Return to Winter. Douglas E. Schoen

American negotiators saw fit to allow Tehran to continue enriching uranium and proceed with major components of its nuclear program—centrifuges, weaponization, and ballistic missiles—all while Iran continues to deny access to its military sites, particularly the Parchin base, where weapons work is believed to have taken place.⁴⁰ Yet the United States is moving ahead with its $7 billion in sanctions relief.

      But the Russians see things differently. For them, Iran is a bulwark against American meddling and influence. Tehran’s intransigence and its challenge to U.S. regional prerogatives force the Americans into enormous expenditures of capital, resources, and diplomatic energies. As Russian scholar Alexei Arbatov notes, Moscow views Iran as a growing “regional superpower” that can balance the power of Turkey and American military and political encroachment in the Black Sea/Caspian region and the Middle East.⁴¹ Vladimir Putin also places Iran at the center of American plans to intervene in the Middle East. He believes, according to former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov, that the U.S. is actually trying to destabilize the region, and he is convinced that the best policy is to bolster Iran and assure its leadership that it will not meet Libya’s fate.⁴²

      The Russian-Iranian relationship has many components. Economically, the two countries have a trade relationship worth about $4 billion annually, much of it military trade. Russia is Iran’s biggest source of foreign weapons, supplying $3.4 billion in arms sales since 1991. The trade has helped Iran modernize its defenses while serving as a shot in the arm for Russia’s military-industrial sector, helping it survive many lean years.⁴³

      Putin and the former Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not only collaborated to protect the Assad regime in Syria, they also worked “to dominate Iraq—Russia, by signing oil and arms contracts; Iran, by bribing politicians and tribal chiefs and maintaining sleeper cells in the Shiite-majority provinces,” argues Amir Taheri. He points out that Iran hosted a Russian naval task force that was making a “goodwill” call on the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes a quarter of the world’s oil. If Russia and Iran together gain the upper hand in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, they could secure “a contiguous presence from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.” All of this would also put more pressure on NATO ally Turkey and weaken the West in the region.⁴⁴

      But the nuclear alliance is most worrisome. The Russian-Iranian nuclear relationship began in the 1990s, when a troubled Russia began transferring nuclear technology and expertise to Iran. Russian scientists were soon traveling to Iran as part of an extensive, clandestine network, offering the Iranians assistance with missile and nuclear-weapons programs. A mid-2000s CIA report issued this finding: “Despite some examples of restraint, Russian businesses continue to be major suppliers of WMD equipment, materials, and technology to Iran. . . . Specifically, Russia continues to provide Iran with nuclear technology that could be applied to Iran’s weapons program.” The head of Israeli intelligence accused the head of the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry of using Iran as a source of employment for Russian nuclear scientists and also as a source of foreign reserves, desperately lacking in Russia at the time.

      At the urging of the U.S., Russia scaled back some of its work with Iran in the late 1990s, cancelling a number of technology-related contracts. And as more information came to light about Iranian intentions to acquire a nuclear bomb, Russia became more hesitant—at least in public—about its support. Iranian nuclear engineers continue to train in Russia, but under tighter protocols.⁴⁵

      Still, it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees here. By the time Russia began scaling back its support of Iran, it had already transferred significant quantities of information to Tehran. The ongoing work at Bushehr proceeds under the older contracts, and the Iranians have accumulated enough expertise to carry it on for years. Moscow trained hundreds of nuclear scientists to operate the plant, despite the urging of the U.S. and other Western nations to abandon the project. Hundreds of Iranians have been trained in Russia.⁴⁶ The Russian nuclear-energy firm Rosatom operates the Bushehr plant today, supplies all fuel from Russian sources, and recovers all spent fuel, which is processed and disposed of in Russia.⁴⁷ The Russians have no intention of walking away from Bushehr. If anything, they will expand their presence: Rosatom suggested in May 2012 that it would consider Iran’s request to help construct a second reactor there. In April 2014, Iran announced that it has signed a protocol with Russia to start construction of the second reactor.⁴⁸

      Just as China’s scolding of North Korea by no means suggests a fundamental shift of policy, Russia’s role in brokering the Iranian nuclear accords should not be read as a serious rupture in the Russia-Iran nuclear alliance, which has endured many bumps in the road. Perhaps the low point came in 2010, when, under President Dmitri Medvedev, the Russians voted for another round of UN sanctions against Iran. But as noted earlier, those sanctions were weak and watered-down at Russian insistence.⁴⁹ And even this agreement came only with enticements from the U.S., including the lifting of bans on Russian arms exports and an agreement not to block sales of Russian arms to Iran.

      The 2010 sanctions, along with the Russians’ agreement not to sell Iran the SS-20 missile-defense system, represented the high-water mark for the U.S.-Russian “reset.” Since then, and especially since Vladimir Putin retook presidential power in 2011, the Russians have resumed their strong support for Iranian nuclear and military procurement while making only occasional complaints. In January 2011, the Russians did voice disapproval over reports that the Iranians were enriching uranium at Qum. The foreign ministry said that Iran was “continuing to ignore the international community’s demands on dispelling concerns about its nuclear activities.”⁵⁰

      But these toothless public statements cost the Russians nothing, and they generally do nothing to interfere with Iranian nuclear pursuits. The Russians can gesture toward international cooperation on Iran, as they have recently, but as we’ve noted above, the accords do not necessarily mean that Iran’s nuclear program will be diminished—let alone destroyed—by the new rules and regulations. It follows that Russia’s real attitude is well summarized by Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Moscow-based Middle East Institute. The Russians are frustrated, he says, because their cooperation with various Western initiatives in the past produced nothing positive, from Moscow’s perspective. “The West has no credibility here anymore,” he writes. “The view is that Russia must chart its own course based on its own interests; if we don’t look out for ourselves, who will?”⁵¹ Indeed, after the Russians repossessed Crimea in early 2014, and the Americans levied sanctions in response and then expanded their scope, Moscow made clear that it would look out for itself. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that if the West didn’t back off, the Russians would link their cooperation on Iran negotiations with the Ukraine situation. “If they force us into that,” Ryabkov said of Western officials, “we will take retaliatory measures.”⁵²

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      “China will not hesitate to protect Iran, even with a third World War,” said Chinese Major General Zhang Zhaozhong in 2011.⁵³ The general’s stunning statement came during the same month that China provided Iran with the most advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles the nation had ever obtained, along with the technical expertise needed to operate them.⁵⁴ Where most American observers tend to think of Russia as more closely aligned with Tehran, they can no longer overlook the substantial and growing Chinese-Iranian alliance—particularly on military and economic matters.

      According to Gordon Chang, Chinese companies have violated international treaties and UN rules by selling equipment and materials to Iranian companies. Indeed, Beijing regularly exploits its dual role as Iranian benefactor and permanent member of the UN Security Council. Since 1991, China has sold more than $2.2 billion of arms to Iran.⁵⁵ China’s exports to Iran include fighter jets, main battle tanks, and naval vessels, as well as roadside bombs, landmines, air-defense systems, and armored personnel carriers.⁵⁶

      The most disturbing interchange involves nuclear materials. China remains Iran’s top source of nuclear and missile technology.⁵⁷ Chang traces the trade back to 1974, when China began helping Pakistan develop an atomic weapon as a hedge against Indian nuclear ambitions. Chang believes that Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan sold China’s nuclear technology