Last tango in Tehran

An assertive Russia is choosing to pursue its own foreign-policy goals, and they differ from the West's

EPA

VLADIMIR PUTIN is an erudite man. During a meeting with Germany's Angela Merkel in Wiesbaden on October 15th, he noted that this was the spa town where Dostoyevsky played and lost at roulette. Yet in Tehran the next day, he kept his knowledge of 19th-century literature quiet, choosing not to mention a Russian poet and diplomat, Alexander Griboyedov, who was killed in Tehran when the Russian embassy was destroyed by a mob.

Russia's deep-rooted apprehension about Iran echoed in the news spread by its security services on the eve of Mr Putin's visit that Islamic fanatics were plotting to kill the Russian president. This added spice to Mr Putin's attendance at a summit of Caspian countries. (The last Russian leader to come to Tehran was Stalin in 1943, for a summit meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt.)

On the face of it, Mr Putin gets on with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; he even invited the Iranian president to Moscow. Talking to a Russian news agency, Mr Ahmadinejad insisted that Russia and Iran were natural allies. As for Mr Putin, he noted that “Russia is the only country that has assisted Iran in implementing its peaceful nuclear programme.” And, in a dig at the West, he said “we should not even be thinking of making use of force in the region”, and that no Caspian country should allow its territory to be used by a third country as a military base against another.

This chumminess may seem just another example of Russia's anti-Western foreign policy, especially as it came soon after a frosty meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates, respectively America's secretaries of state and defence. Mr Putin kept the two waiting for more than half an hour, and then poured scorn on America's planned missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. He also repeated Russia's threats to pull out of the INF treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles, unless its curbs are extended to other countries.

Certainly Russia's foreign policy has not been helpful to America. But it was never meant to be. Russia only reluctantly signed up to two United Nations sanctions resolutions against Iran, and it has so far refused to back a third. Mr Putin claims that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, and argues that further sanctions will do no good to anyone. Less helpful to the West has been the sale of Russian anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

As far as Mr Putin is concerned, Russia has its own interests, which differ from America's. Russia is worried about Iran becoming a nuclear power: Iran is far nearer Moscow than Washington, and a nuclear power to the south is the last thing Russia wants. Nor does Mr Putin take lightly Iran's threat to wipe out Israel. He told a European Jewish Congress in Moscow that Russia and Israel were the two countries most threatened by a nuclear Iran. This week Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, flew to Moscow to discuss Mr Putin's ideas for breaking the deadlock over Iran's nuclear ambitions, as well as the Palestinian peace process.

Yet Russia has no wish to alienate Iran, either. Iran has kept out of Russia's military conflict in Chechnya and has not intervened in either the Caucasus or Central Asia. Russia wants to keep it that way, and also to protect its own commercial interests in Iran. On this basis, to be seen to back even a hypothetical attack on Iran by the Americans would be suicidal. Which is not to say that Russia would side with Iran in any military conflict. “An American pilot hit by a Russian-made rocket would not be in Russia's interest,” comments Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Centre in Moscow.

This is also why, for all his apparent friendliness, Mr Putin trod carefully in Tehran. He went out of his way to explain that his visit was planned five years ago as part of a five-country summit, not a bilateral trip. He did not pledge Russian support for Iran in case of a military attack, and he refused to set a date for the delivery of the nuclear fuel for the Bushehr nuclear reactor complex that Russia has helped Iran complete. “I only gave promises to my mother when I was a little boy,” Mr Putin sneered in answer to an Iranian journalist.

Mr Putin's visit to Tehran is an example of the sort of independent foreign policy that the Kremlin favours these days. When Mr Putin telephoned George Bush immediately after the September 11th, 2001 attacks he made the choice to ally Russia's interests with those of America. That alliance no longer holds. Russia may not be with Iran, but it is not with America and Europe either. It continues to oppose missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic (see article), not because they threaten Russia's own nuclear capacity, but because they do not sit with the Kremlin's world view. “What Russia craves is respect. It does not want to be a junior partner—it wants to be an equal,” says Mr Trenin. That makes Russia less ready than it once was to cede to Western pressures.

Russia is, of course, entitled to pursue its own interests. What is less clear is whether it will serve these in the longer term by distancing itself from the West. An aggressive energy policy in Europe has backfired as the Europeans look for ways to protect themselves from Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas giant. Mr Putin's independent foreign policy thus carries its own risks. He can only hope to be luckier than the famous 19th century Russian novelist was in Germany.