Source: Arab48

A number of international experts believe that after the PLO occurred on the official level in IRI the Iranian leadership had taken the posture of promoting international terrorism, creating further threats to peace. At the same time appeals to wipe out “a cancer” started to be heard. The spell was first voiced by Ayatollah Hamejni, then was taken over his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Turning to the experience of other countries, it is a well-known fact that the unresolved domestic problems of any State are sometimes hidden behind a foreign policy threats, regardless of whether there is any risk. In the case of Iran, it can be said that during the “post-revolution period” the country passed through different stages of development – both economic downturns and periods of its recovery were observed. Over the years, Iran has adapted to the prevailing so far certain isolation. But the situation became really worse after the tightening of international sanctions on the country’s nuclear program. In large part this was supported by repeated calls of Israel to “punish Iran for aggressiveness” and a potential “nuclear threat” allegedly posed ever from that country.

Without addressing the question in detail about the nature of Iran’s nuclear programme, we’ll just note in this article, that another reason for the growing confrontation is the Iran’s support of radical groups “Hamas”, “Hezbollah” and others openly combating against Israel.

According to our observations, while Iran has been busy preparing for the elections last year, the Israeli side gradually exaggerated the tensions against Iran. But, as we can see, the mutual confrontation, which hypothetically could be escalated into military action, still has a virtual character.

Israeli journalist Mikhail Kheifets says, for example, “I am not sure at all that there is a serious threat to Israel from Iran”. He believes that the Iranian threat is “looming” more over the neighbouring Arab States. Iran, like Iraq of Saddam Hussein sought to “take in hand the whole Middle East oil. Israel has no oil. From this point of view, Iran is not interested in Israel”. And the attacks against Israel, as they say, are the traditional playing of Iran’s attempts to cover up the Arab neighbours. Though the leaders of Israel, as it has already been told, still regard Iran as a real threat to the national interest and will use all available means to deprive Iran of possessing military instruments (nuclear weapons in particular) for approval of its role as a regional leader.

 According to some observers, the Israelis, probably hoping to use its own military capabilities, believe that their country has a real opportunity to block the Iranian nuclear programme and, consequently, to create serious obstacles for Iran to uphold its position as a regional power. It argues that even if the public condemnation of the Israeli actions are assumed to emerge from Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf countries, still the Persian monarchies would support them informally.

The danger of the “great war” against Iran persists and it comes, as some researchers believe, not only from Israel. The situation in the Persian Gulf is volatile. A famous expert on Iran Vladimir Sazhin says: “Today there is such a power on the part of the United States, Britain and other countries, that an accidental shot could start a major war, while nobody wants it”.

If you look at today’s real interests of Tell Aviv and Tehran, some observers believe that both States are threatened by the “Arab spring”, though they are unwilling to acknowledge this fact publicly. Both Israel and Iran have an interest in keeping the Assad regime in Syria, anyway, they are against the continuation of the civil war and the split of the country. Some experts even believe that if the cooperation between the two countries would be possible today, they could preserve stability in Syria, and Russia’s interest as well. Israeli writer and politician Avigdor Eskin, arguing in favor of such a grandiose plan, believes that “Israeli-Iranian contacts in should be started in Moscow at the level of non-governmental organizations. First of all, it should be a meeting between the Israeli and Iranian religious authorities. These people can prepare the ground for such a meeting in Moscow”.

What we have is a fantastic idea, even though it’s a very positive solution of the war and peace problem.

And if some figures within the Israeli public, as we have seen above, are willing to “build bridges” with Iran, the ruling elite appears to be not yet ripe for that. Moreover, by definition of a number of Israeli political analysts, the Administration uses such an expression as “Entourage” through alliances and partnerships with neighboring countries.

Hence there is an emphasis of the Jewish State to Azerbaijan, which for many years has had extremely complex and contradictory relationships with Iran. And today the Iran-Azerbaijan bilateral relations are experiencing hard times. Israel actively flirting with Azerbaijan, including the supply of arms, is considered in the IRI as a dangerous geopolitical challenge. According to Professor of the University of Technology in Tehran, Sayed Javad Miri, “Iran is absolutely convinced that the problems of the Caucasus can only be resolved by the countries of the region and the presence of non-regional players such as the United Kingdom, China, the United States or Israel only worsens the situation.”

