By Anton Evstratov
The global foreign policy realities on the one hand and the increasingly radical anti-Iranian stance of the Islamic Republic’s enemies are making its foreign policy increasingly tough, both regionally and globally.
Iranian foreign policy itself, in turn, is globally affected by the failure of the JCPOA or “nuclear deal,” which has unleashed its actors and their allies, as well as by the local consequences of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, in which Tehran supported Moscow in word and deed. In addition, the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the subsequent regional strengthening of Baku and its ally Ankara have had a significant impact on Iranian foreign policy decisions on a short-term, tactical scale. There is also no denying the impact of Tehran’s economic problems and social issues on Iranian foreign policy positions, expressed, above all, by the mass protests in the fall of 2022.
The IRI’s relations with the world powers – the United States, China and Russia – are crucial, and it is in their context that the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy in general should be considered. The collapse of the nuclear deal during the Trump presidency, the assassination of IRGC commander Qassim Suleimani and a number of other incidents destroyed hopes for an Iranian-American dialogue under the reformist government of Rouhani, and Tehran’s pro-Russian position in the Russian special operation in Ukraine, suspicions about the supply of Iranian drones to the Russian army, and information about the upcoming (according to some reports, already held) transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Moscow have finally buried it.
At the moment, the Americans are actually deprived of direct leverage on the Islamic Republic – all possible sanctions against it were imposed after the 2018 crisis, and the IRI has survived, and now, thanks to military orders from Russia and the growth of anti-American sentiment in the Chinese political elite, it has some opportunities to improve its economic and financial situation.
There is no doubt that there is a forceful variant of resolving the Iranian question by the Iraqi or Afghan examples, but at the moment it is not seriously considered – too many resources would have to be spent to destroy the regime in a country with a population of 90 million, with ballistic missiles, a navy and a 10-million strong reserve. Moreover, the U.S. now has to spend tens of billions of dollars to help Ukraine, and simply cannot safely allocate tens, if not hundreds of billions more to another theater of war.
In turn, information from Iran is increasingly worrying for Washington. According to a classified IAEA report published by CNN, experts at the Iranian nuclear reactor in Fordow, near Qom, found uranium particles enriched to 83.7 percent. That’s not far away from a live charge – it needs to reach the 90% level. Even the U.S. Defense Ministry officials have no doubt that it will take not more than 12 days to get the necessary substance for one nuclear charge of the IRI. The Americans cannot but be concerned about the prospect of Iran receiving the latest Russian aircrafts, tanks, infantry combat vehicles, helicopters and other military equipment – in exchange for the current assistance in the Ukrainian confrontation.
Here the U.S. literally needs Israel, which is permanently negative towards the Islamic Republic and is alarmed by any military strengthening of the Islamic Republic, because in the long run it will suffer primarily from this. Tel Aviv has been constantly declaring its readiness to stop Iran’s nuclear program and, for some time, the development of Iranian UAV technology. Moreover, in recent months Israel has moved to action – albeit limited and localized. First there was the missile strike on the airport of the Syrian capital Damascus, where the Israeli side claims pro-Iranian Shiite militants were based. This was followed by a drone attack against a military facility in Isfahan, Iran, and two weeks ago a missile attack on a residential neighborhood in Damascus, where the Israelis “spotted” some Iranian officials.
Obviously, despite the routine statements by the Israeli and US leaders, Tel Aviv would do nothing of the kind without Washington’s sanction. The U.S., in turn, benefits from combating the development of Iranian military technology in this way – indirectly and precisely.
Israel, in turn, presents its anti-Iranian actions as examples of assistance to the Western coalition in the Ukrainian confrontation. At the same time, Tel Aviv is very reluctant to get directly involved in the anti-Russian military actions in Ukraine, which is connected to Russia by a lot of economic, political and personal threads.
The problem here is that, first, these kinds of measures are generally ineffective, and Iran continues to systematically pursue the possession of the latest and most dangerous types of weapons, and, second, they lead to retaliatory strikes by the IRI. For example, after the Isfahan incident, Iranian drones attacked a tanker belonging to an Israeli businessman in the Arabian Sea. Also, the Kurdish autonomy in the north of Iraq, allegedly harboring the Iranian opposition members involved in the Isfahan attack, was hit. Earlier, after the same “pinpoint” assassination of General Suleimani, the American facilities in Iraq were seriously damaged. The latter remain potential targets for Iranian missiles even now.
Since American facilities are located not only in Iraq, but also in a number of Persian Gulf countries, some of them are opposed to the aggravation of the situation. For example, the leadership of the United Arab Emirates called for prudence.
Nevertheless, in the light of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation, Washington is ready to support any anti-Iranian forces, and Israeli “hawks” are very useful for it.
