Iran and Russia: an unsteady axis

John Raine

Source Link

Tehran’s military support for Russia has involved the Iranian regime in an elective, foreign war at a time of domestic crisis. While Russia has received material contributions to its military operations and gained leverage in the Middle East, the benefits of this partnership for Iran have been less clear. The regime has a rationale, but its choice to support Russia is risky.

The decision has been publicly criticised by senior figures who reflect widespread scepticism amongst Iranians over Russia’s sincerity and value as a partner. Russia proved less than trustworthy in previous agreements on nuclear power, sanctions and the Caspian Sea. Iranian scepticism thus rests on a historical animosity. As a former colonial power and a neighbour with contested borders, Russia has been more naturally Iran’s adversary and rival than its partner.

Yet Russia and Iran share the strategic objective of countering the influence of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. The leadership in both countries use the same narrative, which includes the demonisation of NATO and denouncing the depravity of the West. Moscow and Tehran have developed their own spheres of influence in the region. Iran’s influence rests on the operational relationships that it has developed with militias and partners in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, which give it forward bases from which to pressure US allies in Israel and the Gulf. Meanwhile, Russia’s influence is more geographically dispersed and extends through financial and political means. Russia’s presence in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean, which has been significantly enhanced since its intervention in Syria, is complementary to that of Iran’s, which extends eastwards into Syria, Iraq and the Gulf. Their interests also coincide in areas where their influence is weaker, but their operational needs are similar: in the Gulf, both countries have an interest in using permissive jurisdictions to circumvent heavy US-led sanctions. Thus, despite the deep differences in the political character of the regimes, they are joined by both a strategic objective and operational requirements.

The countries, moreover, share a readiness to intervene in other nations both openly, using their armed forces, and through a heavy presence in the grey zone, in which they have developed sophisticated capabilities. Though these capabilities are idiosyncratic, they are supported by complementary skills and resources. The Iranians have, for example, expertise in sanctions evasion, uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) and militia warfare. Meanwhile, the Russians have geopolitical reach, missile and nuclear technology and, above all, intelligence. Russia’s reported use of Iran’s ghost fleet to export its oil is a more recent example of grey-zone collaboration in the economic domain. They are also both aggressive cyber actors externally and against their own populations. While both sides will retain capabilities – grey zone and conventional – for their own use, the operational coordination between the countries over the past five years, in particular against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq, has fostered sufficient trust to support a deepening exchange.

Tehran will not have provided its UAVs for free. It has no strategic interest in the defeat of Ukraine or ideological commitment to Putin’s Russia. It gives to get. The low-tech Shahed-136 would be a reasonable price to pay for access to Russian intelligence, missile technology or as a down payment on more sophisticated equipment such as SU-35 Flanker M fighter aircraft. Tehran is making a strategic investment. It is seeking, in addition to materiel support, a more existential return on its investment: Moscow’s commitment to the survival of the Islamic Republic. Tehran knows how critical Russia was to the survival of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was major-general Qasem Soleimani, the then-commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, who persuaded the Russians to intervene to save Assad and who saw first-hand the force that Russia applied. The decisive and brutal Russian intervention in Syria demonstrated Putin’s commitment to the protection of his clients. Putting substance into the strategic partnership by providing weapons in a time of war is, for Tehran, a way of turning an alignment into a pact.

But there are clear downsides and risks for the Iranian regime that weigh against these potential dividends. Many of these drawbacks have been voiced in the muted, but still audible, domestic debate. Some claim that siding with Russia will merely trap Iran in Russia’s strategic aims and subordinate its interests to Putin’s. This would make it even less likely that Iran will gain any sanctions relief from the West, which is a pressing financial priority. Russia, it is argued, wishes to make it impossible for the 2015 nuclear deal or anything like it to be revived. While that may suit the hardliners, it is not what Iran’s pragmatists or oppositionists want.

Powerful regional players with their own relationships with Moscow will also have strong views on what Iran should or should not receive in return for its military support. Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are all threatened by Iran’s missile and asymmetric capabilities and will use the influence they have in Moscow to ensure that what Iran receives from Russia is limited. The new right-wing government in Israel has already engaged with Moscow. It has made it clear that it considers Iran its primary threat, and a UAV attack on Isfahan in January 2023 may have been intended as a warning shot to Tehran. Tolerance for Russian enhancement of Iran’s capabilities will be minimal in these three countries that have taken a political risk to pursue policies on Russia independent of the US and NATO. An upgrade of Iran’s air-strike or intelligence capabilities would be incendiary for them all.

Tehran must also manage the risk that Putin returns with escalating demands, which is likely as Russia’s military requirements will grow throughout the war. Demands for more sophisticated weapon systems or for more personnel would be difficult for Tehran to meet: those systems are for the defence of the regime, not for partners’ wars. For Iran’s supreme leader to denude the country of its key defence systems to support Russia’s war at a time of heightened tension with Israel would be to undermine his own narrative of the purposes and priorities of the regime. It has made a cult and a foreign-policy agenda out of the defence of Jerusalem, not the Donbas region.

Tehran must therefore balance its commitment to Moscow with its historic and signature commitments to Palestine. The new Israeli coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already signalled its intent to take a tough line on Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israelis and Palestinians have already shed blood in Jenin and Jerusalem, and the prospect of a renewed intifada looms. While Iran will be cautious about committing itself or Hizbullah to an escalation with Tel Aviv, it will at the least seek to retain the capacity to do so. It would be more damaging for Tehran’s credibility to be absent from a conflict over Palestine and Jerusalem than Russia’s war in Ukraine. Therefore, it cannot divert resources or personnel from the Levant. And it will also not want to replace the assets that Russia has already drawn down from Syria, although it could more easily justify an enhanced presence there than deployments to Ukraine.

Iran’s leaders also have continuing problems closer to home. The domestic opposition movement is contained for now, but it has not been disarmed. With none of its demands met and its grievances continuing to be fed by the leadership’s inaction or hostility, the situation is in a dynamic state. The leadership’s potentially costly embroilment in a foreign war will only strengthen the movement’s narrative that the regime is preoccupied with its own interests. That may not matter in a country so firmly controlled by its extensive security apparatus, but if Tehran’s commitment to Moscow creates a fracture within its own defence and security establishment, it could result in regime elements aligning with the opposition. This may become more likely if the war drags on and Iran is drawn further in, or if Tehran finds itself on the losing side. Such an alignment would constitute a different level of threat to the regime’s survival than it now faces. While leaders in Tehran may currently believe that they have found a way to strengthen their axis with Moscow for an affordable price, they may be hazarding more than their UAVs on Putin winning.