 It is worth to notice that Iranian leaders give Russia, as a regional major power, an important place in the settlement of conflicts in the Caucasus, as well as the normalization of Iran-Israeli-American relations. And both Irange, and Israel, as noted by observers (notably, Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation) are convinced that Moscow does not want to repeat the Libyan scenario in Syria and does not want the patron of the Assad regime, – Iran has lost an important ally, and sees a threat of a conservative Sunni Salafi front creation in the Middle East, led by Saudi Arabia. As we know, few days ago at the G8 Summit in Ireland Russia confirmed the continuity of this position, though it has appeared in certain isolation among the “well-fed” Western countries.

 Returning to the issue delivered in the header, we can reasonably assume that with the new President in Iran and emerged understanding between the leaders of the United States and a number of leading countries of the West on the need for peaceful resolution of the conflict in Syria would come easing of tensions between Iran and Israel. It is unlikely that the current configuration of forces in the world and in the region, the two countries would begin military action against each other, since otherwise, could begin “great war” with the risk to turn into a third world war.

 Sergey Pivin, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the Internet magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

 News agencies reported on June,15 that the moderate politician Hassan Rouhani had won the presidential elections in Iran. And if the international community had hopes that under the new President, known as a supporter of dialogue with the United States and Western countries, Iran would be able to restore the relations with the West, still Prime Minister of Israel Netanyahu hurried to call upon the international community to maintain pressure on Iran, as saying that it is not the President who defines Iran’s nuclear policy, but the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. “We should not delude ourselves, said the Israeli Premier on June 15 in an interview with ‘Jerusalem Post’. -New Iranian President is considered to be moderate, but he calls Israel “a great Zionist Satan”. B. Netanyahu referred to the former President of Iran M. Khatami (1997-2005), who also was considered a “moderate” in the West, but after coming to power did not change the aggressive course of the country. Continuing in the same vein, the Israeli Prime Minister expressed his belief that only “military power” can have impact on Iran. He stressed that “we must do everything we can to stop that country’s nuclear program.”

 Rouhani presents himself as a centrist and pragmatist, while receiving support from both the Liberal and moderate part of the Iranian public. He is also supported by the Iranian clergy: enough to say that he was nominated for the election by the combatant clergy Society -influential religious-political organization of Iran. During the election campaign, former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, H. Rouhani promised to fix the “Tehran’s relations with the rest of the world damaged in recent years”. He is a supporter of the “constructive engagement with the world”.

 Whether the new Iranian leadership’s statements mean that there will be real understanding between Iran and the Western world, as well as decrease of military confrontation between this country and Israel, which, as we see, does not seek to establish relations with the new administration in Tehran to some degree?

 The worsening confrontation between the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and Israel requires comprehension, and this requires to scroll back some pages of bilateral relations. Only few 25-30 years ago, an Iranian-Israeli relations were considered almost a model of neighborly relations in the Middle East. At the time, Iran supplied Israel with very important oil, gas, food and much more. Israeli experts have shared their experiences in agriculture, medicine, science, high technologies in response. There were daily flights between the two countries. Hundreds of Israeli experts worked throughout Iran. In 1971-77, Israel was one of the ten largest partners of Iran. We should notice, that Israel was one of the countries, which stood at the cradle of nuclear energy creation and the application of nuclear technologies in different spheres of national economy in Iran. The Israelis laid the foundations of the Bushehr nuclear reactor, helped to prepare feasibility studies for building a research reactor in Isfahan. Israel contributed to the implementation of the programme of the Iranian peaceful atom, so the accusation that Israel opposes the development of Iran’s nuclear programme for peaceful purposes are inconsistent and unfounded.

 If we refer to the ancient history, we can find a lot of facts that illustrate the traditional good feelings between Jews and Iranians. Their roots throw back for 25 centuries ago, when the legendary King Cyrus II (Persian Kurosh), who created a great Persian Empire of the Ahmenid dynasty, issued a decree, which gave the Jews expelled from Judea right to come back to their ancestral homeland and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus became the only foreign ruler, which had a respectful mention in the Hebrew canonical literature.