At the moment it is hard to expect any progress in the American-Iranian and, as a part of it, Iranian-Israeli relations, if only because the sides have no regular channels of communication. They occasionally interact through Qatar and the UAE, as well as through Iraq, but this is not a level that could provide significant progress. In addition, despite the fact that the parties have an interest in In the context of Iran’s economic problems, such as the 50% inflation rate in February, and the need to put pressure on Russia and China on the United States, the logic of their confrontation does not lie only in the sphere of bilateral relations.
Russian-Iranian interaction is precisely the sphere that determines Tehran’s position in its interactions with the United States. This is not surprising, since $2.7 billion of the $5.5 billion invested in Iran over the last five years has come from Russia. The Russian military orders have all chances to stabilize the Iranian economy, and the North-South logistics project, along with Tehran’s accession to the SCO, ratified by the Iranian Parliament, as well as increasingly close cooperation with the EAEU promise significant benefits to the country. There is already information about Russia’s imminent participation in the rearmament of the Iranian army, as well as the construction of a joint factory for the production of drones on Russian territory. Theoretically, Russia can help Iran in both missile and nuclear technologies. At the moment, however, Iran, whose missiles are at the level of Soviet and U.S. designs of the 1960s and whose drones do not solve strategic problems, is extremely important to Russia, which is heavily dependent on sanctions and in dire need of all kinds of military goods, and in this reality can secure itself maximum political advantages, including, for example, stronger positions in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, where Moscow could easily delegate some of its leverage to Iran.
Iran’s relationship with China is much more controversial. Despite China’s agreement to invest $400 billion in Iran over the next 40 years, Chinese investments in the Iranian economy have amounted to only $185 million since 2017. Annoying for the Iranian political elite is the fact that over the same period of time, Beijing has invested more than $5 billion in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf.
Moreover, despite occasional bellicose statements, China is not eager to circumvent U.S. anti-Iranian sanctions on energy trade with Iran. That is why Iran is not even in the top ten partners in Chinese gas and oil imports at the moment.
Until recently, the reason for this, in addition to China’s fear of facing U.S. sanctions directly, was its mistrust of the IRI as a result of the JCPOA negotiations. The Chinese side seriously feared that, in the event of a successful agreement between Iran and the West, the Islamic Republic would prefer to export oil and gas to Europe and stop increasing its supplies to China. At the moment, these fears have lost their relevance, and it would seem that new prospects for expanding interaction between the two countries have emerged.
The visit of Iranian President Ibrahim Reisi to China was precisely aimed at identifying these prospects. Nevertheless, despite the lavish reception given to the head of the Iranian government, the title of honorary doctor of Peking University and other formalities, the visit did not bring any visible results. This does not rule out an increase in cooperation between the two countries in the future – they are objectively interested in it, at least in the field of logistics (for example, the Chinese initiative One Belt, One Road), but at the moment it is clearly not at its best.
As for the mentioned visit, it was highly appreciated in the Iranian press, which emphasized the signing of many documents. From this we can conclude about the symbolic nature of the visit of the Iranian president to China, which marked the vectors and confirmed the partnership of the two countries – both for themselves and for the increasingly tough opposition to them in the West.
Much has been done by Beijing to reconcile Iran and Saudi Arabia, who have agreed to resume direct dialogue at the embassy level, but for now the main economic and political contradictions between Tehran and Riyadh have not been resolved, and it will take years for real progress to be made.
China’s interaction with the countries of the South Caucasus is worth noting separately. Contacts between Iran and Azerbaijan have recently become extremely acute against the background of the attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, the belligerent statements of the Azerbaijani leadership and its pressure on Armenia, with which, in turn, Iran’s relations have somewhat strengthened. At the same time, trade turnover with both countries increased significantly last year (with Azerbaijan by slightly less than 70%, and with Armenia by 40%).
Iran, which is extremely tough to Azerbaijan’s attempts to ensure the Zangezur corridor, however, keeps silent about Azerbaijan’s blocking of the Lachin corridor. This evidences that in this conflict the Islamic republic is first of all guided by its own interests rather than blindly protecting Armenia.
According to some information, for the last 2 years Iran has been restraining Azerbaijan from seizing Zangezur corridor by force which enables to suppose that Russia delegated a part of its resources to IRI.
The Islamic republic’s eastern borders remain uneasy due to the difficult situation in neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The eastern borders of the Islamic Republic remain uneasy due to the difficult situation in neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nevertheless, Tehran is always trying to establish an adequate mutually beneficial dialogue, following its policy to avoid military solutions. It is security that could become a new field of cooperation between the IRI and the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia, especially against the background of the weakening attention to them on the part of the Russian Federation. The Islamic Republic’s prospects here, especially against the background of Turkey’s activity and the West’s increasingly negative reaction to its activities, are much more obscure than in the South Caucasus, but with the increasingly polarized world and Russian assistance, Iran could occupy the available niches in time.
Author: Anton Evstratov (Russian historian, journalist and journalist living in Armenia, lecturer at the Department of General History and Foreign Regional Studies at the Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan).
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)