1997; and has Iran never sought to inflame the Muslim regions of Russia itself. As for Iran's transgressions, for some Russians, there is little difference between Iran and U.S. ally Pakistan, another power that had a clandestine nuclear program, that proliferated weapons technologies via the A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan (which benefited both the Iranian and North Korean programs) and that has, over the past decades, also been a state sponsor of terrorists and militants in other parts of South Asia.
Russia drew a major distinction between the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which it viewed as a dangerous cancer allowing al-Qaida to export death and mayhem all over the globe, and the Islamic Republic, which it views as a predictable, rational actor in global affairs. The mistake U.S. policymakers have made is assuming that cooperation with Russia over Afghanistan would translate into shared understandings of what to do, first in Iraq and now in Iran.
Rice's failure in Moscow ends the hope that Washington could rapidly forge a UN Security Council consensus on Iran. Unless the United States is prepared to make a major bid for Russian support -- such as conceding a Eurasian sphere of influence to Moscow -- or Iran decides to support the Chechens, the George W. Bush's administration will be left with two unpleasant alternatives: accepting a watered-down approach to Tehran that keeps the existing regime in place to acquire an advanced nuclear capability under uncertain international supervision, or preparing for costly action with only a partial coalition of major powers should Iran fail to cease and desist from its actions. In evaluating what to do next about Iran, the United States should have no illusions.
Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. Nikolas K. Gvosdev is editor of The National Interest. They contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