 But this centuries-old Iran-Israeli interaction that took place in the interest of both parties, was abruptly interrupted in 1979 after the Islamic revolution and the overthrow of the Shah Reza Pahlavi.

 The leader of the Islamic revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini unilaterally broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. During the “post-revolutionary period” all leaders, that came to power in IRAN, called to wipe out the State of Israel”. Considering the Israel as the main enemy of the Muslim world, Iran acts with him pretty aggressively and provocatively unlike other nuclear neighbors, where Tehran acts in a very pragmatic way. This relationship, as is well known, is mutual.

 Experts regard the primary conceptual idea of the new Iranian regime in 1979, led by R. Khomeini about the need to “export” the Iranian Islamic revolution, notably on “Muslim expanses” of the Middle East region as the main cause of the fundamental swip from friendship to confrontation between Israel and Iran. Of course, it has become clear that the Jewish State in the heart of the Islamic world, has become a tangible barrier to “export products”. R. Khomeini, taking advantage of the situation for Iran, as he believed, immediately declared his country “the leader of the entire Muslim world”. In this context, Arab-Israeli relations and especially the Palestinian problem gained new meaning.

 No one, including Russian observer, was surprised, that the first foreign leader to visit Iran, literally “in the early post-revolutionary days” became Yasser Arafat. In that period he received assurances from Tehran that after the resolution of the internal political situation “they will start organization of the historic defeat of the Zionists”. For the period of waiting when Iran “is ready for such drastic action”, “tens of millions of dollars on the needs of the Palestinian revolution” were issued to Arafat. And the Mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) moved in the vacated building on the Israeli Embassy in downtown Tehran.

Sergey Pivin, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the Internet magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

However, some significant irritants remain amidst the pronounced friendliness shown by officials: There has been no change in the Azerbaijani government’s moderately pro-Western policies. Little has changed in the position of Iran, against which a group of US-led countries has been stepping up economic sanctions in an effort, among other things, to remove the Bashar al-Assad regime — Tehran’s only ally in the Middle East.

Nor can Baku’s hosting of the international Future of Contemporary Southern Azerbaijan conference on March 30, 2013 be considered a friendly act. Tehran considered this anti-Iranian conference “interference in Iran’s internal affairs.” Mehdi Sanai, a member of Iran’s parliament and head of the Iran-Azerbaijan interparliamentary friendship group, described Baku’s move as “unacceptable.” Sanai is convinced that groups seeking to create tensions in Iranian-Azerbaijani relations are attempting to act on two fronts.

In international relations, the chief opponents of the establishment of friendly relations between the two countries are the United States and Israel. They cultivate the appearance of a threat from Iran in the Azerbaijani public consciousness and create an atmosphere of Iranophobia in the region under false pretexts. Informed sources say there is evidence of efforts to make Azerbaijan into a stronghold for the enemies of the Islamic Republic, particularly for members of the organization Mujahedin of the Iranian People, who have been declared terrorists by official Tehran. There have also been reports of military bases that pose a potential threat to Iran being located in Azerbaijan.

And how should we interpret the article by the military expert Mark Perry in the March 2013 issue of Foreign policy in which he said, “… [T]he Israelis have gained access to airbases in Azerbaijan. Does this bring them one step closer to a war with Iran?” Azerbaijan then had to deny that information at all levels. Aliyev said that a NATO or US military operation against Iran would be a “catastrophe for Azerbaijan.”

As we know, the West’s infrastructure in the region, including in Azerbaijan, is within range of Iranian missiles, and Iran could retaliate against it if attacked. We can assume that it is not in Azerbaijan’s interest to be drawn into the anti-Iranian coalition, and it is especially not in its interest to give Israel military airfields from which it can bomb Iran. But the experience of some countries in the region shows that the West and the United states do not especially seek a government’s permission to use modern drones for bombing missions. Pakistan and Afghanistan are clear confirmation of that, and, as we know, thousands of innocent citizens, including women and children, have perished in those bombings.

