By MK Bhadrakumar*
(Opinion) Ignoring the clamor in the US media about White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s Kissingerian diplomacy over Ukraine, Russia’s Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a former KGB counterintelligence officer and longtime associate of President Putin, traveled to Tehran last Wednesday in the equivalent of a geopolitical coup.
Patrushev called on President Ebrahim Raisi and held detailed discussions with Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the supreme leader’s representative and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
The visit marks a defining moment in the Russia-China partnership and sets a roadmap for the trajectory of the war in Ukraine.
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Iranian state media quoted Raisi as saying: “The development of the scope and scale of the war [in Ukraine] causes concern for all countries.”
Raisi also noted that Tehran and Moscow are improving relations at a “strategic” level, which is “the most decisive response to the policy of sanctions and destabilization by the United States and its allies.”
The US State Department reacted swiftly the next day, with spokesman Ned Price warning that “This is a deepening alliance that the whole world should see as a deep threat… this is a relationship that would have implications, could have implications beyond any single country.”
Price said Washington will work with allies to counter Russian-Iranian military ties.
Patrushev’s talks in Tehran touched on highly sensitive issues that prompted President Vladimir Putin to follow up with Raisi on Saturday.
The Kremlin readout said the two leaders “discussed a number of current issues on the bilateral agenda with an emphasis on the continued building of interaction in politics, trade and economy, including transport and logistics. They agreed to increase contacts between relevant Russian and Iranian agencies .
In this regard, Patrushev’s extremely strong support for Iran over the current unrest in that country should be properly understood.
Patrushev stated: “We note the key role of Western secret services in organizing mass unrest in Iran and the subsequent dissemination of disinformation about the situation in the country through Western Persian-language media that exist under their control. We see this as blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”
Russian security agencies share information with their Iranian counterparts on the hostile activities of Western intelligence agencies.
Notably, Patrushev brushed aside Iran’s suspicions about Saudi Arabia’s involvement.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also publicly offered to mediate between Tehran and Riyadh.
All this is driving Washington crazy.
On the one hand, it is not being achieved anywhere, including at the level of President Biden, to raise the specter of the threat of Iran and gather again the Arab regimes of the Persian Gulf.
Most recently, Washington resorted to theatrics following an unsubstantiated report from the Wall Street Journal about an imminent Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia in the coming days.
US forces in the West Asia region raised their level of readiness and Washington vowed to be ready for any eventuality.
But, surprisingly, Riyadh was adamant and showed no interest in the US defense offer to fend off threats from Iran.
It is clear that the Saudi-Iranian normalization process, which has been fraught with sensitive exchanges over their mutual security concerns, has gained traction, with neither side being provoked into a backlash.
This paradigm shift works to Russia’s advantage.
Alongside its highly strategic oil alliance with Saudi Arabia, Russia is now deepening its strategic partnership with Iran.
The panic in spokesman Price’s words suggests that Washington has concluded that cooperation between Russia and Iran’s security and defense agencies will intensify.
What alarms Washington more is that Tehran is adopting a joint strategy with Moscow to go on the offensive and defeat the weaponization of sanctions by the collective West.
Despite decades of sanctions, Iran has built a world-class defense industry on its own steam that would put countries like India or Israel to shame.
Shamkhani underlined the creation of “joint and synergistic institutions to deal with sanctions and the activation of the capacities of international institutions against sanctions and sanctioning countries”.
Patrushev agreed by recalling previous agreements between the national security agencies of the two countries on the development of a roadmap for strategic cooperation, particularly regarding countering Western economic and technological sanctions.
Shamkhani added that Tehran considers the expansion of bilateral and regional cooperation with Russia in the economic field as one of its strategic priorities in the conditions of American sanctions, which both countries are facing.
Patrushev answered: “The most important goal of me and my delegation in the trip to Tehran is the exchange of views to accelerate the implementation of joint projects along with providing dynamic mechanisms to start new activities in the economic, trade, energy and technology. “
Patrushev noted, “The creation of synergy in transit capacities, especially the rapid completion of the North-South corridor, is an effective step to improve the quality of bilateral and international economic and commercial cooperation.”
Patrushev and Shamkhani discussed a joint plan by Russia and Iran “to create a friendship group of defenders of the United Nations Charter” that includes countries bearing the brunt of illegal Western sanctions.
Regarding the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Shamkhani said the two countries should “intelligently use the exchangeable capacities” of the member countries.
He said that the risk of terrorism and extremism continues to threaten the security of the region and emphasized the need to increase regional and international cooperation.
Patrushev’s visit to Tehran was planned on the eve of the conference on Afghanistan to be organized by Moscow on November 16.
Iran and Russia have common concerns about Afghanistan. They are concerned about Western efforts to (re)ignite the civil war in Afghanistan.
In a recent op-ed in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russian presidential special envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov claimed that Britain is funding the so-called “Afghan resistance” against the Taliban (said to be operating from Panjshir) Kabulov wrote that the US is baited two Central Asian states by offering them helicopters and planes in exchange for cooperation in covert activities against the Taliban.
Kabulov made a sensational revelation that the US is blackmailing Taliban leaders by threatening them with a drone strike if they don’t cut ties with Russia and China.
He said, in particular, that the US and Britain are demanding that Kabul refrain from restricting the activities of Uighur terrorists based in Afghanistan.
Interestingly, Moscow is exploring the creation of a compact group of five regional states that are interested in stabilizing Afghanistan and can work together. Kabulov mentioned Iran, Pakistan, India and China as Russia’s partners.
Iran is a “force multiplier” for Russia in a way that no other country – except China, perhaps – can be under the current harsh conditions of sanctions.
Patrushev’s visit to Tehran at the current moment, the day after the US midterm elections, can only mean that the Kremlin has seen that the Biden administration will not bring peacemaking to Ukraine, disrupt the moment of Russian mobilization and the creation of new defense. line in the Kherson-Zaporozhya-Donbass direction.
Indeed, it is no secret that the Americans are literally scraping the bottom of the barrel to deliver weapons to Ukraine as their inventory is drying up and it takes months or years to replenish depleted stocks. (here, here, here and here)
Suffice it to say, from a geopolitical perspective, Patrushev’s talks in Tehran – and Putin’s call immediately afterwards with Raisin – sent an unmistakable message that Russia is strategizing for the long term in Ukraine.
* Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey
This post was mirrored and first published here.
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