This gives rise to a number of questions. If Azerbaijan wants to live in peace and harmony with its neighbors, why does it need such a powerful military, which is constantly being equipped with American and, according to some sources, Israeli weapons? Is Iran truly a threat to Azerbaijan? The reverse is closer to the truth — Azerbaijan is “on friendly terms” with Israel and the United States against Iran. Is the disproportionately strong Azerbaijani military focused on Armenia as a means of resolving the Karabakh conflict? But Baku constantly assures the international community, including Russia, that it is seeking to resolve that problem through negotiations, not through the barrels of guns. “We support cooperation between all states in the interests of peace and creativity. However, it seems that we need to carefully pursue a foreign policy that does not arouse suspicion, especially among our neighbors.”

Russia holds firmly to the proposition that the region’s issues, especially those involving situations of conflict and countries with problems, must be resolved only by diplomatic means.

Sergei Alexandrovich Pivin is an expert on the Middle East. Exclusively for New Eastern Outlook.

We have been so carried away by the international sanctions against Iran’s unproven nuclear ambitions that we not only ended much of our military-technical cooperation with Iran, we also hurt ourselves financially and damaged our reputation. Trade between Russia and Iran toward the end of the previous decade amounted to $3.7 billion, with 80% of that being Russian exports, much of it benefiting small and medium-sized businesses. By the end of 2012, trade had dropped by 40% and came to only $2.3 billion. Russian exports to Iran have fallen by almost $1 billion ($2.96 billion in 2008 and $1.9 billion in 2012). As a result, dozens of medium-sized companies employing hundreds if not thousands of Russian citizens have gone bankrupt. Russia’s budget received a great deal less money than it should have.

Some international and Russian analysts see these actions as another Russian concession to the West. Do we sometimes betray our partners for the the sake of the West’s goodwill? But why at such a price and to our own detriment?

I recall what happened in the late 1980s at the Russian-American talks concerning the sale of the latest cryogenic engines manufactured by the Khrunichev factory in Moscow. The Americans twisted our arm, claiming that India could use the engines to put nuclear-tipped missiles into orbit, i.e., doing “irreparable damage to nuclear nonproliferation.”

And what was the outcome? As we recently did with Iran, we violated our contract obligations with India and were forced to pay large damages to a reliable partner. Thousands of people at the Khrunichev factory and other domestic enterprises were deprived of a guaranteed state contract that our economy and ordinary people needed in those hard times. Our reputation as a partner for military-technical cooperation was damaged for years, both with India and on the international market as a whole.

I cite this example to illustrate that we are once again “stepping on the same rake”without giving ourselves a way out of the situation. As several sources reported at the time, some Western companies had begun selling India cryogenic engines and components for them. In other words, over and above everything else, we had become a victim of competition.

Getting back to Russian-Iranian relations, I can say that over the past year (2012-2013) the two countries have grown closer in the fight against international terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime. Moscow and Tehran understood the need to support the current government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Both countries also welcomed the idea of holding an international peace conference on Syria that came out of the recent Russian-American foreign ministers-level meeting in Geneva.

Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Seyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi, spoke at a Moscow press conference in April about Iran’s interest in bilateral cooperation. He invited Russian investors to put money into various projects that would benefit both Iran and Russia.

He said Iran has legislation in place to protect investments, and businessmen sense that. Iran continues to grow and develop despite the “crippling sanctions.” In recent years, many factories and other companies have been built with money from foreign investors, and their products have been successfully exported. “Over the past 34 years,” he said, “we have learned to turn threats and pressure into opportunities for development.”

This country is one of ten states that have launched satellites, and it is also developing biotechnology. Its energy industry is also flourishing, and Russia can play an active part in that.

We should not underestimate Iran’s stature, strength and geopolitical position in the region. Our historical and traditional partner and ally could also play a consolidating role in strengthening Russia’s positions in Central and Southwest Asia despite the fact that Iran itself has its own strategic goals in Russia’s southern “underbelly.” We need not compete for influence in these regions; rather, we can cooperate successfully to meet the interests of every country involved.

Sergei Pivin is an expert on the Middle East, exclusively for New Eastern Outlook